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Copyright of Lenguaje y Textos is the property of Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study was carried out to investigate the teachers’ provision of indirect versus metalinguistic error correction to EFL learners committed errors in their argumentative writing pieces. The discourse aspects that were the focus of this research include: unity, organization, cohesion, coherence and metadiscourse. For this purpose, six intact classes were selected where two classes received indirect correction, the other two were exposed to metalinguistic correction and two other classes functioned as the control group where there was no correction at all. Pre- and post-tests in terms of argumentative writing tasks were analyzed.The results of statistical analysis revealed a non-significant difference between the indirect and metalinguistic feedback types regarding organization. However, all the other comparisons were found to be statistically significant where the indirect feedback was more effective than the metalinguistic feedback, and both proved more fruitful than the control group. Additionally, on the whole, teachers were more inclined towards indirect corrective feedback compared to metalinguistic feedback in addressing learners’ discourse problems. The teachers gave more comments to identify problems instead of providing corrections and suggestions. Teachers’ responses to interviews regarding their views about corrective feedback targeting discourse dimensions of writing were further provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Fluminensia is the property of Fluminensia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Educa UMCH is the property of Universidad Marcelino Champagnat and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of learningoriented assessment (LOA) on the academic writing ability of EFL students (N:40) during a 12-week in the semester of 2019-2020 academic year in the context of a higher education. Within a pretest-posttest intact group design, the experimental group received instruction following the principles of LOA, and the comparison group received routine procedures for academic writing. This is a quantitative experimental design. The test of normality, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney Tests and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test were administered in order to see the significance of the intervention the data for this study included scores of a pretest, several assessments, and a posttest at the beginning, during, and at the end of instruction, respectively. The prompt for both pre and post-tests required participants to write argumentative essays. To rate the writing tasks, we followed the rubrics developed by the testing office of the institution. The findings revealed that the experimental group outscored the comparison group indicating the effectiveness of LOA procedures in student learning. Further, the findings indicated that implementing LOA could have significant implications and applications for EFL writing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we share what we learned about undergraduates' struggles in writing quality summaries, comparison texts, and argumentative essays that were components of a unique course, Learning How to Learn. This course was designed to address core psychological issues that impede optimal learning for students from all majors, many of whom are preparing to attend professional or graduate school. Although never intended to be a course devoted to academic writing, the struggles we uncovered made it apparent that without addressing these students' writing difficulties, especially with argumentation, optimal learning was not achievable. For each form of writing central to the course (i.e., summaries, comparisons, and argumentation), we not only describe the challenges we have documented over the past six years, but also the instructional responses we instituted to counter those challenges. We conclude by sharing insights we have garnered from this experience that may serve others who are confronting similar issues in their students' writing abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scarcity of investigation towards the injection of virtual flipped classrooms into the argumentative essay writing process, hereafter blended process-based approach, limits the array of advanced technology benefits within the EFL writing context in Indonesia. This research aims to investigate the students’ perceptions of the blended process-based approach in the argumentative writing course, to figure out the valuable strategies in every stage of writing, to delve how the male and female students perceive blended process-based approach, and to determine the effect of blended process-based approach towards their writing achievement. Framed within an explanatory mixed-method research design that employed quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, 28 sophomores participated. The perception questionnaire was administered to gain a rich data set, and tests using pre-test and post-test were given, instructing the participants to create an argumentative essay. The findings showed that the participants positively perceived the blended process-based approach in the argumentative writing course. Amongst the stages, pre-writing has the highest frequency of strategy selections. Then, male and female students perceived differently in all perception dimensions. Finally, they performed significantly better on the post-test, which indicated that they made noticeable progress in writing due to using a blended process-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing how humans revise their writings is an interesting research question, not only from an educational perspective but also in terms of artificial intelligence. Better understanding of this process could facilitate many NLP applications, from intelligent tutoring systems to supportive and collaborative writing environments. Developing these applications, however, requires revision corpora, which are not widely available. In this work, we present ArgRewrite V.2, a corpus of annotated argumentative revisions, collected from two cycles of revisions to argumentative essays about self-driving cars. Annotations are provided at different levels of purpose granularity (coarse and fine) and scope (sentential and subsentential). In addition, the corpus includes the revision goal given to each writer, essay scores, annotation verification, pre- and post-study surveys collected from participants as meta-data. The variety of revision unit scope and purpose granularity levels in ArgRewrite, along with the inclusion of new types of meta-data, can make it a useful resource for research and applications that involve revision analysis. We demonstrate some potential applications of ArgRewrite V.2 in the development of automatic revision purpose predictors, as a training source and benchmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being a configuration of logically interconnected statements realized in moves and stages, an argumentative essay is built around the notion of textual unity achieved through lexico-grammar and semantic associations. The study attempted to analyze the role of cohesion in the rhetorical structure of undergraduate EFL students. Hence, the 13 moves in the three-stage argument structure were analyzed on a preset framework of cohesion analysis. Discourse analysis as a research method was used to ascertain how cohesion functioned in the rhetorical structure of these argumentative essays. The results revealed the presence of cohesive associations between the different moves of the rhetorical structure which corresponded with the move length. Referential and Lexical cohesion had a more frequent and dense presence than the co-referential element in the sample texts; however, the relatively low incidence of conjunctives pointed towards the relative scarcity of rhetorical functions in students' writing. The study proposes a research initiative that could use frameworks other than the present study or compare two or more sub-genres for the use of cohesion in the rhetorical structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: There is little research on the use of BE-copula in learner compositions in terms of how BE is used, and what functions it performs at specific stages of composition. This study aims to investigate the functions of BE-copula in argumentative essays written by non-native speaker (NS) and native speaker (NNS) learners and determine the similarities and differences in the way the learners use BE-copula in their essays. Methodology: This descriptive study employed a corpus-based methodology with the corpus data obtained from the Malaysian Corpus of Learner English (MACLE) and Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS). Only data from L1-Malay learners, which were extracted from MACLE, and which form a sub-corpus of L1-Malay learner argumentative essays, were analyzed in the study. Adopting Hyland's three-stage structure of an argumentative essay as the framework for analysis, data were analyzed for the distribution of BE-copula and the functions it performed in the learner essays. Findings: Results from the quantitative analysis revealed a similar pattern in the use of BE-copula between NNS and NS learners, with both groups showing an inclination towards the present forms (is, are) and BE-copula construction. A t-test analysis revealed a more significant use of BE-copula in terms of both forms and functions by the NS learners. The qualitative analysis revealed that even though the NNS learners exhibited almost similar composing elements as the NS counterparts, their texts were stylistically simple, more constrained, less fluent, and effective due to limited syntactic variety. Contributions: The empirical findings from the in depth quantitative and qualitative analyses have enabled more insightful conclusions to be drawn about the NNS learners' use of BE-copula in their writing. The present study has direct pedagogical implications for the teaching of academic writing in the ESL context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates metadiscourse use in argumentative essays written by Russian students at different levels of the ESAP study of economics. Text analysis approach and formal error analysis are applied to the metadiscourse use - its type, frequency, and accuracy. The study specifies the differences in the usage of metadiscourse markers by writers representing nonprofessional and novice ESAP students of economics, which are mainly due to disciplinary practices, the interference from L1 writing conventions in the knowledge domain of economics and instructions provided by ESAP teachers. It also gives the interpretation of formal errors in the most indicative groups of metadiscourse markers. The study has important practical implications for developing EFL students' metadiscourse competence in the target language academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of ecological education in argumentative essay writing with critical thinking skills is interesting to discuss. The future challenge dealing with ecological education in teaching English should be enhanced as the effort to build the ecological awareness inserted in their writing. This study aimed to enhance ecological education in the argumentative essay through critical thinking to the students. The approach and method used in this study are qualitative-descriptive. The subject of the research is the students of junior high schools near river and wetlands. The instrument used is a questionnaire sheet; the data gotten from the questionnaire sheet is coded manually and the analysis is content analysis. The study result shows that the learners enhanced with ecological education have an awareness of their environment and they get easier to write their argumentative essay because the issue is close to them. Their linguistic competence is trained because they are able to use the vocabulary well. The learners have a wide knowledge of what to write and discuss in their writing activities. What happens in their environment becomes the material to narrate and it is the main part of ecological education contribution in their argumentative essay writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In writing argumentative essay, the writer should mind complete parts of the essay and other linguistic elements. The two important linguistic elements are theme and rheme. Since theme and rheme are crucial in clause structure, thematic development is regarded important in the development of text. There are three patterns of thematic development proposed by Eggins, i.e., theme reiteration, zig-zag pattern, and multiple-theme pattern. This research states its objective as to analyze the thematic development occurred in students' argumentative essay. The occurrence of thematic development is analyzed and elaborated into the finding and discussion. This research is a qualitative research. There are 13 essays written by students. The essays are chosen randomly to maintain the objectiveness of the analysis. Those essays consist of 323 clauses. They are analyzed based on the concept of thematic development proposed by Eggins. The analysis of thematic development of the clauses shows that theme reiteration emerges as the most preferable thematic development pattern. It can be seen that 217 clauses (67,2%) in students' essay are in forms of theme reiteration. 84 clauses (26,0%) of the essay apply zig-zag pattern in thematic development. Multiple-theme pattern comes as the least preferred thematic development pattern. It only comes up in 22 clauses (6,8%) out of 323 clauses. It can be concluded that students understand the way to develop their essays by implementing combination of thematic development. It marks a successful phase of students' writing skill. Nevertheless, students need writing practice intensively to make their writing skill grow better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was carried out to assess the relationship between students' critical thinking abilities and their success in writing an argumentative essay. The descriptive-correlation design was used in this research. The respondents in this survey were a total of 310 Education major students. This is 22.32 percent of the 1387 students enrolled in the Education program. The 50-item questionnaire was based on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal from Pearson TalentLens to measure the student's study critical thinking abilities. The following conclusions were drawn: the students lack critical thinking ability; the students have difficulty in constructing argumentative essays; and the less critical the students are, the less performance they have in writing argumentative essays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most challenging skill perceived by students when they learn the English language is the writing skill. This recent study would like to identify the rhetorical strategies used by good writers and poor writers. Two participants were selected, and written essays was the instrument employed for this study. Both participants were required to write an essay on 'Should examinations be abolished?' The essays written were analysed using a coding technique. The findings indicated that both writers utilised the three elements, Logos, Ethos and Pathos, differently. Both were considerate to the readers when they wrote the essays and presented their message, which was also heavily emphasised. However, they did not focus on their roles as writers. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that teachers need to help students familiarise themselves with rhetorical strategies. As for students, they should be aware of the rhetorical strategies to enhance their writing skills to write argumentative essays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing writing proficiency is complex as students need to master specific rules and acquire certain skills. This complexity often obstructs students' interest and eventually affects their comprehension and performance in language learning. Research has highlighted the significance of English as a Second Language (ESL), particularly in the Malaysian context. This study, therefore, aims to evaluate the effectiveness of blended learning in developing English writing skills, particularly among ESL learners at a Polytechnic in Malaysia. The study adopted quasi-experimental analysis in which pre-test and post-test were used as data-gathering instruments. The data were gathered from a purposive sample of 60 ESL students separated into an experimental group and a control group. The data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test via the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings showed that blended learning is significantly effective in developing writing performance among ESL students in the selected institution. Further analysis revealed a slight improvement among students who learned through the traditional approach. This study highlights useful findings that could be useful in designing English curriculums, particularly in higher institutions. However, this experiment focuses on students' performance, further research may explore instructors' practices in Malaysian higher intuitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pair work, an activity involving learners working together in pairs, has been widely used in language learning, especially in writing classes. Many studies have reported the effectiveness of this technique in improving students’ writing. However, there is limited research on how the factors like students’ proficiency and the level of interaction may affect the effectiveness of pair work. Proficiency and interaction between students are important in writing activities because when students are proficient and given a chance to interact, communicate and collaborate with others, they tend to produce a good writing as a result of their collaboration. This study, therefore, aims at investigating whether or not there is a significant difference in students’ writing (1) between the high proficient students engaging in the dominant-dominant pairs (H-DDP) and those engaging in the dominant-passive pairs (H-DPP), and (2) between the low proficient students engaging in the dominant-dominant pairs (L-DDP) and those engaging in the dominant-passive pairs (L-DPP). This experimental research involved forty-eight fourth semester students of an English Education Department in a private university in Madiun, East Java, Indonesia as participants. The data were obtained from the students’ writing test and analysed using independent t-test of SPSS 18.0 version. The results show that the high proficient students engaging in the dominant-dominant pairs (H-DDP) gained better score in the aspects of content (26.50 > 24.82), organization (19.71 > 19.09), vocabulary (15.36 > 14.09) and grammar (13.43 > 12.73) on argumentative essay than the high proficient students in the dominant-passive pairs (H-DPP). Meanwhile, the low proficient students engaging in DDP can write better in the aspects of organization, vocabulary and mechanics. It is also found that proficiency affects the students’ ability to work in pair and to actively contribute to the process of writing an argumentative essay. This implies that teachers should consider students’ proficiency and level of social interaction before assigning students into pairs in writing classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of unscripted, scripted and guided online peer feedback on students' argumentative essay writing, argumentative feedback quality and domain-specific knowledge acquisition in the field of educational sciences. Participants were 52 students who were randomly divided over 26 dyads and randomly assigned to three conditions (unscripted, scripted and guided peer feedback conditions). An online peer feedback platform, named EduTech, was designed and these instructional supports were embedded within this platform. Students were asked to write an argumentative essay (individually), to engage in argumentative peer feedback with their learning partner (collaboratively), and finally to revise their essays based on feedback received (individually). The findings indicate that students in the scripted online peer feedback condition outperform the other two conditions in terms of argumentative essay writing, argumentative feedback quality and their domain-specific knowledge acquisition. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence indicates that graphic organizers, such as concept maps and argument maps, could help students develop a stronger argumentation ability and build effective argumentative structures. In this study, we designed a computer-aided argumentative essay writing system to assist students in learning structures of argumentation and in enhancing their argumentation abilities. In this study, an experiment was conducted on students in an elementary school in New Taipei City for fourteenth weeks. This included a total of 11 classes (272 students), which were divided into three groups: the argument map writing group, the concept map writing group, and the conventional argumentative writing group. The experimental results showed that the argumentative essays produced by the students in the argument map writing group were superior to those written by students in the other two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst the importance of online peer feedback and writing argumentative essays for students in higher education is unquestionable, there is a need for further research into whether and the extent to which female and male students differ with regard to their argumentative feedback, essay writing, and content learning in online settings. The current study used a pre-test, post-test design to explore the extent to which female and male students differ regarding their argumentative feedback quality, essay writing and content learning in an online environment. Participants were 201 BSc biotechnology students who wrote an argumentative essay, engaged in argumentative peer feedback with learning partners in the form of triads and finally revised their original argumentative essay. The findings revealed differences between females and males in terms of the quality of their argumentative feedback. Female students provided higher-quality argumentative feedback than male students. Although all students improved their argumentative essay quality and also knowledge content from pre-test to post-test, these improvements were not significantly different between females and males. Explanations for these findings and recommendations are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current knowledge of the functional dimensions (e.g., coherence) of L2 written performance is mainly based on expert readers' views. Non-expert native readers' perspectives of L2 written productions are not often examined, which prevents a comprehensive and objective understanding of how an L2 writer's performance may be perceived and evaluated by the target discourse community. Studies to date also lack clear findings of both the types of incoherence phenomena that may exist in L2 texts and the factors that may contribute to such incoherencies. The current study investigates how expert and non-expert native readers evaluate incoherence in L2 Chinese argumentative essays, as well as how their evaluations may differ quantitatively or qualitatively. The findings reveal that although expert readers marked incoherence in L2 writing significantly more frequently than non-expert readers did, expert and non-expert readers displayed similar patterns and tendencies in their judgments pertaining to the frequency with which incoherence instances appeared in the essays and in the severity of the incoherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of using inquiry-based learning on students' critical thinking skills. A quasi-experimental design which employed time series design with single group participants was used. A total of 20 EFL undergraduate students who took advanced writing skills course were selected using comprehensive sampling method. Tests, focus group discussion, and student-reflective journal were used to gather data on the students' critical thinking skills. The participants were given a series of three argumentative essay writing pretests both before and after the intervention, inquiry-based argumentative essay writing instruction. While the quantitative data were analyzed using One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA, the qualitative data were analyzed through narration. The findings of the study revealed that using inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction enhances students' critical thinking skills. Therefore, inquiry-based instruction is suggested as a means to improve students' critical thinking skills because the method enhances students' interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation skills which are the core critical thinking skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of this study is heightened by the fact that critical thinking (CT) is vastly seen as a major objective of higher education and the basis for the development of learning outcomes. Thus, this quasi-experimental aims at promoting and assessing students’ critical thinking skills (CTSs) through argumentative essay-writing. It also investigates the correlation between CT and essay-writing skills. The main question addressed is: what is the effectiveness of promoting CTSs through argumentative essay-writing among English major students in terms of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, and explanation? An instructional material was designed and implemented in classroom teaching to enhance CT. The study was conducted on 98 English major male participants enrolled in an essay-writing course at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University (PSAU), Saudi Arabia. The participants were randomly assigned to either intervention (n =49) or control (n =49) groups. Quantitative-qualitative methods were employed. Pretest and posttest were applied to both groups. The Facione and Facione (1994) CT scoring rubric was utilized for assessing CTSs. Findings revealed that CT and essay-writing skills are significantly positively correlated. Assessment of students’ essays denoted that the intervention group significantly surpassed the control in the five CTSs: "interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, and explanation" (Facione 1990, p. 8). It can be concluded that explicitly teaching CTSs through essay-writing can be effective in the development of these skills. The study recommended that further studies be implemented in different universities and also using other CT definitions and skills, and comparisons between the findings could be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to find out the critical thinking patterns of students in the argumentative essay, explain and explore students' arguments that contain critical elements. This study used the content analysis method. Data was obtained from argumentative essays written by first-year students of Brawijaya University who took Indonesian Language courses. The total of data was 90 posts. Data collection was done by assignments and interviews. Data was analyzed using data analysis procedures from Cresswel of six stage is preparing and organizing, data exploration, using code, representing findings, interpretations, and validate the accuracy of the findings. Three critical thinking patterns were found in the student's essay, namely pattern I (Inference-Evaluation), and pattern II (Analysis-Evaluation), pattern III (Interpretation-Evaluation). In pattern two, there were four pattern variations while there was only one pattern in patterns I and III. The results of this study indicated that students' critical thinking patterns were oriented towards analytic thinking, namely analyzing various phenomena by revealing evidence and reasons to draw logical conclusions. The pattern found can be used as a reference for writing lecturers in developing students' critical thinking skills in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stance is a growing focus of academic writing research and an important aspect of writing development in higher education. Research on student writing to date has explored stance across different levels, language backgrounds, and disciplines, but has rarely focused on stance features across genres. This article explores stance marker use between two important genre families in higher education—persuasive argumentative writing and analytic explanatory writing—based on corpus linguistic analysis of late undergraduate and early graduate-level writing in the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP). The specific stance markers in the study, both epistemic and textual cues, have been shown to distinguish student writing across levels; this study, then, extends the analysis to consider the comparative use of these markers across genres. The findings show two stance expectations persistent across genres as well as significant distinctions between argumentative and explanatory writing vis-à-vis stance markers that intensify and contrast. The findings thus point to important considerations for instruction, assignment design, and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely known that the criteria in assessing writing are crucial, and they become the central component of assessment design. This study was conducted due to the significance of assessing argumentative essays published by the forth EFL Learners in English Language Education Study Program. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the assessment criteria on which the scales are supposed to be based. Eight lecturers, who concern on writing, were involved as the sources of data. Their views were investigated to gauge the criteria in assessing argumentative essays. Having been designed as a descriptive qualitative study, threefold methods of collecting data were administered; questionnaire, interview, and focus group discussion (hereafter, FGD). The obtained data were analyzed by means of Interactive Model which involves data collection, data filter, data presentation, and verification. The content, organization, grammar, mechanics, and academic writing skill were recommended by the lecturers to be taken into account in assessing the particular type of essay created by EFL Learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, many information and communication technology (ICT) tools have been integrated in teaching and learning activities. In English language teaching (ELT), various ICT tools, especially those which belong to Social Networking Site (SNS) or social media, have been used as media to teach English language skills. One of these social media is Tumblr which has a mixture of characteristics of Blog, Instagram, and Facebook. This research aimed to examine whether the use of Tumblr improves EFL student' ability in writing argumentative essays. It involved 36 students of undergraduate program in English Department of Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia. The result showed that there is a significant improvement in students' ability in writing after being taught by using Tumblr. This leads to the conclusion that Tumblr can be used effectively to help students improve their ability in writing argumentative essays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research aims to investigate the significant difference between the mean scores of the writing performance of the students working in the dominant-dominant pairs (DDP) and those working in the dominant-passive pairs (DPP). It investigates the effectiveness of pair work to reveal in what pair the students have a better-writing performance. The experimental design using pretest-posttest design was used in this study. The writing performance of the students working in the dominant-dominant pairs (DDP) and those working in the dominantpassive pairs (DPP) was compared. The subjects of the study were the students of the English Department of private University in Madiun, East Java, Indonesia who were in their fourth semester. The current study employed the standardized proficiency writing test which was adopted from the TOEFL-Test. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were chosen to answer the research question. Independent t-test by using SPSS 17.0 was employed to see whether there was a significant difference in the mean scores between the students working in the dominant-dominant pairs (DDP) and those working in the dominant-passive pairs (DPP). The result shows that the students who work in the dominant-dominant pairs (DDP) perform better at writing performance than the students who work in the dominant-passive pairs (DPP). Furthermore, pair work provides the students with more opportunities to engage with one another to share ideas in writing. Thus, the teacher should arrange the best group of classification at the beginning of making a pair work before the students are asked to have a discussion in writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Media4u Magazine is the property of Ing. Jan Chromy, Ph.D. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Numerous studies have proved that graphic strategies, such as graphic organization and concept mapping, can facilitate improving reading comprehension. However, the question as to what graphic strategies can improve argumentative essay reading comprehension ability is not yet resolved. To determine whether graphic strategies can improve students' reading comprehension ability, we designed a computer-aided argumentative essay reading system that can construct graphic strategies. In the designed system, three approaches, namely a traditional teaching approach without graphic strategies, concept mapping, and argument mapping, are created for determining the effects of graphic strategies on students' argumentative essay reading comprehension ability. In addition, the proposed argument mapping system provides a function for helping students identify three key argumentative essay elements, namely claims, reasons, and evidence, to enable them to construct an argument map with no burden. The designed system can help students learn how to read argumentative essays easily, improving their reading comprehension ability. The experimental results from 373 sixth graders showed that the argument mapping method enhanced students' argumentative essay reading comprehension ability compared with traditional and concept mapping approaches. Statistical results revealed that between-group differences were statistically significant ( p value between the experimental and Control Group 1 was 0.001 and that between the experimental and Control Group 2 was 0.013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal is the property of Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Literatura y Lingüística is the property of Universidad Catolica Cardenal Raul Silva Henriquez and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the preferred patterns of argument development in argumentative essays written by a group of advanced Arabic-speaking learners of English as a foreign language. To this end, the text structure of 104 essays written by 52 Master students is analyzed building upon the model elaborated by Hatim (1990, 1991, 1997). The results show that the student writers, influenced by their native culture's writing conventions, follow predominantly the pattern of through-argumentation to construct their argument. On the other hand, some of their observed argumentative discourse deviant forms are not explicable in the light of transfer factors. The implication of the study is that multiple factors come into play when the discourse conventions of English argumentative writing are distorted in EFL learners' texts. We recommend that for the teaching of written argument to be efficient, lecturers adopt instruction in which exposure to the argumentative essay genre is highlighted while activating student writers' potentials of revision and self-editing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Synergies Chine is the property of GERFLINT (Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches pour le Francais Langue Internationale) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study investigates commonalities and differences in overall rhetorical structure within the Iranian EFL subjects in their Persian and English pre- and post-argumentative essays and also it examines the effect of two different treatments, namely, models with implicit instruction, and models alone. After conducting TOFEL test, 76 subjects were selected. They were randomly divided into two groups, an experimental group which received no-instruction treatment, and a control group which was instructed implicitly. A pre-test and a post-test were administered before and after the treatment. The quantitative analysis of the post-argumentative essays revealed that the implicit group outperformed the no-instruction group. This study is significant for genre analysis and contrastive rhetoric research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentative writing has long been regarded as an essential mode of written discourse. Despite some studies on argumentative essays across ages, grade levels, cultures and languages, research has not yet been conducted on writers from different academic disciplines in the Chinese context. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the current situation of move-step structure of argumentative essays written by English learners in an EFL context. Two sets of corpus of English argumentative essays written by Tongren University students were built, 100 from English majors and the other 100 from non-English majors. A selected analytical framework was used to analyze the move-step structure of the essays and some linguistic features were also investigated. Results revealed that the majority of the argumentative essays were found to follow the three stages set in the model. Findings also showed some differences in terms of move-step structure between the essays written by these two groups of students. In the conclusion, pedagogical implications informed by these results and findings are offered to benefit teaching argumentative essay writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pedagogy Studies / Pedagogika is the property of Vytautas Magnus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cuadernos de Lingüística Hispánica is the property of Universidad Pedagogica y Tecnologica de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Estudios Sociales is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The United Nations 2030 agenda includes quality university education, highlighting the importance of writing competence, as a basic skill for the dissemination of sustainable knowledge. However, there is little evidence of the factors that predict effective written communication to support such quality. Among these factors, the literature highlights motivation and writing metacognition, as well as the adequate structuring of the academic and/or scientific genre. The main novelty of the present research is the study of the relationships between the mentioned factors, measured with validated instruments. To this end, content analysis is first applied to determine the rhetorical moves of argumentative essays written by a sample of 72 university students. Secondly, the correlations between each of the rhetorical moves, metacognition and argumentative writing self-efficacy are calculated. The relationships are studied in depth, applying step-by-step linear regression models. Finally, the dependence of the results, observed with respect to unmeasured factors, is contrasted by means of a confirmatory analysis based on structural equations. The analyses show that it is the practical ability to express rhetorical moves—Conclusion and Bibliographic References—which predicts a students' writing metacognition. Moreover, the minor relationship that argumentative self-efficacy shows with the expression of rhetorical moves, compared to writing metacognition, point to the need to consider another motivational dimension that is driving the learning of the argumentative essay at university level, a hypothesis that is confirmed with the structural equations model. These, and other findings, allow for the establishment of a series of educational quality criteria for the empowerment of written argumentation in academic and scientific contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]