Cultural Capital and Argumentative Writing in English: Challenges and Strategies Used by EFL Student Teachers

Abstract

Writing is one of the most difficult skills in language learning, particularly in learning English as a foreign language. The purposes of this qualitative study were to describe student teachers’ challenges in composing argumentative writing and to explain how they encountered those challenges at one public university teacher-training program in Jambi, Indonesia. The theoretical framework of cultural capital was used to guide the study while the data were collected through demographic profiles and semi-structured in-depth interviews with student teachers. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we only had access to invite 12 students to participate in our study—they were six male and six female student teachers. All participants in this study had taken English academic writing subjects and had been familiar with argumentative English writing. To analyze the data, within-case and cross-case analyses were used. The results of the data analysis produced eight salient themes including insufficient vocabulary and grammar, giving arguments, writing habits, parents’ occupation, the relationship between students, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, and social strategies. The implications of the study are also discussed.