This study examines the topic of coherence. The participants were university students majoring in English at Quang Binh University. Data were collected from the questionnaires to the students and from their written essays. The students surveyed were aware of the importance of coherence in writing but their writings show that they had difficulties in using techniques to achieve coherence in their essays. | JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, Hue University, Vol. 70, No 1 (2012) pp. 39-54 A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COHERENCE AND ITS USE IN ESSAYS WRITTEN BY STUDENTS AT QUANG BINH UNIVERSITY Nguyen Thi Le Hang, Le Pham Hoai Huong College of Foreign Languages, Hue University Abstract. This study examines the topic of coherence. The participants were university students majoring in English at Quang Binh University. Data were collected from the questionnaires to the students and from their written essays. The students surveyed were aware of the importance of coherence in writing but their writings show that they had difficulties in using techniques to achieve coherence in their essays. Based on the study’s findings, suggestions were given to both students and students of English regarding teaching and learning how to write coherent essays. 1. Introduction Writing is an important productive skill in language learning. It can objectively reflect students’ competence of thinking, organizing and expressing. In English teaching, writing is considered as a difficult knot for both teachers and students. A number of English majors in Vietnam in general and at Quang Binh University in particular, at present, cannot write coherent essays even if they have acquired a large number of vocabularies, studied a lot about English grammar and essay format. If in sentence writing, grammar and vocabulary are the most noticeable problem, a lack of clear thesis statement, inadequate supports or evidences to support and control the thesis statement, a lack of unity in essay ideas and organization, a lack of coherence among essay components and so on are major problems confronted in essay writing. It is thus important to examine how students at university perceive and use coherence in essay writing. This article reports a study carried out at Quang Binh University with the objectives to investigate students' perceptions of coherence in essays and the ways they employed coherence in their essays. .
