Beyond convention: Enriched argument in L۲ Writing through Mobile-assisted reading

One integral constituent of argumentative writing is the capability of drawing upon relevant evidence to endorse an argument, a practice that itself necessitates elaborate reading and writing processes. Taking the position that writing can be an important skill to foster knowledge building pedagogy; this article explores changes made to argumentation behavior in L۲ essay writing composed by two groups of language learners attending an integrated writing course. Thirty-one language learners as participants of the experimental group used two popular news mobile applications online and offline for reading as a pre-task activity that made them outperform their counterparts in the control group in terms of using factual evidence, namely statistics, incidence, findings, and quotations. The statistical analyses disclosed a significant difference in the overall writing ability of the two groups in the experimental group’s favor. This outperformance partly resulted from richer content presentation in essays written by those who had read through mobile news applications and used more facts in their essays. Findings of the present paper can shed new light on how to utilize digital materials for the purpose of enriching EFL writing content.

Keywords:

academic writing , argument , evidence , facts , MALL