Students’ perceptions of the explicit teaching of argumentative writing

Argumentative writing is important to achieve success in academia and life in general. However, arguing a case is quite challenging. As they transition from secondary education to higher level, many students are required to be proficient in writing argumentative essays. Yet, not all of them had the opportunity to write argumentative essays in their pre-university education. Students in the Kosovo’s pre-university education system hardly ever receive any formal instruction in argumentative writing. Writing exercises in their native tongue tend to focus on creative or narrative writing. Similar practices are used in English classrooms, when teachers mostly offer brief descriptive or narrative writing tasks, failing to help students learn how to make an argument. This study aimed to explore students’ perceptions about the explicit teaching of argumentative writing that they had received for one semester. A focus group interview and an open-ended questionnaire were used to gather the data. According to the findings, explicit teaching is crucial for equipping students with skills to produce their written arguments. Therefore, it is suggested that explicit teaching be used to teach tertiary students how to write argumentative essays.