[Tesol Paper #5 file]
Introduction

Traditionally, language teaching has approached the study of language and the processing of texts from what Cook(1989) terms an 'atomistic' mind set. In this framework, smaller bits of language such as vocabulary items and the workings of sentence grammar form the foundational background to a gradual 'bottom-up' understanding of the language as a whole. While it is certainly important to have a proper understanding of how sentences function, it is in the words of Cook "clearly not enough"(1989, p.3). To successfully process a piece of language, one must also go beyond the immediate surface of the text and envision and understand its wider context. In relation to written texts, an understanding of the context may include a knowledge of how different sentences and segments of text relate to one another, how to recognize common textual patterns and genres, a proper understanding of the relationship between the reader and the writer, and the activation of one's own schemata or general knowledge of the world.

To understand textual contexts is to understand it's discourse, a term defined by Cook as "stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive"(1989, p.156). Discourse is in many ways tied to the concept of coherence, defined by McCarthy as "the feeling that a text hangs together, that it makes sense, and is not just a jumble of sentences"(1991, p.26). Knowing which elements in text contribute to a coherent and meaningful whole is known as discourse analysis, a process which will be applied in this paper. A discourse analysis approach to the study of language therefore views language holistically rather than atomistically and from a top-down rather than bottom-up viewpoint.

Most second language instructors teaching the skill of writing to intermediate and advanced levels will comment that while learner compositions contain evidence of a good knowledge of sentence-level grammar, their writing is often seen to be incoherent and lacking unity. This problem stems from a lack of understanding and awareness of text from a larger discoursal perspective. Discourse features of text, features that lie above the level of the sentence, therefore need to be made aware to the learner in order to create more clarity and unity to their otherwise 'jumbled' texts. The purpose of this paper will thus be two-fold. First, to identify, from a discourse analysis perspective, learner problems of coherence by analyzing a student composed text. The discoursal features of cohesion, clause relations, textual patterns, genre, and reader expectations will be applied to the student text in order to improve its discourse. Second, the paper will consider the pedagogical implications of the analysis and provide suggestions on the best ways to teach written discourse to the second language(L2) learner.