Zone of Proximal Development: Investigating the Most Usage Conjunctions and the Common Issues Written by EFL Students at Paragraph Levels

Abstract

This qualitative paper covered an in-depth investigation of using different types of conjunctions taking into consideration their meaning and functions. To investigate the common issues of using conjunctions and exploring the most types of conjunctions that the participants applied, ZPD was framed to develop the study. The participants were undergraduates who were studying at one of the Saudi universities. They were selected from level one who enrolled in the Grammar 1 course. The sample of the study was chosen randomly. They were divided into two groups, which were Group one and Group two. Both received the same instructions from the same instructor in the class. The difference was that group one had an opportunity to use their textbook and were allowed to discuss and receive help from their partners. Whereas, group two did not receive any help; they were supposed to structure their written texts individually. For this reason, the zone of proximal development theory was selected as a framework. The findings of the study highlighted the participants’ issues in using conjunctions, including fragment sentences, creating too-long sentences with unclear messages, and failing to use punctuations with conjunctions. Further, the results listed the conjunctions that each group used. Group two only used three familiar conjunctions, which were And, But, and Because. However, group one was better at using various conjunctions because they tried to use more types, such as And, Or, So, But, and Because. Thus, applying cooperative learning and scaffolding raised the chance of using student-centered methods in grammar classrooms.