Argumentation Skills: An Analysis on EFL Students' Essays Based on Toulmin's Model of Argument

Abstract

Writing argumentative essays is not only challenging because the writers must have adequate knowledge on the topic but also, they must provide strong arguments to convince the readers. This study analyzes the argumentation skills of advanced level students in writing the content of an argumentative essay. The design of the research was descriptive quantitative involving 60 argumentative essays written by 30 students of the Academic Writing course. The data were analyzed by using a scoring guide referring to Toulmin’s model of argumentation. The analysis found that the mean score is 14.29 which is considered as good. However, further analysis on the argumentation elements of students’ essays shows that the use of opposition and refutation is low as there are 40% of students in the first writing and 20% of students in the second writing did not propose any opposing argument. Furthermore, 46.66% of the students in the first writing and 50% students in the second writing did not give any refutation in their essays. Referring to the findings, it is suggested that more practices should be given to develop students’ argumentation skills. Further research is also recommended to investigate argumentation skills by involving more subjects and different methods of analysis to reveal more comprehensive findings.