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Although many research studies discussed argumentative essays, little is known about argumentative essays discussing the dialogical exchange of argumentation. This study aims to investigate the distribution of elements and the quality of argumentative essays produced by EFL students. The content analysis was employed to examine their argumentative essays. The data were garnered from essay writing tests for forty students of the English Department at a state university in Palangka Raya, Indonesia. They were assigned to write an argumentative essay about "Online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The data analysis comprised collecting, categorizing, and displaying the data and conclusion drawing. The results indicated that (1) a greater number of the students were not able to supply all elements of an argumentative essay, such as an explanation of an issue, thesis statement, counterargument, refutation, and conclusion, and (2) most of them failed to obtain excellence qualification. The study findings imply how teachers can redesign the materials, find effective strategies for teaching an argumentative essay, and provide many practice opportunities. The teachers should focus on teaching an argumentative essay element by allowing the students to understand the goal of each element and integrate them to form a well-developed argumentative essay.

Despite the implementation in 2006 of a new curricular design in secondary teaching of Spanish as a foreign language in Senegal, mainly due to the implementation of a new pedagogical and methodological paradigm (the communicative approach), Terminale’s classroom argumentation continues to be object of controversy. Among teachers, the debate about how to implement a suitable technique to allow students to succeed in this exercise at the Baccalaureate exam is increasingly raised. Thus, this article is a contribution that participates in the already existing reflection, proposing a process to plan and carry out an argument in high school class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Although writing argumentative essays has been widely investigated, limited research has focused on types of syntactic fossilization errors, let alone in doctoral students of English department contexts. This study investigated the interlanguage temporary, permanent, and fossilized errors in the second language writing of seven doctoral students from one private university in Jakarta, Indonesia. The study employed a linguistics content analysis method using the argumentative essay products taken from the course of Lexicology and Lexicography during one semester. The data were analyzed using the framework of four syntactic fossilization errors: verb omission, subordination, double verb, and passive voice. In addition, inter-rater reliability was used to measure the trustworthiness of fossilized error analysis in students' argumentative essays. The findings revealed that the doctoral students made four fossilized errors: subordination, omission, double verb, and passive voice. However, verb omission and sub-ordination emerged as temporary fossilization errors and a double verb and passive voice as permanent syntactic fossilization errors in writing argumentative essays. This result suggests that doctoral students need a bridging course to reduce all kinds of errors in writing an argumentative essay as the requirements before they join the real classroom.

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]

Cohesive devices are crucial points recognized as essential features of a good essay, yet employing them in an essay appropriately becomes problematic for learners. This study analyzes qualitatively cohesive devices to investigate EFL learners. It aims at examining how EFL learners apply cohesive devices in argumentative essays, the frequencies of cohesive devices errors in their writings, and the possible causes of EFL learners to produce cohesive devices. Twenty-five learners of the Department of International Relations, at a university in Ponorogo, were requested to produce argumentative essays that consisted of five paragraphs. Twenty-five essays had been identified with the number of errors of grammatical cohesion. Those errors were then analyzed to determine the possible causes affecting the learners’ errors. The find revealed that the number of grammatical cohesion utilized by EFL learners reached 2172, while 168 obtained errors. There was a heavy reliance on cohesive item use. The intralingual transfer mostly influenced the errors produced than the interlingual transfer. The intralingual errors percentage represented 96,9%; interlingual transfer errors reached 3.03%. It occurred due to the learners’ inability to employ the grammar rule. Hence, lecturer should employ the strategies for learners’ writing ability development, such as implementing collaborative learning, delivering the feedback, exposing learners to exercise, and applying a learning management system to result higher level of cohesion.

An evaluative writing genre that presents difficulties for university students is the argumentative essay (AE). This article aims to relate the quality of the introductions to the quality of the AEs, considering their lexical-grammar features. To achieve this, we selected 96 AEs, produced in two phases during one academic term. Then, we compared both phases of the evaluation of the AEs and their introductions (IEA), as well as their lexical-grammar features. Subsequently, we correlated the AE data with their AEIs. Finally, we performed a clustering analysis, according to lexical-grammar patterns. The findings indicate a) significant differences between AEs and AEIs of both phases, b) distinctive lexical-grammar patterns between both phases, c) a high correlation between AE and AEI quality, and d) a continuum of quality between introductions. Between the phases, we observed an improvement in the quality of the AEIs not only from the argumentative point of view but also according to the characteristics of the discursive genre. Furthermore, the importance of this macro-move as a predictor of content quality is proven. These results are useful for the early detection of difficulties in academic writing. [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]

The writing of argumentative essays promotes higher-order thinking skills amongst students regardless of their level of studying only when it involves collaborative argumentation. Hence, argumentation researchers recommend that teachers use group argumentation to teach argumentative essays since Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory believed that group argumentation improves students’ writing skills. The study’s objective is to explore the use of group argumentation during the teaching of argumentative essays in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms in Malaysia. Hence, the involvement of practitioners is significant so that the full extent of the problem is known rather than being interpreted solely by researchers. This qualitative study was conducted on nine ESL teachers through convenience sampling. Data was collected through online interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings demonstrated that ESL teachers did not practice group argumentation when teaching argumentative essays. They resorted to the whole-class discussion instead. Five factors contribute to the negligence of group argumentation in ESL classrooms, that is, time, pressure to deliver curriculum, students’ attitude, students’ speaking skills, and the use of the first language (L1). The findings indicated that it is necessary to promote the teaching of argumentative essay writing using group argumentation as one of the teaching approaches in secondary schools to ensure students reap the benefits of collaborative learning to improve their argumentation skills.

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]

This study investigated the distinctive structural characteristics between narrative and argumentative texts and examined the relationships among syntactic measures within each genre. Conducted with 161 Chinese college freshmen, the study employed 14 syntactic complexity measures to analyze 322 essays comprising both narrative and argumentative types. The research questions focused on identifying syntactic measures that differentiate between the two genres and the correlational strength among these measures. Results indicated nuanced differences in syntactic complexity, with argumentative essays demonstrating slightly higher complexity in most measures, particularly in the length of production unit, amount of coordination, and degree of phrasal sophistication. Notably, no significant differences were found in overall sentence complexity or measures of subordination. These findings suggested that these aspects do not distinguish between genres for these second language (L2) writers. Correlations within syntactic measures were also analyzed and revealed strong relationships between certain measures within the same category for both essay types. However, there were some distinct patterns of correlation between the two genres. Implications for L2 writing assessment and future studies were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L2 English learners are often reported to incorporate features of spoken language into their academic writing, blurring the lines between written and spoken genres. However, previous corpus-based studies have predominantly focused on L2 writing, leaving L2 speaking relatively unexplored. It is thus unclear whether learners lack genre awareness – as previously claimed – or if they indeed attempt to differentiate their language across genres, but lack ability to do so. This study explores lexical bundles in academic L2 English in parallel corpora of written and spoken data produced by the same learners, with the same prompts pertaining to argumentation. The findings show that learners employ phrasal/referential bundles, typical of academic prose, significantly more in their essays than in their speeches, where clausal and stance-expressing bundles are more prevalent. Notably, the students were found to employ identical bundles differently in argumentative essays and argumentative speeches produced in response to the same prompts. This finding implies that learners may have a better understanding of how to use formulaic language in both spoken and written genres than previously believed, suggesting that they are aware of genre distinctions, although other factors related to mode (e.g., the cognitive demands of speaking vs. writing) are likely to be involved as well. Furthermore, in comparison with previous findings on L1 bundles, these findings hint at the possibility of argumentative genre conventions unique to L2 learners, in which, broadly, L2 argumentative speech resembles an L1 conversational genre, while L2 argumentative essays seem to navigate a middle path between conversational and academic prose conventions. [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]

Abstract 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.

Hook sentences as an opener and attention grabber in introductory paragraph play important role to make readers keep reading an essay. This means the structure and preferences to produce the hook is a key point to an interesting essay. The study aims to identify the writers’ preferences to write hook sentences. The data were 40 argumentative essays collected from 7 different international newspapers and gazettes. The study employs content analysis procedure to analyze 4 related categories to preferences: theme, number of words, types of sentence, and types of hooks. The subcategories which consist of 13 items is created to supply the detailed preferences. The result shows that all 40 samples utilize theme-related hook, with 34 (85%) samples written with more than 10 words, without dominant types of sentences (simple, compound, and complex), and with 23 (58%) narrative or story hook. From the result, it can be inferred that the writers prefer hook-related theme with mostly narrative type hook. The result also shows that there is relatively fair preference between simple and complex sentence use.

This study analyzed qualitatively the cohesive devices used in argumentative essays of undergraduate EFL students in South Sumatera, Indonesia. Eighty essays were collected from eight universities in which ten essays were obtained from each. Halliday and Hasan (1976) concept of grammatical cohesion was used as the framework for the analysis of the essays. All the cohesive devices were found. Reference had the highest frequency which is 50.24% of the total cohesive devices followed by conjuction which is 37.34%, lexical cohesion which is 7.7% and ellipsis which is 3.57%. Substitution was the least used type of cohesive device which is only 1.15%. In terms of correctness of using the devices, most of the devices were all used properly. It was revealed that there was still few mistakes of using reference and substitution since they both were frequently used in the essays. Hence, it can be concluded that the students are more familiar with the use of reference and conjunction even though they are able to use the other devices as well.

This research aimed to find out students' difficulties in writing an argumentative essay. The research used descriptive method; the population was the third year students of the English department, FKIP Bung Hatta University Padang. They were divided into four classes, A, B, C and D. Sample of this research was class B, and the size of the sample was 35 students. The writer used the cluster random sampling technique to get a representative sample. The research result showed that that is 21(60%) students have difficulties in writing an argumentative essay and the result of the writing test. Specifically, from data analysis of writing task showed that 21(60%) students had difficulties in organization of idea, 22(62.85%) students in grammar, 20 (57.14%) students vocabulary, 21 (60%) students in using transition signal, and 21(60%) students in mechanics.

Writing is a communication tool to deliver thoughts and ideas in written form. Generally, in writing an argumentative essay, students do not provide their supporting arguments and do not provide evidence to convince the readers and even believe at the writer. Students asked to comprehend how to develop their ideas or their thought based on elements of the argumentative essay as a guide for them in applying their thought or their critical thinking in writing English essay. Based on the problem above, the researchers analyzed students' critical thinking skills in writing an argumentative essay at STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh in 2017/2018 academic year. The population of this research was English department students on the second academic year at STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payahkumbuh, and there were 13 sample students. In gathering the data, the instrument used by the researchers in this research was a written test. The researchers asked the students to write an argumentative essay about 300 words in 60 minutes. The instrument in this research has content validity based on SAP from SKTIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh 2017/2018 academic year, because the students had learned argumentative essay subject. The researchers used inter-rater reliability and coefficient reliability from two scorers to analyze students' critical thinking in writing an argumentative essay. The result revealed the student' critical thinking skills in writing an argumentative essay was 60, it belong to “average to good critical thinking skill categoryâ€.

This study is aimed to identify the effect of outline planning in argumentative essay writing of fourth semester students of English Department, Faculty of Arts, Udayana University. Outlining is making a plan to map your writing which shows the content and the sequence of each paragraph in your writing. Task planning will give the students an opportunity to plan what to say and how to write their ideas in the task performance. Task planning can be in the form of cubing, clustering, mapping (Ojima, 2006:566), and outlining (Kellog, 1990: 328). The data source of this study are argumentative essay writing of 30 students. The data in this study was analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The data analysis was done by comparing the results of the pre-test and post-test in argumentative essays writing. Pre-test was conducted without outlining the writing while post-test proceeded by outlining the writing. Based on the data analysis, the results shows that there is a significant improvement in students writing after the implementation of the outline planning. The improvement reflected from the reduction of the types and the number of mistake made by the students in their writing.

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]

Copyright of Nueva Revista del Pacífico is the property of Universidad de Playa Ancha de Ciencias de la Educacion 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.)

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]

Writing is very important for everyone to share their ideas, experiences and their thoughts into the written form. This present study tries to figure out and explore the university students in writing argumentative essay. Therefore, this present conducted a survey research to 21 students who produced 21 argumentative essay from English department in Universitas Lancang Kuning. The survey analysed the Content, Organization, Vocabulary, Grammar, Mechanics In order to answer the research question. The result of the research showed that the students’ ability in argumentative essay was good regarding on the result of the test. This analysis of this present study found that the students’ ability in argumentative essay was categorised in very good level (96,55). This is means that these 21 students can go further on their academic journey regarding English when it needs an argumentative essay in written form.

This research is aimed to find the most frequent type of discourse markers used in the argumentative essay and the differences in its use written by the first, third, and fifth semester students of English Education study program of Universitas Bengkulu. The documentation technique and checklist are used in this research. Thirty two argumentative essays written by English Education Study Program’s students were analyzed by using mix method quantitative and qualitative, along with descriptive approach. The results showed that the most frequent type of discourse markers used by English Education students is additive markers (58%). And the students have different amount of discourse markers in their writing where the third semester students used more discourse markers than the other two group of students (148). It is highly encouraged for English Education instructors to take teaching discourse markers specifically into account. It is also suggested for future researchers to further analyze the correct use of discourse markers in the argumentative essay written by English Education Study Program students of Universitas Bengkulu.

This study investigates the effects of collaborative e-learning environment supported by peer feedback and argumentative instruction on students’ argumentative writing, argumentative feedback and domain-specific knowledge acquisition in the field of educational sciences. The population of the study was all bachelor students of educational sciences at Kharazmi University in Karaj in which 36 students were randomly selected as a sample and were assigned to either experimental (with instruction) or control group (without instruction) in a pre- and posttest design. They were then divided over 18 dyads and were asked to write and argumentative essay, engage in argumentative peer feedback with their learning partner, and then revise their essay based on feedback they received. To do so, a collaborative e-learning environment was designed and developed. A coding scheme was developed based on research literature to measure both argumentative essay and argumentative peer feedback quality. The results favoured students in the experimental condition in terms of their argumentative essay writing, argumentative peer feedback quality, and the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge. Implications, limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Intertextuality is related to the ways whereby new meanings are created from the old ones and deals with how newly-constructed discourse can incorporate previous texts by adapting and transforming them into new ones (Johnstone, 2008). The present study, using a (critical) discourse analytic framework and some systematic procedures, attempted to identify, qualitatively analyze and reflect upon the instances of intertextuality elements in the argumentative essays written by a group of advanced proficiency level M.A students of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and English Literature in a State university in Iran. Some representative instances of macro- and microlevel intertextuality (Ahmadian & Yazdani, 2013) are cited, compared and further discussed based on the structural conventions of the argumentative essay writing subgenre, the general knowledge and personal, academic and world experiences of the individuals and the social and ideological context in which the study was conducted.

This research is based on the students’ problems in writing argumentative essay, especially in developing and organizing ideas, using good grammar and diction, and applying correct writing mechanics, such as the use of capital letter, spelling, and punctuation. The purpose of this research is to solve the students’ problems in writing argumentative essay through collaborative writing strategy. The design employed in this research was classroom action research. The participants involved in this research were 23 students of English Education Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Lancang Kuning Pekanbaru, Indonesia. The instruments used in this research were writing test, field note, observation checklist, and interview. Based on the result of the test, the students’ score had reached the criteria of success set, and it was significantly improved from the result before the research conducted. The mean score of the mid-term test was 54.9, and the mean score of the cycle test was 74.3. In addition, based on the data gained from the field note, observation checklist, and interview, it was found that the students were active, creative, and enjoy the learning process. In conclusion, the use of collaborative writing strategy can solve the students’ problems in writing argumentative essay as well.

Článek se zabývá přínosem písemného zachycení myšlenek studentů pro formování jejich argumentačních dovedností. Zaměřuje se na dvě písemné formy procvičování těchto dovedností – metodu volného psaní a argumentační esej – zahrnuté do vyučovacího procesu. Důraz je kladen na možnou změnu znalostí studentů v rámci výuky zvoleného ekonomického tématu, a to právě za pomoci volného psaní či argumentační eseje. Tyto dvě metody se liší ve své struktuře – zatímco argumentační esej má pevně stanovené náležitosti, metoda volného psaní dovoluje studentům zapisovat související myšlenky skutečně volně bez povinných náležitostí a struktury. Obě metody jsou časově náročné a jsou určitou výzvou jak pro učitele, tak i pro studenty. Článek se zabývá možností využití těchto písemných metod ve vyučovacím procesu na příkladu vybraného ekonomického tématu. Hlavním cílem článku je poukázat na přínos těchto dvou metod se zaměřením na změnu znalostí studentů. V této souvislosti byl proveden experiment, jehož průběh a výsledky jsou v článku představeny a diskutovány.

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]

The present mixed-method study examined the foci and effects of peer and machine feedback on the revisions of Chinese university EFL learners’ English argumentative essays. The data included Draft 1, peer feedback (PF), PF-based Draft 2, machine feedback (MF), MF-based feedback, questionnaires, and interview recordings. The main findings were: (a) peer feedback was primarily concerned with content errors, while machine feedback mainly involved non-content errors, (b) significant differences occurred in errors of most types between Draft 1, PF and PF-based Draft 2, and between Draft 1, MF, and MF-based Draft 2, (c) the intake of ‘introducing a new topic in Conclusion’ was a powerful predictor of PF-based Draft 2 scores, and (d) the participants generally moderately considered peer and machine feedback to be useful. Based on the findings, some implications are discussed on how to better implement and enhance the quality of peer and machine feedback.

The current study aimed to examine how the use of metadiscourse markers may vary in the writing of language learners due to their language proficiency and learning context. To this end, 180 argumentative essays composed by native speakers of English (NSE), Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and Hong Kong learners of English as a second language (ESL) were obtained from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE). The metadiscourse markers in the essays were identified and categorized according to Hyland's (2005) taxonomy of metadiscourse. The results showed a strong influence for the learning context with a number of statistically significant differences in the use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers across the three groups of participants. A limited influence for language proficiency was noted with learners of lower proficiency using significantly more transitions, frame markers and interactive markers than those of higher proficiency. This effect, however, disappeared when the interaction between language proficiency and learning context was considered. The results are interpreted in light of the existing literature and relevant linguistic, situational and cultural factors. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are presented.

Learning a new language is inevitably working on activities in relation to the four language skills, namely reading, listening, speaking and writing. Reading and listening are categorized as receptive skills, while speaking and writing are productive skills. Differing from the other skills, in developing writing skills learners do not merely focus on the writing products, but more on its process in which they have to follow certain steps. It is the teachers responsibility to guide the students to develop excellence in writing. Universitas Terbuka (UT), as a higher education institution applying distance learning, has provided an online tutorial (tuton) to enhance students writing skills. In this study, the writer focuses on students skills in writing essays, particularly argumentative essays. Furthermore, constructivism is taken as tutors point of view to evaluate the materials as well as the learning process in the tuton of PBIS4313/Writing III Course. This research aimed at analyzing the students perceptions about the needs of Writing III Course, regarding both the materials and the learning process, particularly the implementation of the constructivism approach. The descriptive qualitative method was applied in this research. An online survey was carried out to gain some information on the perceptions of the students regarding the learning materials as well as the learning approach needed in this course. From the online survey, it showed that more than 50% students find difficulties in writing. However, they shared their opinions about the needs of the materials appropriate for Writing III Course as the basic information for further development of the materials. Moreover, this research also resulted in some learning activities to be designed based on the constructivism approach.

Abstrak: Pada artikel ini, dijelaskan tentang pembahasan dan juga hasil penelitian dari pengembangan pembelajaran berbasis blended learning yang diterapkan di dalam kelas writing khususnya pada materi argumentative essay. Ada dua metode di dalam pembelajaran berbasis blended learning ini, yakni kelas offline (tatap muka) dan online. Kelas online digunakan untuk memfasilitasi mahasiswa dalam meningkatkan kemampuan mereka di dalam berargumen yang dibutuhkan di dalam menulis sebuah esai argumentatif, sedangkan kelas offline digunakan untuk meningkatkan kemampuan mahasiswa dalam menulis sebuah esai yang baik melalui penjelasan dari dosen. Selain itu, mahasiswa juga dapat memanfaatkan kelas offline untuk melakukan diskusi dengan dosen tentang tulisan mereka. Uji validitas ahli menunjukkan hasil, 80% dari ahli desain, 96% dari ahli media dan 82% dari ahli materi dan ketiganya masuk ke dalam kategori valid. Selanjutnya, hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa 82% yakni pembelajaran ini mendapatkan kategori valid ketika pembelajaran ini diterapkan untuk mahasiswa pada program studi Tadris Bahasa Inggris STAIN Pamekasan. Mahasiswa mendapatkan kemudahan di dalam menulis esai argumentatif dari hasil penerapan debat online. Oleh karena itu, strategi pembelajaran ini menjadi petimbangan untuk diterapkan di dalam proses belajar – mengajar. Abstract: In this article, it is explained about the discussion and also the results of research from the development of blended learning based learning that is applied in writing classes especially in the argumentative essay material. There are two methods in blended learning based learning, namely offline (face to face) and online classes. Online classes are used to facilitate students in improving their abilities in arguments needed in writing an argumentative essay, while offline classes are used to improve students' ability to write a good essay through explanations from lecturers. In addition, students can also take advantage of offline classes to conduct discussions with lecturers about their writing. The expert validity test showed results, 80% of design experts, 96% of media experts and 82% of material experts and all three entered into the valid category. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that 82% of this learning gets a valid category when this learning is applied to students in the STAIN Pamekasan English Language Study Program. Students get convenience in writing argumentative essays from the results of applying online debates. Therefore, this learning strategy is a consideration to be applied in the teaching and learning process.

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]

This paper delves into the contributions of corpus linguistics towards qualifying the writing of argumentative essays in high school. The study is grounded in practice by means of teaching- learning sequences developed with third-year high school students, at a public school, in Portuguese Language classes. Activities concerning microlinguistics aimed towards the development of writing skills were administered with the help of the Sketch Engine software. As a result, it is visible that the tool allows for reflective practice concerning the language and that students displayed a better understanding regarding the structural organization of the argumentative essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]