African Educational Research Journal - Vol. 9(1) - Full Length Research Paper - Designing an instructional unit on "argumentative essay" for prep year students

Oct 15, 2026

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Writing is a core productive skill for language learners, and this action research designs an instructional unit for prep-year students at a Turkish state university in Istanbul. The study targets learners in an English-medium academic-writing pathway where “Argumentative Essay Writing” is highly needed. One prep class implements the unit. Data come from interviews with students and instructors, plus students’ writing tasks and mid-term papers, supported by observation protocols. Results indicate the unit is efficient and applicable.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Academic writing: “Argumentative essay”

Rationale for teaching argumentative essays

Prior research on argumentative essay writing

African Educational Research Journal Vol. 9(1), pp. 1-19, January 2021 DOI: 10. 30918/AERJ.91.20.202 ISSN: 2354-2160 Full Length Research Paper Designing an instructional unit on “argumentative essay” for prep year students: An action research in a state university in Turkey Burak Tomak School of Foreign Languages, Marmara University, Turkey. Accepted 22 December, 2020 | ABSTRACT
Writing is one of the productive skills for language learners. This study was conducted to design a unit for language students who were enrolled in the School of Foreign Languages in one of the most prestigious Turkish state universities located in Istanbul. These learners had been taught different academic essay types in this educational institution for which the researcher designed an instructional unit on“Argumentative Essay Writing”, which was highly needed for the learners taking English-mediuminstruction to pursue their academic studies. For the purpose of this study, one prep class was chosen to implement the designed unit so that the efficiency could be evaluated in the end. As for the data collection tools, interviews were arranged with three students in the class where the design was implemented. Three junior students in different departments who had previously had a prep school experience before they took their departmental courses in their faculties were also interviewed as well as the instructors who gave the“academic writing” course by teaching the essay types for several years in this research context. Additionally, the writing tasks given to the students of the class where the research was conducted as well as their mid-term papers were also included in the data. All through these stages, observation protocols were also used by the “on-site” researcher. Results showed that an efficient and applicable unit for an“Argumentative Essay” is possible considering the students’ needs, entry characteristics, goals and objectives, instructional strategy, assessment, implementation and evaluation of the whole process.
Keywords: Academic writing, essay writing, School of Foreign Languages, argumentative essay, instructional unit. | | --- | | E-mail: [buraktomak@hotmail.com](buraktomak@hotmail.com). | INTRODUCTION Academic writing: “Argumentative essay” Academic writing is one of the courses offered to the students in higher education who pursue their studies in English. Shokrpour and Fallahzadeh (2008) define writing as “a complex activity, a social act which reflects the writer’s communicative skills which is difficult to develop and learn, especially in an EFL context” (p. 184) . Zheng (1999) confirms that writing is more challenging than other skills. Therefore, White (1981) cited in Nunan (1994) urges the need to teach students “how to write”. Kolawole (1998) also states the necessity of teaching the writers to express themselves in a logical and coherent way. Coffin (2004) elaborates on the issue by saying: “students’ academic writing continues to be atthe center of teaching and learning in higher education, but it is often an invisible dimension of the curriculum; that is, the rules or conventions governing what counts as academic writing are often assumed to be part of ‘common sense’knowledge students have, and are thus not explicitly taught within disciplinary course”(p.3). Though academic writing might be neglected to some extent, the familiarity of the students with it and its different types will be to their advantage because the argumentative essay writing is one of the skills of which students enrolled in a university which offer Englishmedium-instruction are highly in need because they may use this style in their term papers or exams. However, Nippold and Ward-Lonergan (2010) warn that“argumentative writing is a challenging communication task that needs sophisticated cognitive and linguistic abilities” (p. 238) . Though this is a difficult task (Chanie, 2013; Deane and Song, 2014) , Crowhurst (1991)

FAQs

What is the main goal of the instructional unit in the study?

To design an instructional unit on “Argumentative Essay Writing” for prep year students so that its efficiency can be evaluated against learners’ needs and course goals.

How is data collected to evaluate the unit’s effectiveness?

Through interviews with students and instructors, analysis of students’ writing tasks and mid-term papers, and observation protocols used by the on-site researcher.

Which learners are targeted by the unit?

Language students enrolled in the School of Foreign Languages at a Turkish state university, specifically those taking English-medium instruction for their academic studies.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen