An Analysis Of The Efficacy Of The Visualization Of Concept Map In Improving EFL College Students’ Coherence In Argumentative Writing

It is quite common for writing instructors to come across the compositions which is grammatically accepted but is incoherently organized. As a result, the coherence of students’ writings has received much concern. The researches of coherence home and abroad in writing are mostly realized through the analysis of cohesion, for the coherence is rather abstract and it is an impression that a composition leaves on the readers, while the cohesion of an essay is realized through the use of cohesive device. Some researchers even sometimes regard the two terms as the same. Both teachers and students find it hard to teach and learn how to write a coherent essay.Concept map, as a visual thinking tool, can make what is abstract concrete. Concept map is originally used in science major to help students organize increasing knowledge. Because of its successful application in science major, it is also widely used in other majors. Concept map helps students construct knowledge actively, and make what is abstract concrete. This function can help students organize the flow of information, which is quite abstract, and make the relationship between information become clear, thus improving the coherence of essay. So, this paper is planned to examine the effect of the concept map on the coherence in argumentative writing30 students from New Oriental School participated in this study which lasted for ten months. These 30 students were randomly allocated in three groups, namely Group A, Group B and Group C. Of the three groups, A and B were test groups, and C is the control group. Group A and group B differed in that they received different periods of class which used concept map to teach argumentative writing. A pre-test and post-test were administered to all students with the statistical methods of one-way ANOVA to test if there were any changes after the application of concept map in their performance in coherence. Interview and questionnaire would also be implemented to investigate the changes in students’ attitude towards argumentative writing. Results revealed that the test groups A and B outperformed those students in the control group concerning the coherence in their writing tasks. Additionally, group A performed better than group B in the same area since group A received twice the periods of class that of group B. Paired-sample t-test is also employed to test within each group to determine if there is any improvement after the experiment. The results show that students in group A and group B do a better job after the experiment while there is no evident change in students from group C. In terms of the attitudes towards the argumentative writing, it is shown that after the class, students in test groups revealed greater enthusiasm towards argumentative writing.