International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Online Debate in Argumentative Writing Course: Potentials and Challenges
Ira Mutiaraningrum, Bambang Yudi Cahyono

Abstract
This study examined online debate in Argumentative writing course by exploring the potentials and challenges. It involved 48 Indonesian EFL students attending Argumentative Writing course from two classes at the university level. The students were divided into two big groups. Each of them was given a task of argument in the form of online debate on a topic from the government point of view and opposition. Points of arguments that the students posted in online debate were recorded and analyzed to see how arguments are delivered. The process of the online debate and the postings of the students were analyzed to find out the potentials and challenges from the researcher’s side. Following the online debate, questionnaires were distributed to the students to investigate what they thought about the potentials and challenges of online debate. The result showed that potentials of online debate were in the form of time flexibility, learning autonomy, and critical thinking based on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. In addition, the study also revealed challenges in the application of online debate which include the emergence of delayed responses, confusion in the implementation on the part of the students, and technical problems dealing with signing up and posting delivery.

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