L2 Teacher’s Instructional Techniques for Rhetorical Writing Patterns of L2 Learners

Abstract

This study explores the writing of EFL learners with a focus on rhetoric. For this purpose, two groups (experimental group (EG) and controlled group(CG)) of 72 EFL learners (M=34, F=38) are selected and required to write English argumentative compositions on the same topic in two distinct sessions. These tasks are then calculated as suggested in the ESL Compositions Rubrics (Jacobs et. al. 1981) by two professional scorers. The numbers of words per sentence (sentence length), spelling errors, use of rhetorical devices, and number of T-units are counted manually. These results showed that: a) there was a positive correlation (r=0.749 p<0.005) between rhetorical instruction and writing styles, b) texts written by the EG are significantly longer than those by the CG, c) EG texts show more idiosyncratic features in T-units, and d) the number of rhetorical devices used in the EG were higher than those by CG. These results showed that scores, rhetorical patterns, and syntactic complexity of L2 writing were significantly enhanced. Implications for the EFL writing class are also illustrated.