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This study examined Arabic language teachers' conception of argumentative writing and their perceptions towards developing argumentative writing skills among middle school students. It also sought to identify the factors that affect or hinder teachers' implementation of teaching argumentative writing skills in middle schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study employed a mixed-method approach with a sequential explanatory design. The study collected data from 260 middle school Arabic language teachers using a structured questionnaire with five sections covering: their conceptions of argumentative writing, their conceptions of argumentative writing skills, their perceptions of the importance of developing these skills in middle school students, their perceptions of the requirements for developing these skills, and their perceptions of the obstacles to developing these skills. Additionally, a semi-structured interview was conducted with nine female teachers to provide qualitative insights and further contextualize the quantitative survey findings. The findings revealed that middle school Arabic language teachers held a moderate level of perceptions towards the development of argumentative writing skills among their students. Based on these findings, the study recommended that the Arabic language curricula in Saudi middle schools should place a greater emphasis on cultivating argumentative writing skills, given their importance in refining students' personalities and enhancing their ability to express opinions and persuade others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of writing self-efficacy and writing strategy in writing performance. To this aim, 110 Participants filled out two questionnaires including writing self-efficacy questionnaire and writing strategy questionnaire and composed an argumentative writing and a narrative writing chosen from TOEFL writing tasks. The data showed no significant relationship between writing self-efficacy and writing strategy use. There was a significant relationship between writing self-efficacy and writing achievement. Furthermore, a negative relationship was found between writing strategy and writing performance. Results of multiple regression showed that writing self-efficacy was the only significant predictor of writing performance. The outcomes of this study can help teachers to improve their students’ writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well-written argumentative essay requires a thorough analysis of the topic with sufficient supporting evidence. However, obtaining information on the topic, summarizing the reading materials, and then presenting them in the form of an argumentative essay can be a challenging task, especially for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. ProCon.org offers pro and con arguments on over 100 controversial topics. The webpage features a balanced pro/con format that is easy to read and emphasizes the importance of considering both sides of a topic in argumentative writing. Although the website is not intended specifically for writing courses, it is a valuable resource for EFL learners who wish to enhance their argumentative skills and for teachers who wish to incorporate critical thinking into their writing courses. This technology review covers the content of the website and tips for self-study, as well as pedagogical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a worldwide shift in higher education, transitioning from traditional in-person teaching to online instruction. Consequently, there is a need to reevaluate classroom assessment methods for language educators. It involves a departure from summative assessment to formative assessment and sustainable assessment practices. As part of this paradigm shift, academia has placed significant emphasis on developing evaluative judgement and integrating peer feedback. This study focuses on a 12-week English expository writing course, where 66 English Linguistic undergraduates at a Malaysian public university actively participated in technology-mediated dialogic peer feedback under the guidance of two instructors to enhance their development of evaluative judgement in argumentative writing. The thematic analysis of transcript data from semi-structured interviews unveiled that the participants encountered challenges in utilising teacher feedback to enhance their peer feedback skills, overcoming socio-affective barriers to providing and receiving constructive feedback with an open mind and coordinating group members to collaborate effectively in an online environment. They generally held a positive stance towards technology-mediated dialogic peer feedback, acknowledging the advantages of honing evaluative judgement in argumentative writing as providers and receivers of feedback. This study aims to contribute to the discourse regarding students' openness to peer feedback (i.e., peer feedback orientation) and the challenges and benefits they encounter within the digital learning environments, ARTICLE INFO which have become increasingly common in higher education, with the goal of fostering evaluative judgement within and beyond the writing course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stance-taking in academic writing is now a well-established topic of interest in English language research, with explorations across a range of theoretical frameworks including metadiscourse and systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This includes studies investigating second language (L2) stance-taking, particularly those comparing stance features deployed by L1 and L2 English writers. However, studies investigating stance-taking using the APPRAISAL framework for evaluative discursive language across L1 and L2 production are relatively rare. Incorporating the APPRAISAL framework into research on stance-taking enhances our comprehension of evaluative language in academic writing, especially when it comes to cross-linguistic contexts. It also provides useful advantages for language assessment and instruction. In this learner corpus-assisted discourse study, APPRAISAL was used to determine how L1 English speakers and L2 English learners from L1 Vietnamese backgrounds expressed attitudes through their written texts. We also investigate the relationship between use of APPRAISAL resources and expert raters’ perceptions of written stance via a stance rubric. Findings show L2 English students are more explicit in argumentative writing than L1 English writers, despite fewer APPRAISAL choices in L2 texts. Besides, while high-rated texts were associated with more judgemental evaluation and invocation, more personal feelings were expressed in low-rated texts. These findings have implications for the instruction of L2 writers in conveying attitudinal meanings in text, as well as for raters tasked with assessing L2 academic essays for stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory follow-up study to a randomized controlled trial (RCT) examined (a) the differential impact of classroom-based (Tier 1) content literacy intervention on reading and argumentative writing outcomes among Grades 1 and 2 English learners (ELs, n = 1,236) and their English-proficient (EP) peers (n = 4,161) and (b) the mechanisms determining how the intervention yielded effects on ELs. The study was conducted across 30 elementary schools in an urban U.S. school district. The 10-week intervention, comprised of 20 lessons in science and social studies thematic units, was delivered by classroom teachers. The core components were designed to build students' content and vocabulary knowledge through informational texts and concept mapping and to transfer their schema to argumentative writing and research collaboration. Results show that while the intervention did not significantly improve reading proficiency (effect size [ES] = 0.01 for ELs and ES = −0.02 for EPs) and basic literacy skills (ES = 0.04 for ELs and ES = −0.02 for EPs), it significantly bolstered argumentative writing in science (ES = 0.25 for ELs and ES = 0.24 for EPs) and social studies (ES = 0.42 for ELs and ES = 0.44 for EPs). The treatment effect on reading proficiency among ELs was fully mediated by their improved domain-specific vocabulary knowledge and English oral proficiency. A significant indirect effect on social studies argumentative writing through domain-specific vocabulary knowledge was also evident. These findings corroborate the effectiveness of the content literacy intervention, providing insights into for whom and how the intervention was effective. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: This exploratory study shows the positive effects of classroom-based content literacy instruction for Grades 1 and 2 English learners (ELs), with benefits similar to those seen in English-proficient peers in science and social studies vocabulary and argumentative writing. In thematic units, students actively built content and vocabulary knowledge through interactive read-alouds and concept mapping, which were applied in writing and collaborative research activities. Importantly, this instructional approach did not negatively affect basic literacy skills and reading proficiency and even improved ELs' domain-specific vocabulary knowledge and English oral proficiency, which in turn positively predicted their reading proficiency. These findings highlight the value of content literacy instruction in promoting ELs' English language and literacy competencies through active engagement in content knowledge building and its application in a content- and language-rich classroom setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a randomized trial that collects text as an outcome, traditional approaches for assessing treatment impact require that each document first be manually coded for constructs of interest by human raters. An impact analysis can then be conducted to compare treatment and control groups, using the hand-coded scores as a measured outcome. This process is both time and labor-intensive, which creates a persistent barrier for large-scale assessments of text. Furthermore, enriching one's understanding of a found impact on text outcomes via secondary analyses can be difficult without additional scoring efforts. The purpose of this article is to provide a pipeline for using machine-based text analytic and data mining tools to augment traditional text-based impact analysis by analyzing impacts across an array of automatically generated text features. In this way, we can explore what an overall impact signifies in terms of how the text has evolved due to treatment. Through a case study based on a recent field trial in education, we show that machine learning can indeed enrich experimental evaluations of text by providing a more comprehensive and fine-grained picture of the mechanisms that lead to stronger argumentative writing in a first- and second-grade content literacy intervention. Relying exclusively on human scoring, by contrast, is a lost opportunity. Overall, the workflow and analytical strategy we describe can serve as a template for researchers interested in performing their own experimental evaluations of text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of multilingualism, there has been burgeoning research interest in interlanguage varieties. This corpus‐based study investigated structural and functional variations in phrase frames (p‐frames) in argumentative writing by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners from Arabic, German, Hindi, and Chinese language backgrounds. P‐frames, recurrent non‐contiguous co‐selection units within texts, were automatically extracted, manually filtered, and analyzed for variability, predictability, and discourse function. The results revealed learners’ shared reliance on prompt‐related p‐frames as well as potential L1 influence on specific p‐frames. German learners displayed the lowest degree of flexibility and creativity, while Hindi learners exhibited the highest. Chinese and Arabic learners demonstrated moderate levels, falling between the two extremes. Statistically significant differences in p‐frame tokens across functional categories were observed in all groups. This study contributes to a nuanced understanding of phraseological competence in EFL learners from different L1 backgrounds and holds pedagogical implications for the globalized educational landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentative writing is a fundamental aspect of undergraduate students' academic and scientific writing related to critical thinking and problem-solving skills. However, previous studies have shown that students face various difficulties with argumentative writing, such as unclear and illogical ideas, less-structured arguments, and unbalanced interpretation of issues, data, and evidence. This study aims to improve the argumentative writing skills of undergraduate students by integrating computer-supported argumentative writing tools, such as annotation, conversational agents (CAs), and collaborative concept maps, into an online learning management system. Since the study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, these tools can support meaningful learning activities and investigation in argumentative writing. The researchers divided sixty participants into the experimental group (N = 30) and the control group (N = 30). The results showed that the experimental group's writing achievements outperformed the control group, and the three tools effectively improved the five elements of argumentative writing, including claims, grounds, warrants, backings, and rebuttal. Furthermore, a deep analysis found that the number of annotations, valid CAs' responses, and argument nodes on collaborative concept maps can significantly predict students' argumentative writing development. Moreover, students perceived that the incorporated tools could effectively improve their argumentative writing skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite all the attempts to convince teachers and school authorities to support critical thinking (CT) skills in school settings, the application of CT skills has not reached a satisfactory point. Using a quasi-experimental design, the present study attempted to examine the effect of critiquing journal articles on English major students' argumentative writing abilities. To develop CT skills among language learners and improve their argumentative writing abilities, the strategy of critiquing journal articles was applied to a semester of foreign language writing classroom instruction of the experimental group for the results to be compared later with the performance in a control group. This comparison was made through the analysis of covariance, which revealed that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group in writing argumentatively. This, in turn, demonstrated that critiquing journal articles as a pedagogical strategy in classrooms could significantly affect English as a foreign language learners' argumentative writing performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the improvement-oriented nature of peer-feedback activities, students have to deal with errors (e.g., spelling and argumentation errors) when providing and processing peer-feedback on writing assignments. Despite the central role of errors in feedback activities, it is uncertain how students deal with errors and whether the dealing with errors is affected by interpersonal perceptions. Therefore, this study explores (1) whether cognitive sub-phases are distinguishable during the process of dealing with errors and (2) the extent to which dealing with errors is affected by interpersonal perceptions. Six dyads of Dutch 11th grade students provided and processed peer-feedback on argumentative texts while thinking-aloud, and they reflected on the processes in a post-interview. The think-aloud utterances and interviews were analyzed with a mixed-methods design, using quantitative content analyses, and qualitative thematic analyses. The dealing with errors during peer-feedback provision displayed two patterns: error identification either occurred simultaneously with the decoding and often any evaluation-related thoughts lacked, or error-identification occurred as a result of an interpreting/evaluating phase. Also during peer-feedback processing, two main patterns were observable: students either knew immediately whether they agreed with feedback, or they first had to study the feedback more thoroughly. Additionally, interpersonal perceptions seemed to affect most students implicitly during feedback provision, and most students explicitly during feedback processing. As such, this study provides empirical evidence for the existence of cognitive sub-phases in the process of dealing with errors during peer-feedback activities, and portrays how these activities may be affected by interpersonal perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing is hard for students who are learning English; they often find it challenging to transform what is on their mind in writing. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between the writing test and assessment writing through argumentative writing. Data was analyzed using the correlation test to determine the close relationship between independent and dependent variables. This study involved 100 students from the Department of English Education at the University of Riau, Indonesia. The results showed that the writing test and assessment writing was closely related, as evidenced by the influence and significance between the writing test and assessment writing, which was tested through argumentative writing. The results revealed that the writing test and assessment writing have similar results. Overall, both variables are equally important and related. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the effect of the Project-based Learning (PjBL) Class Model on Chinese undergraduates’ argumentative writing performance. A mixed-methods approach was employed to attain the main objective of the study. It included 50 non-English major students in the control group (25) and experimental group (25) from a Chinese University. The experimental group participants were taught argumentative writing under the PjBL Class Model, while the control group used conventional Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP) Class Model. After a six-week teaching experiment, semi-structured interviews with nine students of different majors from the experimental class were conducted to investigate the PjBL Class Model’s influence on argumentative writing and its acceptability. SPSS analysis of pre- and post-tests revealed that the overall writing scores and sub-scores in terms of idea expression, text organization, language use, and writing strategies had been raised significantly. Interview findings showed that students had a strong perception and acceptance of the PjBL Class Model for learning argumentative writing, and compared to the conventional teaching model, it significantly boosted their interest in the subject.

The paper presents activities specifically conceived to stimulate high school students in the first two years to read, summarize and comprehend argumentative texts. Specifically this article describes exercises on contrastive summaries which, synthesizing a text, express an “assent-or-dissent” position with regards to the thesis expressed in the source text. These exercises have proved to be effective for students to reflect on vocabulary and some grammatical and textual structures.

This study investigates the combined impact of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and Uncertain Motivation (UM) strategies on the argumentative writing performance of Saudi EFL learners, using the Toulmin Model. Sixty Saudi EFL students participated in four writing tasks, with results demonstrating significant improvements in essay quality, particularly in clarity, structure, and depth. AI tools provided real-time feedback, enhancing students' ability to refine claims, data, backing, and counterarguments. UM strategies, employing varied and unpredictable rewards, effectively sustained student motivation and engagement. However, a temporary decline was noted early in the study, attributed to the learning curve associated with both AI and the Toulmin model.Writing argumentative essays poses significant linguistic and cognitive challenges for EFL learners. By addressing these barriers, the study highlights the potential of AI to enhance EFL writing proficiency and underscores the motivational role of UM in maintaining student engagement. The findings emphasize the importance of integrating AI and UM thoughtfully into educational practices to maximize their effectiveness. Future research is encouraged to explore AI's long-term effects, address ethical considerations, and refine the integration of AI and UM strategies across diverse learning contexts.

This study examined how teachers integrate chatbots into English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning, drawing upon the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. Ten teachers were invited to design lesson plans for teaching argumentative writing using a chatbot named Argumate. We analyzed the teachers’ professional knowledge, as demonstrated in their lesson plans. Additionally, interviews were conducted to understand the teachers’ reasoning behind their instructional planning. The results revealed that the teachers adopted three approaches to chatbot integration, including teacher instruction followed by chatbot use, chatbot use followed by teacher instruction, and chatbot use supplemented with teacher instruction. Moreover, the teachers demonstrated their professional knowledge by combining the chatbot with different teaching strategies (e.g. collaborative learning and experiential learning) and using the chatbot to design learning activities (e.g. chatbot-assisted writing practice and chatbot-supported debate activities) that leveraged the chatbot’s strengths. The teachers’ professional knowledge was also evident in their ability to identify the chatbot’s limitations and supplement chatbot-related activities with additional activities to provide comprehensive support for students’ writing development. The findings shed light on the potential of chatbots as a language learning tool and the importance of teachers’ professional knowledge in integrating chatbots in the language classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilinguals often outperform monolinguals at apprehending the perspectives of others—an apparent consequence of their experiences moving across linguistic and sociocultural contexts. Whether English learners' (ELs') use of such skill in academic writing may be affected by literacy curriculum is the focus of this study. The study explored students' use of social perspective taking (SPT) in writing by examining their responses to a novel argumentative writing task, the iPad–Take A Stand assessment (iTAS). The iTAS was designed to assess the efficacy of the Word Generation curriculum (WG), which provides supports for discussing and deploying multiple perspectives, during its 2012–2014 randomized controlled trial. iTAS essays produced in that study by 4th–7th-grade ELs and their non-EL peers were coded along two dimensions of SPT, acknowledgment and articulation. Analyses revealed a positive impact of WG irrespective of language status on social perspective acknowledgment, the less sophisticated dimension; in contrast, a 'bilingual boost' of the curriculum was detected in students' use of social perspective articulation, the more sophisticated dimension. These findings suggest ELs may draw on their SPT skills when constructing written arguments, at least in the presence of WG's sociocognitive and linguistic supports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhetorical move-step analysis, an analytical approach within discourse analysis, is commonly employed to scrutinize the rhetorical structures inherent in various community genre practices. This method has also been extensively applied in academic and professional writing, particularly in published research articles and doctoral dissertations. However, little research has investigated the rhetorical move-step structures evident in argumentative writing by Chinese undergraduate students. Therefore, this study explores the rhetorical move-step structure of argumentative essays in Chinese EFL contexts. A corpus comprising 30 argumentative essays authored by undergraduate students at a Chinese university was assembled for analysis. The move-step structure of the data was analyzed using Hyland’s (1990) analytical framework. The results indicated that most students utilized Hyland’s model in crafting their argumentative essays. Additionally, the findings revealed that the argumentative essays by Chinese undergraduates adhered to a structure consisting of five obligatory moves, three conventional moves, one optional move, and multiple obligatory, conventional, and optional steps beyond the established analytical framework. These findings’ implications extend to pedagogical practices and further research in the domain of EFL students’ academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentation is a complex intellectual skill essential for academic achievement in a range of scholarly disciplines. Argumentative writing demands effective coordination of language use, reasoning processes, and background knowledge about a given topic. It is a cognitively challenging activity, especially for students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The Dialectical Map (DMap) is an open-source argument visualization tool that scaffolds argument analysis, evaluation, and construction. A quasi-experiment was conducted with 190 undergraduate EFL students to investigate the pedagogical value of DMapping as a pre-writing activity. The research also explored the effect of DMapping on student motivation in learning argumentation. We found the DMap functioned as an effective pre-writing tool for argumentative writing and promoted transfer of argumentation skills. DMapping facilitated more balanced arguments, and students reported positive experiences and attitudes toward learning argumentation with the DMap. This paper concludes with implications and future research directions for using the DMap as a cognitive tool to foster meaningful learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study measured the effect of self- directed learning (SDL) on writing argumentative essay. One hundred twenty-seven students were recruited as the participants of the investigation. The participants were classified to an experimental class (n =63) and a control class (n= 64) with cluster sampling technique. The experiment class were taught to implement SDL as a method for planning, designing, monitoring, and writing essays. The t test was employed to work with the data. The analysis confirmed that there were significant differences (t (125) = 5.965, p = 0.000) in the scores with mean score for [Self-Directed learners] (M = 74.206, SD = 11.651) was higher than and [Non- Self-Directed Learners] (M = 62.046, SD = 11.321). The mean differences (Md = 12.160, 95% CI: 8.125 to 16.194) was claimed to be significant. It indicated that SDL gave positive significant effect on learners' argumentative writing skills. Participants who underwent SDL showed a significant improvement in their writing skills (p < 0.05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has investigated the importance of explicit instruction and collaborative writing on (a) argumentative writing performance and (b) self-efficacy for writing of secondary school students. This intervention study additionally aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of alternating between individual and collaborative writing throughout the writing process (planning collaboratively, writing individually, revising collaboratively, and rewriting individually). A cluster randomized control trial (CRT) design was opted for. To investigate the effect of the intervention on secondary school students' writing performance and self-efficacy for writing, multilevel analyses were performed. It was found that the presence of explicit instruction in combination with collaborative writing is positively related to argumentative writing performance and self-efficacy for writing. Alternating between individual and collaborative writing was not significantly different from collaborating throughout all phases of the writing process. More in-depth research into the quality of collaboration is, however, needed to gain insight into the interaction processes and writing processes that take place during collaborative writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on writing strategies has defined their characteristics and focused on their contribution to writing gains over the last few decades. However, little has been written about how Moroccan EFL students perceive and use these strategies in their attempts to produce an essay. This paper seeks to fill that gap by investigating the employment of writing strategies by 245 students majoring in English at a university. The data were collected through a questionnaire, inspired by some related existing scales, and interviews were conducted with a group of participants. The participants were sampled adhering to the convenience type of sampling since the data collection was completed in one of the students’ usual classes. Combining both quantitative and qualitative analyses, findings demonstrated that writing strategies were used to a higher extent, with the students’ strong tendency to deploy memory and compensation strategies. It was also found that there is a positive and significant correlation between students’ use of writing strategies and argumentative writing. The qualitative findings added that the although the participants said they practiced writing strategies, the majority did not know how to use them. Some implications and recommendations are also discussed. The current study has provided useful insights into students’ readiness to use writing strategies in the Moroccan context and how their use may mitigate their difficulties in producing a well-argued essay.

The significance of positive psychology constructs in second language learning and teaching is currently being emphasized by many L2 scholars. Accordingly, the present study intended to investigate the relationship between a set of positive psychology variables (namely, critical thinking, academic resilience and grit) and argumentative writing performance of 48 Iranian EFL learners. The necessary data were collected based on the students' responses to an argumentative essay writing prompt and the instruments measuring their status in critical thinking, academic resilience and grit. The coefficient of correlation indexes indicated rather low associations between argumentative writing performance and these constructs. Multiple regression pointed to the superiority of subscales targeting affective aspects and emotion regulation in accounting for the argumentative writing performance of the learners. Nevertheless, despite the superiority of high-skilled writers compared to moderately-skilled and less-skilled writers in critical thinking, academic resilience and grit, MANOVA results indicated no statistically significant differences among these groups of learners in these variables. Finally, it was concluded that since these positive psychology constructs are responsive and amenable to instruction, some appropriate pedagogical interventions, materials, and activities must be designed to improve the students' competence in these constructs which, in turn, can positively influence their performance on rather challenging academic tasks.

Assessing the content of learners' compositions is a common practice in second language (L2) writing assessment. However, the construct definition of content in L2 writing assessment potentially underrepresents the target competence in content and language integrated learning (CLIL), which aims to foster not only L2 proficiency but also critical thinking skills and subject knowledge. This study aims to conceptualize the construct of content in CLIL by exploring subject specialists' perspectives on essays' content quality in a CLIL context. Eleven researchers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) rated the content quality of research-based argumentative essays on ELF submitted in a CLIL course and produced think-aloud protocols. This study explored some essay features that have not been considered relevant in language assessment but are essential in the CLIL context, including the accuracy of the content, presence and quality of research, and presence of elements required in academic essays. Furthermore, the findings of this study confirmed that the components of content often addressed in language assessment (e.g., elaboration and logicality) are pertinent to writing assessment in CLIL. The manner in which subject specialists construe the content quality of essays on their specialized discipline can deepen the current understanding of content in CLIL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the difference between L1 and L2 lexical diversity of argumentative and narrative writings of L2 learners, and the contribution of syntactic complexity and lexical diversity to the writing quality in the L2 argumentative and narrative writings of EFL learners. To this end, 46 pre-intermediate and intermediate Iranian EFL learners from four intact classes wrote one argumentative and one narrative essay in L2, and one argumentative and one narrative essay in L1 on different topics. Paired-samples t-tests revealed that lexical diversity surfaced more in the L1 writing of the learners. Multiple linear regressions indicated that among five measures of syntactic complexity, mean length of T-unit and clauses per T-unit better predict the quality of argumentative writing. In addition, complex nominals per clause are better predictors of narrative writing quality. Simple linear regressions showed that lexical diversity is a significant predictor of L2 writing in both genres. Based on the findings, writing instructors are advised to provide L2 learners with explicit instruction on the use of diverse vocabulary and different syntactic structures in order to help them improve the quality of their writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of positive psychology constructs in second language learning and teaching is currently being emphasized by many L2 scholars. The present study intended to investigate the relationship between a set of positive psychology variables (namely, critical thinking, academic resilience, and grit) and the argumentative writing performance of 48 Iranian EFL learners. The data were collected based on the students' responses to an argumentative essay writing prompt and the instruments measuring their status in critical thinking, academic resilience, and grit. The coefficient of correlation indexes indicated rather low associations between argumentative writing performance and these constructs. Multiple regression pointed to the superiority of subscales targeting affective aspects and emotion regulation in accounting for the argumentative writing performance of the learners. Nevertheless, despite the superiority of high-skilled writers compared to moderately-skilled and lessskilled writers in critical thinking, academic resilience, and grit, MANOVA results indicated no statistically significant differences among these groups of learners in these variables. Finally, it was concluded that since these positive psychology constructs are responsive and amenable to instruction, some appropriate pedagogical interventions, materials, and activities must be designed to improve the students' competence in these constructs which, in turn, can positively influence their performance on rather challenging academic tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mastery of formulaic sequences by language learners is considered to be crucial since it enables them to accomplish the basic communicative requirements (Wray, 2002) of target language use. Of all the formulaic sequences, the mastery of collocations is known to have an enormous impact on learners’ ability to move beyond the intermediate level. This data-driven study explores the word combinations (both conventional and unconventional L2 strings) of L2 users of English. Specifically, the adjective-noun combinations in an L2 corpus (Turkish Undergraduate Writers of English) were explored to find the potential L2 strings functioning as unconventional collocations. Then, these L2 strings were compared with the adjective-noun collocations in the LOCNESS corpus to determine whether the choices made by L2 learners differed from those of L1 users. The findings show that the spectrum of the L2 word combinations was broader in comparison with LOCNESS. The results suggest that the L2 learners produced a higher number of unconventional collocations than conventional collocations matching with the L1. The L2 strings support that the use of collocations can be rather problematic for learners of English however advanced they are. Some pedagogical implications of the findings for explicit collocation and vocabulary teaching are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mean dependency distance (MDD) and mean hierarchical distance (MHD) are two linguistic measures used in dependency syntax studies to investigate the syntactic features of compositions written by English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. However, their applicability and validity in differentiating proficiency levels and genre effects among Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learners remain unknown. This study uses a longitudinal dataset that tracks 110 Chinese JFL learners over 12 months and examines their syntactic development as well as the effects of genres. The results indicate that both MDD and MHD effectively capture developmental and genre effects; moreover, both measures show significantly higher values in argumentative writing than narrative writing. However, the extent of genre effects over time is not the same in MDD and MHD. The findings provide new insights into the developmental characteristics of JFL learners' interlanguage and may contribute to evaluating syntactic complexity and developing automatic evaluation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although peer feedback is a prevailing practice to promote evaluative judgement, its influence on the development of this higher-order cognitive ability has not yet been adequately explored. Specifically, there is a dearth of research that examines the benefit of providing and receiving peer feedback in developing students' understanding of assessment standards of writing. The purpose of this study is to explore students' perceptions of how different feedback roles influenced their three types of evaluative judgement of ESL argumentative writing, namely hard, soft and dynamic evaluative judgement. During five weeks, 24 undergraduate students enrolled in an English argumentative writing course at a Malaysian public university were randomly assigned to three distinct peer feedback roles, namely feedback provider, feedback receiver, or feedback outsider, to participate in the peer feedback activities. Thematic analysis of pre- and postintervention surveys indicated that different feedback roles varied in facilitating the development of evaluative judgement. Despite the limitation of domain-specific knowledge, strategically integrating peer feedback into writing course design afforded students opportunities to cultivate the three types of evaluative judgement. This study translates the theoretical framework of evaluative judgement into identifiable goals within the course of English argumentative writing and sheds light on the cognitive mechanisms inherent in different feedback roles, which enables educators and researchers to better dissect peer feedback curriculum design and student-centred assessment activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meta-analyses indicate that explicit writing instruction (EWI) is an effective method for improving student writing self-efficacy and writing performance. EWI relies on explicit instruction of writing strategies through modeling, scaffolding and self-regulation. Most EWI-based interventions have been conducted by researchers, generally with subgroups of students or on a one-on-one basis, and very few have been conducted in other languages than English. Our quasi-experimental study aims to address these limits by testing EWI's effects when teachers themselves intervene using peer feedback during the writing of opinion letters. We used practice-based professional development to teach teachers how to use EWI, and compared two experimental conditions (EWI with and without peer feedback) to a control group (Business as Usual). A total of 483 French-speaking 5th grade students participated in the study. Results from repeated measure analyses showed that, with or without peer feedback, the EWI intervention produced better writing performance and higher self-efficacy compared to the control group. We discuss the role of EWI for writing performance and self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Critical thinking and argumentative writing are considered complex but essential skills for learners. However, few studies have examined how instructions can be designed to optimize the development of such skills simultaneously. Contextualized in flipped language classrooms, this study aimed to develop an instructional innovation for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Objectives: This study investigated the effects of an annotation‐supported Socratic questioning (ASSQ) approach as a flipped classroom enhancement on students' argumentative writing and critical thinking in an EFL writing course. Methods: Fifty students from two classes participated in the study, and they were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a comparison group. Following an 8‐week flipped learning curriculum, the experimental group learned with the proposed ASSQ approach in the enhanced flipped classroom, while the comparison group was exposed to the traditional flipped classroom. Students' argumentative writing performance was evaluated with their argumentative essays using a researcher‐developed writing rubric, and their critical thinking skills were assessed using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Results: Both groups significantly improved their argumentative writing, and the experimental group also significantly outperformed the comparison group after learning through the proposed approach. While the two groups had no significant difference in critical thinking skills, the within‐group comparison results revealed that the experimental group made significant improvements due to the instructional intervention. Implications: The ASSQ approach could enhance the flipped classroom in regard to the teaching of argumentative writing, whereas it bears only limited impact on critical thinking. Overall, the positive effect of the proposed approach on enhancing English learners' argumentative writing performance was mainly attributed to the combined affordances of Socratic questioning and a social annotation tool to scaffold the students' thinking through verbal articulation, and to visualize their thinking with social annotations throughout the flipped learning process. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Recent research has indicated that flipped classrooms can provide a more engaging context for encouraging active learning of students than traditional lecture‐based classrooms.Socratic questioning, which uses thought‐provoking questioning prompts to guide discussions, has been shown to be an active learning strategy to foster students' critical thinking skills.Social annotation tools are helpful in facilitating students' active learning in reading and comprehension. What this paper adds: This study proposed an annotation‐supported Socratic questioning (ASSQ) approach, merging the use of a social annotation tool and an active learning strategy, to enhance the instructional design of flipped language classrooms for English learners.Under the flipped learning conditions, the experimental group who learned with the ASSQ approach significantly outperformed the comparison group without this aid in argumentative writing performance.Under the flipped learning conditions, the proposed ASSQ approach could help both groups of students make satisfactory improvement in critical thinking skills, but there was no significant difference between the groups. Implications for practice: The combination of a social annotation tool and Socratic questioning into an integrated active learning approach can be applied to effectively flip argumentative writing courses for English learners.The proposed ASSQ approach can be adopted in longitudinal studies to explore its potential effect on critical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mastery of formulaic sequences by language learners is considered to be crucial since it enables them to accomplish the basic communicative requirements (Wray, 2002) of target language use. Of all the formulaic sequences, the mastery of collocations is known to have an enormous impact on learners’ ability to move beyond the intermediate level. This data-driven study explores the word combinations (both conventional and unconventional L2 strings) of L2 users of English. Specifically, the adjective-noun combinations in an L2 corpus (TUWE) were explored to find the potential L2 strings functioning as unconventional collocations. Then, these L2 strings were compared with the adjective-noun collocations in the LOCNESS corpus to determine whether the choices made by L2 learners differed from those of L1 users. The findings show that the spectrum of the L2 word combinations was broader in comparison with LOCNESS. The results suggest that the L2 learners produced a higher number of unconventional collocations than conventional collocations matching with the L1. The L2 strings support that the use of collocations can be rather problematic for learners of English however advanced they are. Some pedagogical implications of the findings for explicit collocation and vocabulary teaching are discussed.

This study explores first-year undergraduate students’ argumentation essays using argument diagramming structure. A corpus-driven data of 394 argumentative essays were gathered from both Indonesian and Thai universities. A content analysis was employed to examine the dataset of the students’ argumentative essays. After gathering primary information from the body parts of their essays, we subcategorized their argumentations into claims and premises in a compliant reading. To ensure data trustworthiness, this study employed triangulation by source and method. The findings show that the most prominent type of argument diagramming was a basic argument, followed by convergent and divergent arguments. Regardless of how the argument diagramming was written, the study found that the students still lacked mastery in structuring their logic when building up the case to be extended to claims and premises. This study suggests a need to revisit pedagogical instructions, in which there should be a provision not only on the basic knowledge of argument structures but also on the skills to recognize the quality of a good argument cognitively. This additional practice will provide important insights to recognize the representational strengths and weaknesses of the students’ argumentative writing proficiency to achieve a better performance in the content of their essays.

Writing difficulty and constraints have gained much attention nowadays, particularly in the EFL context. However, the writing difficulties of EFL male and female writers perceived in developing an argumentative essay were still under-researched. To fill the void, this concurrent mixed method study aimed to scrutinize the variation and frequency and explore the perceptions of being argumentative writers among 113 EFL university students in Jakarta, Indonesia. Online questionnaires were distributed through a survey and the framework of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), and the interviews were conducted concurrently. The findings illustrated that EFL male and female writers experienced almost similar major difficulties, including argumentative text genre, language use, difficulty in source/reference, problems in the cognitive process, and other technical difficulties. Further, to be argumentative writers, female writers tend to feel various combinations of feelings and apply more learning strategies. In contrast, male writers express more on the cognitive process of essay completion. However, either male or female writers become more aware of their weaknesses in the English language, such as reading skills.

This paper reports the results of a study aiming to investigate the effects of interactionist and interventionist dynamic assessment (DA) on learners' writing performance. To do so, 63 upperintermediate EFL learners were selected as the study participants. A writing pretest was administered to ensure the homogeneity of the participants and determine their level of proficiency prior to treatment. In the online interactionist DA group, the researchers implemented the treatment based on the 'Dynamic Mediation Process' proposed by Elliott (2002) and Xiaoxiao and Yan (2010). The framework comprised topic-choice, idea-generation, structuring and macro-revising stages. In doing so, the pre-task phase was conducted, followed by providing the mediation and performing post-task. In the interventionist DA group, Lantolf and Poehner's (2011) framework was followed. Based on this framework, the learners' erroneous language chunks were treated through the teacher's underlining the error, putting a question mark, circling it, or posing a written question concerning the problematic part. Alternatively, the teacher would point out the incorrect part and offer two options for the learners to choose from. At the end, a writing posttest was given to all groups to evaluate their writing performance after treatment. As the study findings helped reveal, both interactionist and interventionist DA types improved learners' writing performance. In addition, the comparison of the posttest scores indicated that the interactionist DA group participants even outperformed the interventionist ones on the writing posttest. The implications of the findings are discussed throughout the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing interest in exploring the application of chatbots in language education, studies on the process of chatbot-assisted language learning are scant. This qualitative study uses activity theory to understand how English as a foreign language students engage with a chatbot, Argumate, when composing argumentative essays. Five Chinese undergraduate students performed an argumentative writing task with the assistance of Argumate. Screen recordings capturing the students' writing processes, chat logs between the students and Argumate, the students' argumentative essays, and their responses to a post-task questionnaire survey were collected and analysed. The results indicated that the students formed a learning community with Argumate in which they used various mediating tools, including online information sources, notes, translation tools, and typing assistants, to facilitate their interaction with the chatbot. Additionally, the student–Argumate collaborative writing was shaped by rules associated with meeting task requirements and following argumentative writing conventions. At the same time, the students' need for additional scaffolds beyond those offered by Argumate posed challenges to their collaboration. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the complex interplay among students, chatbots, and other key elements in the activity system of chatbot-assisted writing and generate insights into the application of chatbots to writing pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-science majors often lack motivation to take science courses required for their graduation, because these courses are usually taught in a lecture format and are disconnected from their everyday life and needs related to future careers. This two-phase action research, utilizing argumentative writing (AW) supported with online simulation, was conducted over three academic years in a college chemistry course designed for non-science majors. Phase 1, a quasi-experimental design (n = 134), examined the treatment effects of AW projects and determined the components of AW that contributed to student gains in conceptual performance. The results showed that students in the AW group scored significantly higher in conceptual performance than the control group. Five AW components predicted student gains in conceptual performance: accuracy of claim, relationship between claim and question, relationship between claim and evidence, use of multiple examples, and use of appropriate writing style. Phase 2, a single group design (n = 118), explored the inter-relationships between pre-/post-course knowledge, pre-/post-course motivation, and students' performance on AW projects. The results showed that students' motivation to learn chemistry at the beginning of the course is a significant predictor of their conceptual performance. Pathway analysis found that the performance of AW projects in low motivation students was affected by extrinsic motivation (grades, career). Their performance in AW projects did not affect their post-course knowledge. In contrast, the performance in AW projects by high motivation students was affected by intrinsic motivation and self-determination. They cumulatively built knowledge through AW projects that eventually affected post-course knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates learning strategies in argumentative writing tasks among 60 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students, classified as proficient or less-proficient writers based on essay scores. Data were collected through a validated questionnaire assessing six categories of learning strategies: affective, metacognitive, social, compensatory, cognitive, and memory. Findings suggest female students utilize affective strategies more than males, but proficiency level does not significantly influence strategy choice. The results underline the need for explicit instruction in learning strategies as current student usage appears rudimentary. The study emphasizes the role of learning strategies in enhancing EFL writing performance, and future research could explore specific learning strategies in different language learning tasks.

Introduction English argumentative writing (EAW) is a ‘problem-solving’ cognitive process, and its relationship with critical thinking has drawn attention in China. This is because fostering EAW proficiency is a crucial element but a challenging task for Chinese high school English teaching and learning. The present study examined how critical thinking is related to Chinese high school students’ EAW performance. The study identified eight critical thinking disposition (CTD) subscales and aims to determine whether EAW and CTD are correlated. Methods A questionnaire modified from the Chinese Version Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CTDI-CV) and the Evaluation Criteria for English Argumentative Writing (ECEAW) were employed in this study. Both instruments were administered to 156 students from Grade 12. A purposive sampling of high school students was used in this study. Student EAW performance was scored by two experts based on the Evaluation Criteria for English Argumentative Writing. Results A significant relationship was found between students’ CTD and EAW abilities. Furthermore, among the eight CTD subdispositions, cognitive maturity, truth-seeking, analyticity, and justice were found to be positively correlated with EAW, and they all were found to be the main predictors of EAW proficiency among high school students. Conclusion Zhangzhou high school students’ CTDs were overall positive, and students’ EAW performance correlated significantly with the overall CTD and its four subdispositions of cognitive maturity, truth-seeking, analyticity, and justice. These four subdispositions showed a significantly predictive validity on EAW performance as well.

Introduction: Self-efficacy for writing (SEW) and reading ability are some of several factors that may be related to the quality of written text that students produce. The aim of the current study was (1) to explore the variation in SEW and written text quality in L1-Swedish and L2-English among upper secondary students with different reading profiles in L1 (typical reading vs. reading difficulties) and with different study backgrounds (SB1year or SB2years = one or two years of studies of Swedish and English, respectively), and in the next step (2) to explore if individual variations in L1-reading and SEW may explain variation in written text quality. Methods: Participants were 100 upper secondary students (aged 17-18) with different reading profiles operationalized as typical reading and reading difficulties. Data consisted of screening for word recognition and reading comprehension, text quality results from argumentative L1- and L2-writing tasks, school information on study background in Swedish/English, and students' responses from an online survey about SEW. Results: As to SEW results, an ANOVA revealed significant main effects for reading profile and study background in L1, but in L2 there was only a significant main effect for reading profile. Written text quality results indicated that there was a significant interaction effect between reading profile and study background in L1, indicating that the significant main effect for reading profile on written text quality was influenced by the group of students with reading difficulties and SB1year. There was a significant main effect for reading profile and study background on written text quality in L2. Students with reading difficulties and SB1year were the most vulnerable group, and they had the lowest scores in L1/L2 SEW and written text quality in L1 and L2. Multiple regression results indicated that word recognition and SEW contributed significantly to L1-text quality, and word recognition, reading comprehension, and SEW contributed significantly to L2-text quality. Thus, this study sheds light on the under-researched area of L1/L2 SEW and text quality of students with reading difficulties at the level of upper secondary school. Discussion: Pedagogical implications are discussed and highlight the need for writing instruction across subjects in upper secondary school and for extra writing support/scaffolding for students with reading difficulties and shorter study background in the language subjects L1 (Swedish) and L2 (English). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the challenges and lack of progress in writing argumentative essays in English have posed a pedagogical challenge for Chinese university students. To address this issue, this paper adopts an action research pedagogy and implements a 10-week intervention aimed at teaching argumentative writing based on the Toulmin model of argumentation. The instructional process followed a holistic-to-specific approach, encompassing the following three stages: (1) introduction of the general model, (2) instruction on the main dimensions of argumentative elements, and (3) teaching of the subdimension of argumentative elements. Data collection for this study included teacher-teaching diaries, students' interviews, and four writing scores. Both paired-sample t -tests and repeated measures analyses were conducted, revealing significant improvements in students' overall performance and the quality of argumentative elements across the different stages. This paper provides a comprehensive discussion on the impact of this whole-to-detail approach to teaching argumentation on the development of argumentative essay writing skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]