problems of iranian efl students dealing with argumentative writing in an eap context

Argumentative writing is the most important genre that undergraduates need to learn to meet their academic requirements. regardless of the different disciplines in the academic context, the development of a well-formed argumentative essay is regarded as an important skill particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences. nevertheless, many studies in different native and non-native contexts have indicated to many problems that undergraduates have experienced when developing an argumentative essay. to shed more light on how undergraduates deal with argumentation in the iranian efl academic writing context, the present study was conducted. for this aim, a total of 66 argumentative essays written by the undergraduate students was analyzed. in addition, a group of 30 undergraduate students majoring in english literature and 6 writing instructors was interviewed. the findings of the analysis of the students’ texts showed that the students had difficulties in different aspects of argumentative essay development. in particular, the concept of argumentation was poorly conceived and tackled with by the learners. teachers also had a tacit knowledge of argumentations and did not have a coherent approach for teaching the argumentative essay. in sum, the study discusses that the failure to develop an argumentative essay by the iranian undergraduates entails several academic, cultural and pedagogical grounds. implications for improving argumentative writing development in eap contexts are provided.