Teaching discourse markers to EFL Primary Education students

Abstract

Students of English as a foreign language in primary schools usually have problems with their communicative competence. The activities they do in the English classroom do not allow them to gain fluency in their speech and are more directed to improve grammar and vocabulary, focusing more on the written channel. As a consequence, their speech is very schematic and students have several problems to establish coherent and fluent conversations among them using the English language. The following teaching proposal pretends to demonstrate if the acquisition and use of discourse markers helps student to acquire fluency and coherence in their speech and their ability for understanding information raises. It also pretends to help students to develop communicative competence and improve their English language knowledge.