Investigating Difficulties Encountering Sudanese University Students When Using Cohesive Devices in Written Discourse

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate whether cohesive devices are not given enough consideration by university students. This study was intended to find out how far the lacks of cohesive devices have influence on university students' performance in writing texts. The descriptive method was adopted. The test and questionnaire were used for data collection.Then, it was distributed randomly among thirty university students of fourth year at the department of English Language, faculty of education, Omdurman Islamic University. The data collected was analyzed by using (SPSS). The most important findings of the study are that the majority of EFL learners do not give enough consideration to cohesive device on their writing; also they find difficulty in writing well- cohesive written discourse. The major recommendations of the study are that cohesive devices should be taught effectively, using proper materials in English syllabuses at university education and university teachers should be aware of the occurrence of cohesive devices in university student's written discourse; university students should be aware of the concept of cohesive devices and use them in their written texts.