Abstract:
The study examines the effects of process-genre approach on English majoring university
students’ argumentative writing performance in terms of its overall text-quality, rhetorical
structures, and linguistic features. To achieve this purpose, a quasi-experimental design
particularly time-series-design was employed among regular second year English majoring
students at Debre Tabor University in 2019 G.C academic year. Tests and self-reflection
reports were used as data gathering instruments. Pre-tests and post-tests were employed to
examine students’ argumentative writing performance differences before and after the
intervention. The self-reflection reports were used to notice the experimenter’s and students’
responses regarding the impacts of the process-genre approach and its overall applications in
the argumentative writing class. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and
inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics discussed means and standard deviations of the
results of the tests. Frequencies were also employed to analyze the stage-move structures and
linguistic features of students’ argumentative texts. On the other hand, the inferential
statistics particularly Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was computed to
examine the significant differences among the tests. Genre analysis and textual analysis were
also employed to analyze the generic structures and linguistic features of the students’
argumentative texts. Moreover, thematic analysis was used to analyze the participants’
reflections regarding the impacts the process-genre had on the learners’ argumentative
writing performance. The results generally revealed that applying process-genre approach in
writing classes had positive effects on students’ argumentative writing performance in terms
of writing qualities such as communicative quality, organization, argumentation, and
linguistic appropriacy (p <.05). However, the instruction was not found to enhance the
students’ written arguments in terms of the linguistic accuracy aspect (p >.05). An attempt
was made, furthermore, to see if students’ understanding on the structures and the linguistic
features of their written arguments was enhanced as a result of the intervention. It was
proved, in the post-test texts, that students showed understanding of the structures and
language elements appropriate to the convention of argumentative essay. They were found to
use more moves and linguistic elements in the texts carried out in the post-intervention phase
than in the texts composed before the treatment. The result also indicates that the participants
had positive responses concerning the impacts of the process-genre approach on the students’
argumentative writing performance. The study suggests that since learning writing is a
complex task especially at the higher education context, it is essential to teachers to use a
process-genre approach whereby both the cognitive and social aspects of writing are
addressed; this, in turn, helps learners to overcome the challenges they encounter while
composing a particular genre and to gain a complete view of writing. In addition, further
investigations should be done that will enlighten the contribution of the process-genre
approach to the improvement of students' writing in other discourses.