An examination of contrastive rhetoric teaching methods for EFL university students

English composition is a difficult academic subject. It is even more difficult when it is being studied as an English as a Second Language (ESL) course or, especially, an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) subject. Contrastive rhetoric is the field of study concerned with how rhetorical expectations and conventions differ between cultures (Liebman, 1988).;Although contrastive rhetoric has gained breadth in many directions worldwide, the field has been mired in controversy and has not progressed in its original direction, EFL composition. This study seeks to make a contribution toward breaking the ideological gridlock that exists in the field and test specific techniques for teaching contrastive rhetoric to EFL writing students.;Sixty-five students from all different majors attending Handong Global University in Pohang, South Korea, and taking courses in English Grammar and Composition (EGC), the rough equivalent of pre-English 101, participated in this quasi-experimental study of contrastive rhetoric teaching methods. These students were tested on their ability to write English academic essays before and after receiving instruction in English composition that included contrastive rhetoric as a focus. The experimental group received contrastive rhetoric instruction in teacher conferencing sessions and peer response group activities, in addition to receiving it in classroom lecture and written feedback on essays. The control group received contrastive rhetoric instruction only in lecture and written feedback on essays.;Overall, both experimental and control groups improved their essay scores from pretest to posttest, but the experimental group's improvement was not statistically significantly greater than the progress measured for the control group as a whole. However, low level subjects (those who scored <3.5 on the pretest) showed significantly greater improvement than their control group peers on their posttest results. This finding suggests that the teaching treatment of contrastive rhetoric emphasized in teacher conferences and peer response groups was more effective in helping Korean EFL low level students to improve their essay writing ability than the control of presenting contrastive rhetoric in lecture and written feedback on essays only.;This finding is important since the low level subjects are the ones who need the class most. Their pretest scores (<3.5) indicate serious deficiencies in the written rhetorical presentation of their ideas upon enrolling in class. Moreover, there were far more low level subjects (41) than high level subjects (24) in this study. The results of this study indicate two things: (1) more study of contrastive rhetoric instructional techniques is warranted and (2) low level subjects can benefit from and probably should receive contrastive rhetoric instruction in teacher conferencing and peer response groups in university level EFL pre-English 101 writing courses.