Abstract:
This study investigates an important area of English language teaching and
learning. It examines the present situation of teaching and learning grammatical
cohesion devices, the problems students encounter during writing English texts
and the learners' proficiency level of writing skills when they are in the final
year at university level in Sudan (Khartoum State). It also, examines the
writing syllabus and writing materials used at university level. Thus, this study
focuses on the problems facing the students in writing English texts properly
using grammatical cohesion devices appropriately at university level. It is
firstly hypothesized that Sudanese EFL university students have many
problems in writing, most notably in using grammatical cohesive devices.
Secondly, Sudanese EFL university students do not use grammatical cohesion
devices appropriately. Thirdly, there is an apparent weakness in Sudanese
University students' written work due to their inability to apply grammatical
cohesive devices adequately. Finally, Sudanese EFL University students differ
to a large degree in achieving grammatical cohesive devices in their texts. To
confirm or reject the hypotheses of the study the researcher used two tools; a
test for final year students and a questionnaire for teachers. The sample of the
study was consisted of 100 students. The data collected from these participants
were statistically analyzed and the results were critically discussed. The results
of the study prove that some of the students lack the ability to write
appropriately and accurately and some of them don’t know the correct use of
grammatical cohesion devices so as to write cohesive texts. It also proves that
some teachers don’t raise the awareness of students towards the importance of
using cohesive devices to have a unified text when it comes to writing.
Moreover, the findings of the study confirm that, after using the ways of
writing, having background knowledge about cohesive devices, attention,
guiding the students towards using grammatical cohesion devices appropriately
while practicing writing, the students receive higher test scores than before.
