Scaffolding is a temporary entity which enables the novice to achieve his/her potential and then is eliminated when they enhance their learning. Accordingly, this project aimed to investigate the impact of teacher and peer scaffolding on the participants' argumentative writing ability. To this end, one hundred students at Imam Khomeini International University were randomly assigned to four groups: teacher scaffolding, peer scaffolding, teacher and peer scaffolding, and the control group. The treatment lasted for six sessions for each group in three months for the experimental groups. The participants in the control group, however, received no scaffolding treatment. The results of one-way ANOVA conducted on the participants' post-test writings indicated that the total argumentative writing ability of the participants in the three experimental groups significantly improved compared to the control group. The treatment was effective, and the difference between the four groups was statistically significant. The results of the MANOVA also corroborated the ANOVA results. The argumentative writing ability of the participants in terms of the total organization and linguistic accuracy was significantly enhanced through scaffolding, and the difference between the four groups was statistically significant. However, among the three experimental groups, the group receiving teacher scaffolding made the most significant improvement. The results of this study imply that teachers should apply more scaffolding strategies while instructing. The materials developers and syllabus designers should also produce materials which entail more teacher and peer scaffolding in class.

The importance of learning lexical bundles for enhancing language proficiency is gaining increasing interest in the field of foreign language learning. Lexical bundles, commonly understood as recurrent word sequences in discourse, are crucial for developing fluency and comprehension across various linguistic domains. This quasi-experimental research was conducted at Danesh Language Institute, University of Zabol, enrolling 53 upper-intermediate-level students divided into experimental and control groups through convenience sampling. The experimental group received focused instruction integrating the identification and use of lexical bundles into their standard curriculum, while the control group received regular instruction. Pre-test and post-test assessments were administered to evaluate changes in vocabulary range and grammatical accuracy in argumentative writing. The results indicated that the learners in experimental group showed marked improvements compared to the control group. Implications include integrating lexical bundle-focused strategies into curricula to support learners’ transition to advanced proficiency, with future research recommended to explore long-term effects and broader applications.

This study investigates the effects of collaborative e-learning environment supported by peer feedback and argumentative instruction on students’ argumentative writing, argumentative feedback and domain-specific knowledge acquisition in the field of educational sciences. The population of the study was all bachelor students of educational sciences at Kharazmi University in Karaj in which 36 students were randomly selected as a sample and were assigned to either experimental (with instruction) or control group (without instruction) in a pre-and posttest design. They were then divided over 18 dyads and were asked to write and argumentative essay, engage in argumentative peer feedback with their learning partner, and then revise their essay based on feedback they received. To do so, a collaborative e-learning environment was designed and developed. A coding scheme was developed based on research literature to measure both argumentative essay and argumentative peer feedback quality. The results favoured students in the experimental condition in terms of their argumentative essay writing, argumentative peer feedback quality, and the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge. Implications, limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Dialogical thinking paves the way for EFL learners to express their thoughts in discussion, be able to convince the intended audience effec-tively, and provide reasons for the way they think, which consequently leads to the manifestation of individual voice. This study examined the effect of teaching dialogical thinking on the development of voice in the writing skill of a group of intermediate female EFL learners. To this end, twenty-two EFL learners were selected randomly and were assigned to two groups, namely experimental and control groups. Oxford Placement Test was administered to ensure the participants’ homogeneity in terms of their language proficiency level. The experimental group received treatment on the dialogical thinking based on Alexander’ s (2008) dialogical teaching model in the form of analytical discussions on eight controversial topics in ten sessions. On the other hand, the control group was asked to take part in the routine written classroom activities. To measure the expression of voice, Helms-Park and Stapleton’ s (2003) Voice Intensity Rating Scale (VIRS) was used. The findings revealed that dialogical pedagogy stimulated logical arguments, sound reasoning, and sensible evaluations, and consequently, led to the manifestation of the individual voice via linguistic and rhetorical devices.

Critical thinking disposition as an important feature of the critical thinking concept is considered as the active representation of critical thinking skills. This study investigated the contribution of gender and critical thinking disposition (CTD) on improving Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing development. The participants were 150 intermediate EFL learners in five groups ranging from 20 to 30 years of age who were equally divided into three experimental (EGs) and two control groups (CGs); one group only males (CG1), and the other only females (CG2). Participants took two TOEFL writing exams before and after the treatment sessions, followed by a CCTDI questionnaire before and after treatment sessions. The researchers taught both the experimental groups and control groups. Attempts were made to determine whether there were any gender differences at work while the EFL learners in the EGS were exposed to the treatment and the CGs received conventional instruction. The findings indicated no notable variation in writing scores based on gender-related distinctions among the participants in this research (17.84 vs. 18.43), but gender did play a role in the critical thinking disposition scores of the learners in which, male learners significantly outperformed female learners in the CCTDI, and there was a statistically significant difference in CCTDI scores was observed, which indicated a statistical significance among groups: males (M = 355.22, SD = 13.66) and females (M = 325.94, SD = 16.92). The findings provide further evidence for the effectiveness of the role of gender in Iranian EFL learners’ critical thinking disposition.

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of two multi-step oral-revision processes as feedback providing tools on Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing achievement. The participants taking part in this study were 45 Iranian EFL students who were randomly assigned into three groups. The participants of the groups were given three argumentative writing assignments, each assignment demanding three separate drafts. In the control group, the participants revised their essays in response to teacher's written feedback, while the participants of the two experimental groups experienced oral revision talks with their teacher or a peer. Two sets of quantitative and qualitative data were collected: Argumentative essays written at the beginning and the end of the semester and interviews. The results of the quantitative aspect of the study revealed the significant outperformance of the two experimental groups. Moreover, the data provided through interviews revealed some differences in terms of the effectiveness of feedback between the two experimental groups. The participants of the peer-led group reported more awareness of the rhetorical structures and an ability to revise surface errors. While, the teacher-led group reported more global writing concerns like content, organization of ideas, and discourse. The obtained results point out that the mutual co-construction of participation roles and certain combinations of negotiation and scaffolding let the teacher provide a supportive conversational environment and assistance in accordance with the proficiency of learners of the teacher-led group to promote greater learner participation.

It is generally recognized that many second language learners have difficulties with cohesion in academic texts. Writing seems to be the most difficult subject for many students. To produce good writing, it is necessary to know how to organize Theme and Rheme in a text. Thematic structure as an important feature in textual metafunction plays a significant role in promoting the textual coherence. This research is concerned with the insights presenting the relationship between theme and rheme derived from Systemic Functional Linguistics. Halliday (1994) claimed that the structuring of language as a message is realized in the thematic structures of the constituent clauses of a text. To Halliday, the basic unit for thematic analysis is the clause. Thereby, this study was an attempt to compare different thematic types and thematic progression patterns in EFL students' academic writing texts. For this purpose, the researcher selected 30 MA students of English language teaching as the participants of the study after administering a TOEFL test and excluding the outliers. Each participant was required to write three different types of argumentative, process and cause & affect compositions. The collected data were analyzed according to the Thematization process from the textual metafunction aspects. The results showed some differences in the thematic structure of the different types of compositions. The findings of this study have some implications to the EFL students. They can learn to perform the same analysis in their own writings; thus improving cohesion in their own texts.Theme/rheme plays a major role in organizing the message and in enabling it to be communicated and understood clearly.

The studies on L2 argumentative writing have surveyed different dimensions of learners’ argumentative behavior and performance. However, less attention has been given to the strategies and techniques enhancing students’ argumentative repertoire. As such, the current study, which the design was repeated measures ANOVA, taking a pedagogy-based perspective, examined the argumentative writing behavior, introduced by Toulmin as Toulmin’s model, of 30 Iranian IELTS candidates before, during and after the instruction in both English and Persian languages. The sample questions were of the previous IELTS Writing part 2 essays from a real test by Cambridge University Press, chosen by 3 IELTS instructors in the Institute to meet the research objectives. To this end, 180 IELTS Task 2 argumentative essays were written by 30 volunteers, each having to write 6 essays, at least 250 words, (Persian and English). As for the students’ English and Persian argumentative writing performance, the results indicated that there were significant differences between the EFL learners’ overall means on argumentative tests in both languages. The results demonstrate that a sound pedagogy in argumentation can both influence the use of argumentation elements in both English and Persian written texts. The pedagogical implications for writing instruction and argumentative writing are discussed.