Student perceptions of coherence in their written texts

This qualitative study investigated how a selected group of post-secondary, second language students (L2) students perceive coherence in their written discourse in various disciplinary contexts in a French CEGEP. The primary focus is on the verbal language, or meta-language, derived from participant interviews that students used to describe their written texts. M. A. K. Halliday's (1978) social theory of language, and L. S. Vygotsky's (1962) sociopsychological theories of language provided a framework for conceptualizing the amount of control, self regulation, that students perceive they had in constructing coherent written discourse. Results from the study indicate that although students may have individual terminology about coherence, collegial students with the most successful self-regulated strategies described coherence across disciplines, and global features of text organization. Results also indicate that there is a lack of synchrony between students and teachers' interpretation of written tasks assigned in this French collegial institutional setting