Investigating Students’ Problems with Lexical Cohesion in English Essay Writing: A Case Study of Secondary School Students in Shangla

This research explores how students from Shangla Secondary School struggle with aspects of lexical cohesion while creating essays in English. The study aimed to investigate the problems in lexical cohesion through a survey descriptive design by implying a mixed-method approach for data analysis. The data was collected from a sample of 150 secondary-level students through essay writing and interviews. The statistical analysis of the data shows that students' knowledge of cohesive devices like repetitions, synonyms, antonyms, collocations, and general nouns varies which points to the existence of a deficiency that affects the coherence level of their writing. The findings of the study suggest the idea of molding our ways of teaching in favor of the inclusion of cohesive devices in order to improve the writing skills of students. This study provides valuable information regarding the problem of lexical cohesiveness in the writing of English essays for future studies.