Development Of Argumentation Performance And Academic Language Proficiency

Learners often suffer from challenges in learning argumentation and responding to linguistic demands at lexical and syntactic level posed by English argumentative writing,a crucial but difficult genre task in ESL context.To help students improve their English writing skills,researchers have been studying ways better facilitating teaching writing.Combined feedback assessment(CFA)has been implemented as one of effective attempts to give learners opportunities for the improvements of argumentation and language performance.However,this student-centered form of classroom assessment is questioned in L2 writing courses.To seek solution for such problems,teacher-student collaborative assessment(TSCA)has been raised by Wen Qiufang,which highlights teachers' professional help in revision activities.Grounded in the pedagogical context of CFA and TSCA,the present study,on the basis of simplified Toulmin model and framework for academic language,was meant to explore the changes on argumentation performance and academic language proficiency over a semesterlong instructions.Argumentation performance was conceptualized into argumentative structure and argumentation substance,while academic language was conceptualized into syntactic complexity and lexical richness.Eighty-six sophomore English majors from two natural classes participated in the study.One class that received the writing instruction based on combined feedback was set as CFA group(n=44),and the other class experiencing the instructional approach based on teacherstudent collaborative assessment was set as TSCA group(n=42).The writings from pre-writing test were collected,among which 40 writings were from CFA group and 41 writings were from TSCA group.Meanwhile,the post-test writings after 14-week instructions were gathered.According to the results of normality,Paired Sample T Test or Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was run to analyze intra-group differences in argumentation performance and academic language proficiency,while Independent Sample T Test or Mann-Whitney U Test was run to test inter-group differences in argumentation performance and academic language proficiency between these two groups.The main results of this study are as follows:(1)Both groups achieved significant improvements in argumentative structure,which can be observed in the more use of counterarguments and rebuttal claim.By contrast,the TSCA group significantly outperformed the CFA group,after the instructions,in the frequency of counterargument claim and rebuttal data;(2)Argumentation substance of claim,data,counterarguments,rebuttal claim as well as overall quality exhibited significantly qualified improvements in both groups.The TSCA group significantly outperformed the CFA group in the argumentation quality in terms of counterargument claim,rebuttals and overall substance;(3)CFA group demonstrated significant development,with regard to academic language at syntactic level,in the C/T value and clause constituents,while the TSCA group significantly improved the DC/C value,clausal and noun-phrasal complexity.Over a semester,significant differences existed in DC/C and noun-phrasal complexity between the two groups with TSCA group showing higher value;(4)CFA group demonstrated significant development,with regard to academic language at lexical level,in lexical sophistication,and the TSCA group significantly improved lexical variation,while the lexical density decreased.After the instructions,the CFA group significantly excelled the TSCA group in lexical density.Despite learners' explicit development revealed in the results,relating argumentation performance and academic language proficiency in the context of both CFA and TSCA,TSCA group remarkably performs better when teacher's scaffolding is provided during assessment.Such a finding contributes to the following pedagogical implications.For the application of writing classroom assessment,encouraging self-regulation on learning through social interaction should be gradual,starting from teacher-led scaffolding,particularly in L2 context.Additionally,explicit instruction for syntactic complexity and lexical richness should be integrated into argumentative writing courses to equip students the ability to produce academic texts.For learners,the conceptualization of argumentation performance and academic language framework could help them have a good command of the features of argumentative essays.