Abstract
The paper focuses on the issue of developing essay writing skills in the context of IELTS preparation and explores the issue of whether academic debate can enhance STEM students’ ability to structure their essays, develop a smooth progression of ideas, and provide supported and extended arguments, which, in turn, may result in higher scores for the IELTS Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion categories. To answer this, a study was undertaken in the academic years 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 among STEM undergraduate students in the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. The study involved two groups of students (36 students in each): the group that attended regular IELTS preparation classes and the other that, in addition to regular classes, attended debate classes where among other things Toulmin’s argument structure was taught. At the beginning and end of the experiment both groups submitted essays that were analysed according to IELTS rubrics for Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion, and the presence or absence of the elements of Toulmin’s argument structure. In addition, the essays were assessed by an independent IELTS teacher. An independent-samples t-test and Levene’s test were utilised to determine the significance of the collected data. The findings revealed that, on average, the students of the experimental group scored well in Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion, yet some results were inconsistent, which requires further research.
Highlights
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is an English proficiency test that is taken by those who plan to work or study in an English-speaking environment
We look in detail into Task Response (TR) and Coherence and Cohesion (CC) as it is these criteria, we hypothesize, that can be developed by means of debate
As can be seen from the tables showing descriptive statistics (Tables 2, 4, and 6), in many cases the standard deviation is larger than the mean, which can be attributed to the fact that we used the binary system of grading with the two elements - zero and one
Summary
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is an English proficiency test that is taken by those who plan to work or study in an English-speaking environment. Many universities in non-English speaking countries require an IELTS certificate as proof of one’s command of the language (Lewthwaite, 2007; Sanonguthai, 2011). IELTS Academic, which is the primary focus of this article, consists of four parts: Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking. Out of these four, a special challenge is posed by Writing. According to Test Taker Performance, the mean band score of Academic Writing was the lowest compared to the other three parts across all 40 countries listed: 5.54 for males and 5.64 for females. The results in the Russia were not an exception, with the mean score being 5.97
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