An Experimental Research On Applying Argument Diagramming To Argumentative Writing In College English Teaching

As an important part of language output,English writing has become increasingly significant in college English teaching.English writing ability is also an important aspect to measure students'English language competence.Different from other writing genres,argumentative writing requires the writer to analyze the topic and arguments logically.Therefore,argumentative writing shows a writer's Critical Thinking?CT?ability and abstract analytical capability,which is a challenge for the learners.While many students often get very low scores on writing,the main problems of their writings are:large amounts of language errors,unclear logical sequence,monotonous writing content,weakness in discourse organization and so on.For these problems,some researchers have tried to apply Argument Diagramming?AD?to writing teaching and made a difference.Argument Diagramming is an important analytic technique in the field of argumentation theory and Critical Thinking studies,which is a visual representation of the content and structure of an argument,aiding with improving abilities of expressing,understanding,communicating and inferencing.Studies abroad show that Argument Diagramming has obtained great popularity and presented a positive trend of application in pedagogy.However,there are few relevant studies in China,especially in the field of English writing teaching.Based on schema theory,knowledge visualization theory and Wen Qiufang's evaluative standard of writing content,the current research attempts to test the effectiveness of Argument Diagramming on improving students'writing proficiency and Critical Thinking Skills through a writing teaching experiment,in which applying Argument Diagramming to argumentative writing in college English teaching.Writing tests and Critical Thinking tests are employed as the testing tools.It mainly focuses on answering the following research questions:?1?What's the effect of applying Argument Diagramming to writing teaching on the students'English writing achievements in proficiency tests??2?How does the application of Argument Diagramming to writing teaching influence the writing contents of the students'writings??3?What's the impact of applying Argument Diagramming to writing teaching on the students'Critical Thinking Skills?The teaching experiment was conducted within 18 weeks.68 first-year students from two parallel English classes of a normal university in Northeast of China were recruited as the participants of the research,one class was selected as the experimental group randomly,the other as the control group.The control group was taught with the traditional teaching method,while the teacher applied Argument Diagramming to the experimental group's writing class,during which the students were trained to analyze arguments by using argument diagrams so as to present the hierarchical relationship of content in the form of diagrams.Both groups were required to finish two writing tasks,that is pre and post writing test?chosen from the CET-4?.The Chinese version of California Critical Thinking Skills Test is employed to measure students'Critical Thinking Skills before and after the experiment.Writing achievements and writing content are scored based on the writing evaluative standard of CET-4 and Wen Qiufang's mode,which is composed of relevance,explicitness,sufficiency and coherence.Students'Critical Thinking Skills was measured by California Critical Thinking Skills Test from three aspects:analysis,evaluation as well as inference.All the data was collected and analyzed by Excel and SPSS 19.0.By comparing the data before and after the experiment,the major findings are:First,the teaching experiment of applying Argument Diagramming to students'writing course has a positive effect on students'writing achievements,not only the writing scores but also the writing levels.Before the experiment,the mean scores of the two groups are close to each other?8.71,8.76?and most students'writing achievements are in the 3^rd grade?7-9?.After the experiment,the mean scores of the experiment group?10.06?is 1.35 points?full score 15?higher than that before the experiment,there is a significant difference in the Paired Sample T-Test?p=0.000,<.001?,the writing achievements of the experimental group have improved significantly.Besides,58.82%students can reach the 2^nd grade?10-12?.Second,in terms of the students'writing content,great progress has been made in relevance,explicitness,sufficiency as well as coherence.In the post-test,students'writings are more closely related to the given topic and consistent with the theme;they present clearer core argument and supporting arguments;the process of argumentation is more rational with more proper and concrete examples;besides,more cohesive devices are used to make the text coherent,which improve the text coherence.Third,the students'Critical Thinking Skills has improved after learning and using Argument Diagramming.Before the experiment,students possess moderate Critical Thinking Skills on the whole?19.59 in EG,19.39 in CG?,the scoring sequence among the three sub-scales is evaluation,inference and analysis.After the experiment,the experimental group has improved their Critical Thinking Skills significantly with the score 21.21.According to the comparison of distribution,more students can reach the high level.Furthermore,students'analytic and inferential skills has improved a lot.This research implies that as a graphical tool of thinking visualization,the application of Argument Diagramming is helpful to improve students'argumentative writing proficiency and Critical Thinking Skills by providing them with clear thought and improving their ability of organizing discourse.Therefore,Argument Diagramming and argumentative writing should be combined effectively in college English teaching.In spite of the findings,there are still some limitations such as the limitation of time and sample size,which are needed to be revised in future studies to get more comprehensive and reliable results.