Argumentative Writing Task

According to Kim (2008) most cross cultural studies based on rhetorical patterns suffer from two weaknesses. First, they only take into account the English texts that the ESL/EFL student has written with the belief that “the ESL compositions would reflect the rhetorical patterns of the students’ first language” (p.1). Secondly, Kim (2008) believes that when the ESL/EFL students are asked to write only in English, they might be “primed by English culture and may try to adopt English rhetorical patterns rather than follow the rhetorical styles preferred in their native culture” (p. 2). Therefore, it is not sufficient to only take into account the English texts written by the ESL/EFL students

when conducting contrastive rhetoric studies. In order to get a better perspective when studying the rhetoric of any specific culture, it is necessary to “investigate the texts written in the speakers’ native language in order to determine whether the rhetorical pattern is transferred from the native language” (Kim, 2008, p.3).

It should also be kept in mind that Iranian students’ writing experience is "essentially limited to the formal writing courses in Persian during their elementary and high school days" (Abdollahzadeh, 2010, p. 69). The compositions they do write are only in Persian and the students are not required to write compositions in English classes in schools. Students are not required to write essays or compositions after high school in the Iranian educational system (Abdollahzadeh, 2010).

Since this study focused on students who have had typical academic training in Iran, any student who had formally studied or attended English classes overseas was excluded. In order to avoid translation from one language to another, participants were not informed in the beginning that they would be writing about the same topic in both Persian and English, and the second essay writing task was given one week after the first task was introduced. Writing was done outside the class. All the essays were typed in order to facilitate text analysis and avoid illegible handwriting. All errors remained unchanged in the typed texts.

In order to ensure the students’ precision in writing the argumentative essays, the researcher approached a number of EFL teachers who were teaching the Higher- intermediate courses at a well known college in Mashhad, Iran. This was done in order to use the teachers’ authority in class to ensure students’ precision in writing. After getting their cooperation, the teachers assigned the writing tasks as class activity for the students.

A total of 40 Iranian Higher-intermediate EFL Students were asked to write a 300-350 word Persian argumentative essay. The students were instructed to write an essay arguing for or against the idea of establishing coeducational elementary schools in Iran. This was translated into Persian as “ددرگ قیوشت دیاب ناریا رد طلتخم یاه ناتسبد داجیا”. The students were asked to type the essays and E-mail them to an E-mail account set up by the researcher. A week later, the same instructions were given to the students but this time round they were asked to write an English essay with the same topic “Having coeducational elementary schools in Iran should be encouraged”.

Since the researcher wanted to check whether the students would transfer Persian structures and expressions to their English essays, the Persian essay was appointed to the participants first. This order of task presentation was also used by many previous studies including Reid (1984), Kubota (1998), Kobayashi and Rinnert (2008) and Saneh (2009). Widdowson (1990) emphasizes that when students feel under pressure in ESL writing, they automatically turn to their first language for relief of pressure and end up making mistakes. Since including all 80 essays might be considered bulky, two samples (one in English and one in Persian) of the written essays can be seen in Appendix 6.

This essay topic was chosen because it is a current controversial issue that has been debated in Iran at the time of data collection, it is thought provoking, and also has a number of potential arguments for both writing for or against the topic. Various websites have devoted various WebPages to the issue [http://www.independentschools.com/iran/ (Independent School); http://www.iranchamber.com/index.php (Iran Chamber Society); http://www.iranjewish.com/News_e.htm (Tehran Jewish Committee)]. Thus, the researcher considered the topic to be interesting and motivating for students to write about.

Wolfe, Britt and Butler (2009) believe that there are three “expectations or slots” to be filled in any argumentative text. These include: the theme, the side, and finally the predicate. They define each in the following way: “theme is the topic or subject of the argument, the side is represented as either pro or con, and the predicate is the particular position taken by the author” (p. 186). According to this, the three slots for the argumentative topic used in the present research would be: 1. the theme is having coeducational elementary schools in Iran should be encouraged 2. The side is for the practice and 3. The predicate is it should be legalized.

The main reason for choosing this number of words for the essays was that the students’ writing tasks generally include 300-350 words and so the students are acquainted with this for their writing activities. Also, since the argumentative essays were going to be a part of the students’ class writing activity, the researcher needed to follow the classes’ normal procedures. The students were asked to hand in their writings in a week’s time. There was no time restriction as many scholars (Raimes, 1983; Ballard and Clanchy, 1991; Zia Houseini & Derakhshan, 2006; Kobayashi & Rinnert, 2008) believe time restriction can hinder the true performance of students. Participants were also allowed to use dictionaries in order to enhance their essay production and also to feel less constrained due to their limited knowledge of vocabulary and expressions. This was also the class norm for any writing activity.

Argumentative essay was chosen for a number of reasons; including "it is common in the academic disciplines and it is sensitive to task, audience and community, and it is particularly difficult for non native speaker" (Johns, 1993, p. 76). Also, it demands more attention on the part of the writer with regard to the audience the composition is written for. In argumentative writing, the writer has to address and consider the views of the

audience and so has to pay closer attention to what he/she writes (Connor, 1987; Rafoth, 1984).

3.2.7 Interview

There are numerous limitations regarding the use of close-ended questionnaires in a study. Some of these limitations would include collecting data which is distant from the real context it is meant to be used in, being limited to only the designers’ preferences, not having room for the respondents’ explanation or elaboration (Baker and Boonkit, 2004; Petric and Czarl, 2003). In order to reduce the effects of some of these shortcomings, the researcher decided to use an interview along with the students’ written essays to help triangulate (See 2.16 Triangulation) the responses and collect complementary data. The interviews were mainly used as a secondary source of information in order to confirm what the students had mentioned in the questionnaire and what they produced in the argumentative essays. The interview was used more as “a medium for guided reflections” (Buckingham, 2008, p. 5) in this study.

The interview questions (See Appendix 5) aimed at uncovering how the respondents plan and write in English and what they transfer from Persian writing styles. The aim of conducting such an interview was to get the Iranian EFL students’ perspectives regarding their essay writing and their writing background. The interview questions were based on Gosden (1996); Victori (1999); and Buckingham (2008). The interview was conducted in English as the participants had a good command of English. The length of the interview was restricted to 15 minutes to keep it manageable.

A variety of question types were used in the interview. As Buckingham (2008) suggest “closed questions that received a positive response were followed by an open question asking the respondent to describe the relevant experience or provide reasons for the situation discussed” (p. 5). To help keep the interview on course, the researcher employed many interviewing techniques (See 2.18 Interview; Berg, 2001). Some of these techniques included appreciative comments, an interested silence, expressing doubt on what had been mentioned, and referring to past points mentioned by the interviewee (Abdollahzadeh, 2010). Kvale’s (1996) stages of conducting an effective interview were taken into consideration during the interview (See 2.18 Interview). The interviews were audio taped and transcribed. A total of 8 participants (on a voluntary basis) were selected to take part in the interview. Of these 8 participants 4 were male and 4 were female students. This was done so as to ensure both genders had an equal chance at expressing their views.

3.3 Research Design