The Role of Culture on Iranian EFL Learners' Writing Argumentative Performance

This study aimed to investigate the effects of Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA) on two related variables: students' argumentative writing skills and students' attitude towards target culture. The second purpose of this study was to measure the degree of relationship between attitude towards target culture and writing argumentative essay skills. So, 60 upper-intermediate participants who aged between 15 and 24 were recruited and divided into 2 groups of experimental and control group. While the control group received writing instruction in a traditional way, without any focus on cultural similarity and difference, experimental group received a treatment in which the main focus was on teaching CCA. Two instruments were used to gather data from the two groups before and after receiving treatment: attitude towards target culture questionnaire and writing argumentative essay exam. The findings revealed that while teaching CCA does not influence attitude towards target culture very significantly, it results in higher argumentative writing skills among upper-intermediate students. Moreover, the findings indicated that there is a relationship between attitude towards target culture and writing argumentative essay skills. These findings have pedagogical implications for course designers and material developers

کلیدواژه ها:

Argumentative Writing ، Culture ، Critical Cultural Awareness ، Attitude