Arab Educational Information Network

This study was conducted at Zalingei University in (2018) and aimed to investigate the positive and negative usage of cohesive devices by graduate, post graduate students in writing essays in English and the investigation of the teacher’s role in encouraging the students to write well using grammatical cohesions in writing essays The researcher used the analytical descriptive approach. First data collected through questionnaire for (20) university teachers and an aptitude test for (50) students and secondary information from books and relevant sources. Important results: 1) 95% of the teachers, answers in all items in the questionnaire were very clear that they generally use the right methods to teach their students. 2) 88% of the results revealed that most of the students have problems that made them to misunderstand the linking words. 3) 60% of the cases, the researcher found in many sentences of the tests answers were wrong in identifying of functional words. 4) 40% of some content and functional words were very clear to respondents thus they did not face any problem to categorize and diagnose the functional words. 5) 70% the misunderstanding of functional word forms in English writing essays due to factors of lacking grammar studies. Important Recommendations: 1) There should be a support for non-native speakers of English language learners in applying accurate ways of learning English four skills to master the most important areas in it earlier as well as spelling, parts of speech in grammar typically functional, content words and their meanings. 2) Before students, admission to Universities there must be qualified teachers in all levels who will strengthen the learners in familiarizing the aspects of English language words. 3) Students should apply four skills in learning English language to strengthen their knowledge in all parts of the speech. (Published abstract)