Examining coherence and cohesion errors in writing Catalan as an additional language

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of a corpus of short texts written by French-speaking students of Catalan as an additional language. The research showed the frequent occurrence of errors of coherence and cohesion, though frequencies varied somewhat according to the student's prior knowledge of other languages in writing. These results were the basis for online exercises featuring brief grammatical explanations for each error. The exercises were tested on French-speaking students of intermediate-level Catalan, who also answered an online questionnaire about their perceptions of the exercises as well as their use of first and additional languages. Scores and questionnaire responses together suggest that combining corpus-based error analysis and online exercises anticipating these errors may constitute a feasible and effective methodology to enhance language learning.