Research on the Application of “Tree Analysis Diagram” to the Teaching of English Argumentative Writing of the Chinese EFL Learners | #journalsummary

 

Holaa…

I’ve written some summaries of English Language Teaching journals in several countries such as Maiduguri, Jeddah, Dubai, and Malaysia. On this occasion, I’ll present an ELT journal discussing English as a foreign language in Mongolia. It analyzes the English Argumentative Writing using the Tree Analysis Diagram.

 

Here we go.

 

Research on the Application of 'Tree Analysis Diagram' to the Teaching of English Argumentative Writing of the Chinese EFL Learners

Xiaokai Liu (Correspondence author)

Source : English Language Teaching, Vol. 11, No.3, 21 February 2018

Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education.

A.    Summary of the content

This research compares the differences between the Chinese thinking pattern and the English thinking pattern; analyzes the effect of these differences on English writing and verifies the effectiveness of the “tree analysis diagram” in helping Chinese EFL learners develop the English thinking pattern and improving the quality of English writing by an experiment. The participants are 81 students from the English department of Honder College of Inner Mongolia Normal University. They are 42 are from Class 1 and 39 are from Class 3. The instruments used are questionnaires (pre-questionnaires and post-questionnaire) and students’ writing samples. The researcher uses descriptive statistical analyses.

Writing is one of the skills that people learn when learning English. Writing is not only vocabulary and grammar but also relates to the text is constructed and how to arrange the ideas. Chinese EFL learners are still struggling with thinking patterns and organizational patterns to wording, phrasing, and even text construction. According to the notion of linguistic relativity or linguistic determinism, the differences in language influence the differences in thought. Students must arrange the ideas based on what English natives speaker think. So, the words will be constructed naturally.

The 'tree analysis diagram' develops Chinese EFL learners’ English thinking patterns and improves Chinese EFL learners’ English writing skills. It helps Chinese EFL learners become aware of the importance of cohesion and logic in English writing, especially English argumentative writing. The “tree analysis diagram” is effective in helping EFL learners develop to organize the pattern of English argumentative writing. By drawing the 'tree analysis diagram', EFL learners get a clearer idea of how to arrange the topic sentence, connect the paragraph and develop the supporting ideas logically and make a conclusion by their viewpoints.

 

B.     Discussion

                The journal is talking about the “tree analysis diagram” in helping Chinese EFL learners develop the English thinking pattern and improve the quality of English writing. It tells us the struggle of the students in writing skills, especially argument writing. It discusses the application of using the ‘tree analysis diagram”. The journal presents the comparison of Chinese and English speaker patterns in writing. Based on the result of the research, the “tree analysis diagram” is effective in helping the students arrange their ideas and construct the sentences. I, an English Education, am inspired to use this method to teach my future students. On the other hand, I can use the method to develop my writing skill. In my point of view, the journal is easy to understand. The journal presents the table results of the research and it also helps the readers to understand.