THE IMPACT OF EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND ON IDEA GENERATION AND ARGUMENT DEVELOPMENT IN B2-LEVEL IELTS ACADEMIC WRITING

Abstract

This study examines how learners’ educational backgrounds influence idea generation and argument development in IELTS Academic Writing Task 2 at the B2 proficiency level. While most B2 learners possess adequate grammatical and lexical resources, many struggle to construct coherent and well-developed arguments. Existing approaches focus primarily on language proficiency and structural templates, often overlooking the cognitive effects of prior educational experience. To address this gap, the study introduces a novel pedagogical framework termed Epistemic Translation Mapping (ETM). ETM functions as a pre-writing cognitive alignment process that translates learners’ habitual thinking patterns into IELTS-compatible academic reasoning. The article adopts an IMRaD structure to present the problem, propose the solution, and discuss its pedagogical implications.