An investigation into teachers and students beliefs and attitudes about the application of of the process genre approach to teaching business writing to second year enghlish majored students at ba

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE   AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDEN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE





AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES ABOUT THE APPLICATION OF THE PROCESS GENRE APPROACH TO TEACHING BUSINESS WRITING

TO SECOND - YEAR ENGLISH - MAJORED STUDENTS AT BA RIA VUNG TAU TEACHER

TRAINING COLLEGE

 Submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master‟s degree in TESOL

By NGUYEN THI THANH DIEU

Supervised by NGUYEN DINH THU, PhD

HO CHI MINH CITY, MARCH 2014

TO SECOND - YEAR ENGLISH - MAJORED STUDENTS AT BA RIA VUNG TAU TEACHER

TRAINING COLLEGE

 Submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master‟s degree in TESOL

By NGUYEN THI THANH DIEU

Supervised by NGUYEN DINH THU, PhD

HO CHI MINH CITY, MARCH 2014

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On completing this M.A thesis, I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of people, without whose contribution and spiritual support, I would not have accomplished this research paper

First and foremost, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Dinh Thu, for his scholarly instruction, insightful comments, warm encouragement, and reading my manuscripts with great care, without which my thesis could not have been possible

My special thanks also go to the teachers and students at BRVT Teacher Training College who were very responsive to the survey questionnaires In particular, I wish to thank Tran Thi Thanh Tu, M.A., whose thought-provoking talks got me to think of new and useful ideas; Mr Trinh Huu Huong, who spent hours sharing with me his experience as a writing teacher at BRVT Teacher Training College; Michaela Van Christine, who was particularly of great help

in searching for relevant references

Last but not least, my heartfelt appreciation and gratitude are expressed

to my family, my husband, my daughter, Bui Dieu Thao – Mickey whose intense encouragement, support, sympathy, devotion were a source of motivation that fostered me to overcome difficulties emerged throughout the past four years of undertaking my thesis and to complete this study to the best

of my ability

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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES ABOUT THE APPLICATION OF THE PROCESS GENRE APPROACH TO TEACHING BUSINESS WRITING

TO SECOND - YEAR ENGLISH - MAJORED STUDENTS AT BA RIA

VUNG TAU TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

in terms of the statement of the Requirements for the Theses in Master‟s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institutions

Ho Chi Minh City, March 2014

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH DIỆU

iv

RETENTION OF USE

I hereby state that I, NGUYEN THI THANH DIEU, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master‟s theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis

Ho Chi Minh City, March 2014

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH DIỆU

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY iii

RETENTION OF USE iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURES x

LIST OF CHARTS x

ABSTRACT xi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Rationale 3

1.3 Research questions 4

1.4 Objectives of the study 5

1.5 Significance 5

1.6 Organization of the thesis 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Introduction 6

2.2 Definitions of key terms 6

2.2.1 Writing 6

2.2.2 Definitions of genre 8

2.3 The main approaches to teaching writing in ESL classes 8

2.3.1 The product approach 9

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2.3.2 The process approach 10

2.3.3 The genre-based approach 12

2.3.3.1 A brief overview of genre theory 12

2.3.3.2 Genre-based pedagogies 13

2.3.3.3 Comparison of the genre approach with product and process approaches 15

2.3.3.3.1 Genre approach: An extension of the product approach 15

2.3.3.3.2 Process approach: A supplement to the genre approach 17

2.3.4 A process genre approach 18

2.3.4.1 The adapted model of process writing and genre (Tribble, 1996) 18

2.3.4.2 A genre process model (Badger and White, 2000) 19

2.3.4.3 The adapted model from Badger & White (2000) 21

2.4 Advantages of the process genre model 22

2.4.1 Awareness of form and function of language 23

2.4.2 Improvement in writing skills 23

2.4.3 Awareness of social nature of writing 23

2.4.4 Awareness of readership 24

2.4.5 Motivation 24

2.4.6 Critical thinking 24

2.5 Potential difficulties of the implementation of the process genre approach to teaching ESP Writing 25

2.5.1 New realms of knowledge 25

2.5.2 Appropriate input 26

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2.5.3 Feedback giving 26

2.6 Business Writing 26

2.7 Previous studies of the process genre approach in writing teaching 27 2.8 Chapter summary 31

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 32

3.1 Participants 32

3.1.1 Student subjects 32

3.1.2 Teacher subjects 33

3.1.3 Teacher-researcher 34

3.2 Research design 34

3.3 Data collection instruments 35

3.3.1 Rationale for triangulating data collection instruments 35

3.3.2 Questionnaires 36

3.3.2.1 Student Questionnaire 36

3.3.2.2 Teacher Questionnaire 37

3.3.3 Interviews 38

3.4 Data collection procedure 39

3.5 Methods of data analysis 39

3.6 Summary 40

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS 41

4.1 Introduction 41

4.2 Data analysis 41

4.2.1 Students‟ and teachers‟ beliefs and attitudes towards using the process genre approach to teaching Business Writing 41

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4.2.1.1 Students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes towards different aspects

of the trial process genre-based instruction in Business Writing

teaching 41

4.2.1.2 The level of “interesting” of the application of the process genre approach into Business Writing teaching 56

4.2.1.3 The positive effect of the application of the process genre approach on students 62

4.2.2 The difficulties in implementing of the process genre approach into teaching Business Writing 65

4.3 Summary 66

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 67

5.1 Findings 67

5.2 Implications 67

5.3 Limitations 70

5.4 Recommendations 70

REFERENCES 72

APPENDIX 1A: STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE 84

APPENDIX 1B: TEACHER QUESTIONNAIRE 88

APPENDIX 2: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN 92

APPENDIX 3A: APPLICATION LETTER AN INTRODUCTION 97

APPENDIX 3B: APPLICATION LETTER (Analyzed) 98

APPENDIX 3C: HANDOUTS FOR ROLE-PLAYING 99

APPENDIX 3D: APPLICATION FOR A POST 101

APPENDIX 4D1: APPLICATION ANSWERING 102

APPENDIX 4D2: APPLICATION AN ADVERTISEMENT 103

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BRVT : Ba Ria Vung Tau

CUP : Cambridge University Press

EAP : English for Academic Purposes

EBP : English for Business Purposes

EFL : English as a Foreign Language

ESL : English as a Second Language

ESP : English for Specific Purposes

FL-IT : Foreign Languages – Information Technology

GBI : Genre-based Instruction

OUP : Oxford University Press

SFL : Systemic Functional Linguistics

SPSS : Statistics Package for the Social Sciences

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Information of the study participants 32

Table 2: Necessity of genre analysis at Pre-writing 42

Table 3: Realization of form and function of language 44

Table 4: Social nature of writing 45

Table 5: Intended audience 46

Table 6: Motivation 47

Table 7: Improving Writing Ability 49

Table 8: Critical Thinking 51

Table 9: Balance of criticism and praise in feedback 53

Table 10: Students' Creativity 55

Table 11: Students‟ level of “interesting” of the application of the process genre approach into Business Writing teaching 57

Table 12: Teachers‟ level of “interesting” of the application of the process genre approach 60

Table 13: Students' difficulties 65

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The adapted model (Tribble, 1996: 60) 67

Figure 2: A process genre model (Badger and White, 2000: 159) 69

Figure 3: Application of the process genre model (Yan, 2005: 21) adapted from Badger and White (2000) 69

LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Positive effects of the implementation of the Process Genre Approach on students: Students‟ response 62

Chart 2: Positive effect of the implementation of the Process Genre Approach on students: Teachers' response 61

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ABSTRACT

The genre-based instruction has so far been flourished in the field of ESP Writing in terms of course design and materials development in Viet Nam Less attention, however, has been given to the application of the process genre approach to teaching English Business Writing This study aimed to find out (1) BRVT Teacher Training College teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards and beliefs in the implementation of the process genre approach into teaching Business Writing and (2) potential difficulties facing teachers and students in dealing with this implementation

Participants in this study are 52 second-year students from two classes (14 D1 and 14 D2) and 14 English teachers from English Department of this college Two sets of questionnaires (one for teachers, one for students) followed by in-depth interviews with selected teachers and students were employed to gather information They were later analyzed to find out whether

or not teachers and students like to implement the process genre approach into teaching Business Writing and what some potential problems these subjects met Student subjects were given a careful instruction based the process genre approach before responding to a set of questionnaire while teacher subjects just involved in a questionnaire-based survey

The results of the study revealed that this implementation had some positive effects on students rating from the most positive to the least positive as follows: writing competence, awareness of audience, motivation, awareness of writing, creativity, critical thinking Also, some difficulties of teachers and students in the implementation of the process genre approach into Business Writing that needed to be overcome were the time constraint, the new realm of knowledge, learners‟ English proficiency, and reference materials

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study

With the globalization of trade, Business English or English for Business Purposes (EBP) has become the fastest growing field in English for Specific Purposes (ESP), similar to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:53)‟s comment as "currently the area of greatest activity and growth in ESP" This idea is supported by Foz-Gil & González-Pueyo (2009), who state that the participants of an international community with different mother tongues and cultural backgrounds are likely to use English in an internationally accepted way in order to make them understood and carry out their transactions Accordingly, English written communication skills in the field of Business have taken an increasingly greater role

In the context of Viet Nam‟s merging into World Trade Organization (7/11/2006), there has been a great demand for Business English in the age of

an integrated market economy It is the big demand that has urged more and more universities and colleges in Viet Nam to offer English for Business Purposes (EBP) or English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses to meet the global trend as well as students‟ future career needs

In Ba Ria – Vung Tau province, the first reality proves that pedagogical graduates find it hard to get jobs as English teachers and tend to apply for jobs

in companies or businesses instead The second reality shows that there has recently been a growing demand for employees proficient in using English for their professions in fields of tourism and business To meet such demands, in

2009 BRVT Teacher Training College opened a new branch – English for Business and Tourism

The teaching of Business Writing, mainly teaching of business letters, at this college has faced some kinds of difficulty As an eight-year experienced writing instructor, the researcher gives a very objective comment that most of

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students, who do not have a good command of grammar rules and lexicon, take

it for granted that writing is just a process of translating words and filtering meaning from one language to another, which results in their dull and devoid of content pieces of writing Clearly, this is not the appropriate approach to writing because Kroll (1991: 261) asserts that producing a successful written text requires not only a good knowledge of a number of language systems but also an ability to effectively use them for a particular audience and a particular purpose Similarly, Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000: 142) elaborate that the communicative purpose of writing can achieve only when its product must be readable and comprehensible Moreover, Hyland (2003a: 18) claims that the important thing a writer has to do is to make use of language patterns to produce a coherent, purposeful text The second problem is resulted from that the current approach to teaching writing is overemphasized on the product approach; consequently, the writing teachers hardly raise students‟ awareness

of the communicative nature of writing Last but not least, most of the students and writing teachers are „afraid‟ of business knowledge because they have never taken part in any business courses so far; however, they have to learn and teach with a business-related material for low-intensive courses

One more rather important objective obstacle is that in an EFL country

as Viet Nam, the language learners are rarely exposed to English especially demands of English writing, so the level of difficulty of teaching Business Writing increases markedly With the above-mentioned difficulties, the teaching of Business Writing is really a challenge Providing teachers and students with an effective approach to teaching and learning Business Writing

is accordingly due attention

The next part will discuss appropriate approaches to teaching ESP in general, and English Business Writing in particular

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1.2 Rationale

Since 1990s, many researchers have advocated the genre-based instruction (GBI) whose focus is on the analysis of schematic structures of professional and academic discourses can be employed in the ESP contexts (Bhatia, 1993; Flowerdew, 1993; Hopkins & Dudley-Evans, 1988; Kaur and Chun, 2005; Swales, 1990; Wang, 2007) As a result, much research in GBI proves that it is helpful for the teaching of ESL writing (Foz-Gil & González-Pueyo, 2009; Hammond, 1987; Henry and Roseberry, 1998; Kay & Dudley – Evans, 1998; Kaur and Chun, 2005; Osman, 2004; Mora & Flores, 2009; Myskow & Gordon, 2010; Ning, 2008; Nordin and Mohammad, 2006; Zare-ee, 2009) In Vietnamese pedagogical contexts, a fair number of studies have been conducted using GBI in ESL writing teaching; however, they have mainly

centered on the course/ syllabus design or materials development (Tran, 2000;

Tran, 2005; or writing teaching in high school contexts (Đinh, 2011; Lam, 2013; Nguyen, 2013; Nguyen, 2013)

However, the GBI in pedagogical contexts also receives much criticism First, it tends to be overly prescriptive, emphasizing on rules of construction of

a particular genre over others (Bhatia, 1993) Second, it is considered to be restrictive, especially when employed by unimaginative teachers (Kay and Dudley-Evans, 1998); and lastly, it is complained for its undervaluation of the skills needed to produce a text and for seeing learners as largely passive (Badger and White, 2000)

Many linguistists propose a solution to „fix‟ GBI‟s shortcomings Many scholars agree that the process and genre-based approaches should be combined together in teaching ESL writing (Badger and White, 2000; Hyland, 2003a; Kaur and Chun, 2005; Kim and Kim, 2005; Kim, 2006; Yan, 2005) Hyland (2003a) explains that genre pedagogies will become an effective methodology for second language writing teaching when they are supported with strategies for planning, drafting, and revising texts Moreover, this dual approach allows students to study the relationship between purpose and form

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for a particular genre while they experience the recursive processes of prewriting, drafting, revision, and editing (Badger and White, 2000; Yan, 2005) and contribute to amplifying students‟ writing potentials (Kim, 2006)

In Vietnamese tertiary pedagogical contexts, the process genre approach

is applied in teaching writing for academic and professional purposes to some extent However, no research has so far been conducted on the implementation

of the process genre approach into teaching Business Writing and potential problems emerging during this implementation As a result, it is difficult to identify the positive and negative effects of this eclectic approach on Vietnamese teachers and learners so as to document the prevalent constraints of this implementation in the context of Business Writing teaching and learning Moreover, as Richards and Lockhart (1994: 29) affirm, the underlying framework made up of teachers‟ knowledge and belief directs their classroom actions Clearly, the investigation of attitudes and beliefs of teachers and students before the implication of any innovative approach is a necessity

Based on all of the above reasons, hoping that it would help to fill such a

gap, the researcher decided to conduct a study “An investigation into teachers’ and students’ beliefs and attitudes about the application of the process genre approach to teaching Business Writing to second–year English-majored students at Ba Ria Vung Tau Teacher Training College.”

1.3 Research questions

The main purpose of this study is to investigate students‟ and teachers‟ beliefs and attitudes towards the application of the process genre approach into teaching English Business Writing Besides, this study aims at exploring the constraints teachers and students face in implementing this eclectic approach in the Vietnamese context, and suggests some ways of coping with them Therefore, the thesis answers the following research questions

a What are the students‟ and teachers‟ beliefs and attitudes towards applying the process genre approach into the teaching of English Business Writing?

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b What are the difficulties the second-year English majors or teachers at BRVT Teacher Training College might experience when learning or teaching business letters writing through the process genre approach?

1.4 Objectives of the study

The thesis makes an attempt to investigate (1) the attitudes and beliefs of EFL teachers and students towards the applicability of the process genre approach to teaching Business Writing, (2) possible constraints against successful implementation of the process genre approach in the given context

1.5 Significance

The research is hoped to (1) gain more insights into genre-based writing instruction in ESP, (2) inform the teachers and administrators of the importance and necessity of the applicability of the process genre approach to teaching Business Writing, (3) call for the cooperation of ESP practitioners to help students overcome the difficulties they might meet during the learning of Business Writing, (4) offer a back-up for the improvement of the ESP syllabus

in general and for development of Business Writing material tailored for Vietnamese students, (5) may serve as an inspiration for further studies into the genre-based approach in the field of ESP

1.6 Organization of the thesis

The present study consists of 5 chapters Chapter 1 presents the introduction, which introduces the background of the study, rationale, research questions, objectives and significance of the study, and organization of the thesis Chapter 2 gives a scholarly discussion of issues relevant to the thesis by theoretical concepts and empirical studies Chapter 3 presents the research design and methodology employed in the study The issues covered in this chapter are described in terms of participants, research design, instruments, procedure of the study, and methods of data analysis Chapter 4 reports on the data analysis as well as the discussions of the findings of the study Chapter 5 presents the conclusions, implications, and recommendations for further research together with some limitations of the study

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews theoretical literature as well as empirical research related to the application of process genre approach into writing teaching The theoretical parts fundamental to the research introduced first are definitions of key terms, main approaches to teaching writing, three models of process genre approach, impacts of the implementation of the process genre approach upon learners and teachers, difficulties teachers and students might encounter when the process genre approach is implemented into writing teaching, and Business Writing Then, empirical studies in which process genre approach is implemented in writing pedagogy is reviewed

2.2 Definitions of key terms

of what to be spoken in the graphic forms and adds that the development and representation of thoughts in a structured way According to this perspective, writing is seen as a „textual product‟ which results from arranging words, clauses, and sentences coherently basing on a system of rules

From another different viewpoint, writing is considered as a cognitive process (Flower and Hayes, 1981; Zamel, 1983) Specifically, this process includes a set of recursive sub-processes such as planning, drafting, revising and editing (Flower and Hayes, 1981: 367) Obviously, conceptualizing writing

in this way just stops at defining writing as a mere thinking process and considers all kinds of writing to follow the same route In addition, Zamel

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(1983: 165) pointed out that writers during these sub-processes explore and generate ideas to make them meaningful According to this perspective, writers‟ ideas, thinking, and experiences are put an emphasis on Critically, this viewpoint undeniably fails to pay sufficient attention to such important factors

as (1) audience (who to read), (2) communicative purpose (why to write), and (3) situation (when, where, how to write)

In the third approach, writing is thought to carry out the communicative functions of language (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain, 2000; Hyland, 2002; Hyland, 2003a; Raimes, 1983; Widdowson, 1980) Different from two above-mentioned viewpoints, the communicative approach to writing puts an emphasis on audience and purposes of writing Following this approach, writers, in order to achieve the communicative purposes of texts, have to select their words carefully and put their ideas in ways that make their readers comprehend what the writers intend to convey This approach hence overcomes drawbacks of the above approach

Combining main factors, for example text, processes, purposes and audience, emphasized in three above-mentioned approaches Hyland (2003a: 23) states writing is “a sociocognitive activity which involves skills in planning and drafting as well as knowledge of language, contexts, and audiences” This comprehensive definition of writing deals with two aspects of language, cognitive and social Moreover, it relates to recent literature of the process genre approach to teaching writing (e.g., Badger & White, 2000; Belbase, 2012; Kim & Kim, 2005; Nararenko & Schwarz, 2010; Nordin and Mohammad, 2006; Samway Davies, 2006; Xu, 2005; Yan, 2005) Therefore, it

is adopted as the definition of what writing is in the current research

The chosen definition of writing above has to a certain extend accompanied with the meaning of the term „genre‟ The following part will discuss deeper about this theoretical aspect

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2.2.2 Definitions of genre

Over the few decades, genre scholarship has been most fully developed

in three focal traditions, namely North American New Rhetoric studies,

Australian systemic functional linguistics, and ESP Therefore, the term genre

is defined in distinctive ways

New Rhetoric scholars (Johns, 1997; Johns et al., 2006; Martin, 1985;

Miller, 1984) define genres on the basis of social actions they are used to

accomplish within the situational contexts It is clear that the focus here is mainly on the rhetorical contexts in which genres are used rather linguistic forms Unlike New Rhetoric studies, Australian functional linguistics is more

linguistic because the term genre here emphasizes the interrelationship between language and the social context For instance, Christie & Martin (1997) state

that in genres language systematically links to context through patterns of lexical-grammatical and rhetorical features In the ESP tradition, genres are recognized not only by their formal properties but also by their communicative purposes within social contexts (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990) Particularly, Swales (1990), defines genres as „communicative events‟ featured both by their

„communicative purposes‟ and by different patterns of structure, style, content,

and intended audience (p.58) Richards et al (2010) in Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics describe „genre‟ as “a type of

discourse with particular and distinctive communicative functions that occurs

in a particular setting and has distinctive and recognizable patterns and norms

of organization and structure” (p.245) This defining of genre concerns two

dual aspects, linguistic and social, so it is employed in the current research

2.3 The main approaches to teaching writing in ESL classes

In the history of second language composition teaching, a variety of approaches have been employed by writing teachers depending on their viewpoint of what features are most important in a piece of writing This part reviews major writing approaches that directly affect the integration of the

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process and the genre approach to have the dual approach, the process genre approach

2.3.1 The product approach

In this approach, teachers mostly concern the final product of writing and measure the final pieces of writing from students against criteria of vocabulary use, grammatical use, and mechanical factors such as spelling and punctuation (Brown, 1994: 320) The teaching practice in the product-oriented

writing instruction follows four sequential writing stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing (Pincas, 1982) In the first

stage, familiarization, teachers give students sample texts and then teach them grammatical features and vocabulary In the controlled and guided writing stage, students practice the language features provided by do several exercises which mainly focus on the substitution of vocabulary in given structures In the last stage, students are given advanced tasks in which they use their own knowledge to construct the new similar texts independently

It is obvious that this approach helps learners especially at a lower level

of language proficiency produce their own texts confidently and easily because they just try to imitate models provided by their teachers at the initial stages of writing so as to reproduce parallel texts either in class or after class Hence, after long practice, students can build up self-confidence and produce error-free pieces of writing Therefore, this approach serves well in writing for the exam-driven purpose It is this advantage that encourages most of Vietnamese high school teachers to employ this approach in their teaching writing

However, the product-based approach has some limitations The first is that student writers lack a sense of audience and motivation According to Eschholz (1980: 24), the final products are regarded as “mindless copies” of given models The students here mechanically „copy‟ the given model to reproduce a similar products and Zamel (1982: 195) critizes that these writers have no idea of why and for whom they are writing Hence, Nunan (2000) comments that writing in this case is to produce a text for teachers to evaluate,

The second weakness concerns the roles of teachers and learners The teachers are so powerful because they decide how students will write by giving model texts and measure the final products basing on the models Meanwhile, students are totally passive They have no right to write in the way they like and express their thoughts freely Besides, they are not given the time to interact with their friends to negotiate meaning and refine their ideas so as to produce the best writings

Thirdly, in the product-based approach, students have no chance to realize the process of creating a piece of writing Kay and Dudley-Evans (1998) evaluate that writing in the product approach is considered as a rigid, formulaic, unthinking way of constructing particular texts Clearly, writers in this case completely ignore various stages of composing such as brainstorming, generating, and planning ideas Different from the product approach, the process approach emphasizes the composing processes

Below is elaborated the process approach

2.3.2 The process approach

Producing a written text is a “non-linear, exploratory, and generative process…” (Zamel, 1983: 165) Therefore, to produce a good piece of written text, in the process model, students are engaged in the recursive processes of planning, gathering information, drafting, revision, and editing (Campbell, 1998; Tribble, 1996; White & Arndt, 1991) This means that the steps of the writing process are not operated separately Writers plan, collect information, draft, and edit but then they can re-do any of these steps until the final written

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piece of writing is complete For example, when they move to the stage of revising, they might go back to the stages of reading and collect information and drafting to generate ideas to produce the first draft

In this approach, writers move from collecting information to publishing

a written text There are a lot of models of the writing process However, the

widely accepted model is prewriting - drafting - revising - publishing In the

first stage, writers are engaged in several steps, for example searching for ideas, generating, grouping, and outlining In the next stage, they discuss and consult ideas with their friends and teachers to produce multiple drafts of a written product After receiving feedback from peers and/or teachers, they have

to revise their drafts or even go back the preceding stages to find ideas until they have the better drafts In the stage of revising, they have to edit minor errors Finally, they submit their finished products to the teacher

Obviously, the first virtue of the process approach concerns that roles of teachers Teachers are non-directive but facilitating; that is, they assist writers

to express their own meanings by creating an encouraging and co-operative environment with minimal interference (Hyland, 2003b: 18) Also, they engage

in guiding students to collect data or outlining, providing input and feedback during the revision and evaluation stages Secondly, learners can benefit from the process-oriented approach learning Leaners can enhance the active and creative roles in finding information of a given topic, consulting with peers and/ or teachers to select the appropriate ideas, producing several drafts and editing their final drafts An idea of this can be found in Hyland‟s (2003b: 18) when he considers the learner in the process writing class as “an active processor of information” Moreover, they can develop a sense of audience through peer and teacher reviews (Boughey, 1997) One more benefit the learners can get from the process approach is that they can know more techniques such as brainstorming, outlining, drafting, and peer/ teacher feedback to improve and refine their writing products

Apart from the advantages stated above, the process-based model still

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has some disadvantages It is criticized as (1) regarding all writing as being produced by the same set of processes regardless of the target audience and the content of the text and (2) giving insufficient importance to the kind of texts writers produce and why such texts are produced (Badger and White, 2000; Bazerman, 1980; Hyland, 2003a), and (3) offering learners insufficient input, particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge (Badger and White, 2000), (4) failing to take into account the social and cultural aspects that have an impact

on different kinds of writings (Atkinson, 2003)

Little attention to the socio-cultural aspects and intended audience of the process approach will be supplemented by the genre-based writing instruction discussed below

2.3.3 The genre-based approach

Over the past thirty years have seen increasing attention given to the notion of genre and its application in language pedagogy Genre, according to Hyland (2004), has become “one of the most important and influential concepts

in language education” (p.5)

2.3.3.1 A brief overview of genre theory

Hyon (1996) identifies three broad, overlapping schools of genre theory: New Rhetoric studies, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and English Specific Purposes (ESP) New Rhetoric theory takes a primary concern on the situational contexts in which genres occur rather than detailed analyses of text elements and also places emphases on the social purposes that these genres fulfill in these contexts (Coffin, 2001; Freedman & Medway, 1994; Miller, 1984) Thus, New Rhetoric theory puts a focus on socio-contextual descriptions

of genres The second orientation based on Halliday‟s (1994) Systemic

Functional Linguistics (SFL), known in the US as the „Sydney School‟

examines the interplay between functions of language and social context (Hyon, 1996) According to this approach, different genres are all purposeful, interactive, and sequential and language is systematically linked to context

at identifying the purpose and examining the genre schematic structure and the textual and lexico-grammatical features involved

To sum up, New Rhetoric, Australian Systemic Functional studies, and ESP that embrace distinctive approaches to defining and analyzing genres are reflected in the genre-based teaching applications developed within each

of the three research fields

The following part will elaborate more about genre-based pedagogies

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Social Action‟, she states that genre theory has implications for rhetorical

education Another example is Coe (1994) who creates a model that helps raise university students‟ awareness of the social context that shape their writing He asks them to specify the purpose, audience, and writing situations of the text Then, he assesses students‟ writing products based on how well they respond to the context

Unlike scholars in New Rhetoric Studies, Australian and ESP theorists put a focus on L2 teaching Scholars, for example Bhatia (1993), Flowerdew (1993), and Swales (1990) (cited in Hyon, 1996) have agreed in the genre-based instruction teachers can help nonnative speakers of English master the functions and linguistic conventions of genres they need to read and/ or write in their disciplines and professions As in ESP, researchers apply genre analysis to teach English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for professional communication (EPC) in tertiary level classrooms Particularly, they employ genre structures and grammatical features in their teaching and help students grasp generic and grammatical features of texts in different fields For example, some typical theorists have made use of structural move analyses to describe the schematic structure of genres such as research articles (Swales, 1990), business letters (Bhatia, 1993), university lectures (Thompson, 1994), sections

of the research article (Holmes, 1997), and application letters (Henry and Roseberry, 2001) Obviously, researchers in ESP equip ESP writing instructors with schematic structures of genres in EPC and EAP fields; however, they do not show them how to present this knowledge in the classroom

SFL, according to Hyon (1996), is mainly applied in child and adolescent contexts, for instance, primary and secondary schools, adult migrant English education and workplace training programs Practically, Hyon (1996) concludes that SFL promotes several instructional frameworks for implementing genre-based pedagogy The most widely recognized framework

is developed by the Literacy and Education Research Network and Sydney‟s Disadvantaged Schools Program Following this framework, Cope & Kalantzis

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(1993) model a teaching-learning cycle with three stages such as modeling, joint negotiation of text, and independent construction of text Modeling is the time when the target genre is introduced in terms of its social functions, language features, and schematic stages The second stage, joint construction, refers to the phase where learners carry out exercises which manipulate relevant language forms Here, these learners are engaged in a lot of activities such as observation, researching, note taking, discussion, rehearsing, role play and have to negotiate with both their friends and their instructors In the last stage, individual construction, to produce their own similar texts, learners have

to go through various activities from gathering information, drafting, consulting peers and/ or teachers‟ ideas, editing and re-drafting, evaluation, publishing, and creative exploitation of genre Hyland (2004) adapts this model and proposes another similar model with five stages (context building, modeling, joint construction, independent writing, comparing) Recently, this framework has been applied in recent studies (Chaisiri, 2010; Ning, 2008; Myskow & Gordon, 2010; Wu & Dong, 2009) In summary, in the SFL framework, learners are provided samples of the genre they will write and discuss more with the help from teachers and peers and finally experience different stages to be able to produce their best writings Because the SFL framework makes it easier for learners to produce writing texts with clear communicative purpose and correct linguistic features, it is chosen as the framework the researcher wants to employ in this study

2.3.3.3 Comparison of the genre approach with product and process

approaches

Each approach has its own merits and shortcomings The parts that follow will offer a deeper insight of three approaches to writing instruction

2.3.3.3.1 Genre approach: An extension of the product approach

Although the similarity between the product approach and genre one is that they both regard writing as predominantly linguistic and that writing development is a result of imitation of given texts, the genre approach can be

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considered as an extension of the product approach (Badger & White, 2000) In the product-oriented writing classes, students are asked to produce written texts similar with models instructed by teachers at the beginning stage Similarly, in the genre-based class, students are supplied with a model in a genre and then reproduce a text of the genre in question in respect of both the rhetorical organization and linguistic features closely associated with the genre As a result, Chen (2003) comments that this approach tends to focus on the schematic structure of the genre form with an aim at raising students‟ structural awareness Hence, the writing learning in this approach is considered as a rigid, formulaic, unthinking way of constructing particular texts (Kay and Dudley-Evans, 1998) and as “the analysis and imitation of input” (Badger & White, 2000) Although, the genre-based approach, as Widodo‟s (2006) assertion, resembles the product approach in that a model text is analyzed on the basis of grammatical and textual features and that it shows the close relationship between linguistic features and their functions (Kim, 2006) This is reflected in the way that the communicative purpose is the genre approach„s foundation (Halliday, 1985; Swales, 1990; Bhatia, 1991/ 1993) Consequently, when students “imitate” the model to reproduce a similar text of the given genre, they

have to pay much attention to arrange these moves as well as choose the

language carefully so that they can reach the purpose at the ultimate level because “…purpose interacts with features of text at every discourse level” (Johns, 1997: 25) Moreover, because the writers can choose language and adjust the sequence of moves to achieve their own intentions, the more experienced a writer is, the more meta-functional a text is Clearly, genre approaches are not a rigid and mindless imitation as misinterpreted by Kay and Dudley-Evans (1998) Besides, when constructing a text of a genre, writers have to enter a particular discourse community; the audience or discourse community should be thus placed much concern on

To sum up, the genre approaches far outweigh product approaches in terms of purpose, audience, and social context However, the genre-based writing instruction undervalues the writing skills needed to produce a text and

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considers learners as largely passive (Badger and White, 2000) These drawbacks will be supplemented by the process approach

2.3.3.3.2 Process approach: A supplement to the genre approach

In the genre orientation, the writing process follows the wheel with three

phases modeling – construction – independent construction (Cope and

Kalantzis, 1993) in which each phase seems to appear only once Clearly, the genre approach ignores the actual process to produce a piece of writing (Barwashi, 2000) and considers writing a linear process which the writer can determine before starting to write Besides, the genre approach is blamed for limiting students‟ creativity (Badger and White, 2000; Bawarshi, 2000; Freedman & Medway, 1994) because it offers writers an explicit understanding how texts in target genres are structured and why they are written (Cope and Kalantzis, 1993; Hyland, 2003b) and particularly gives students clear direction

in how/what/why to write” (Cope and Kalantzis, 1993: 242) In this case, learners involved in this instruction mechanically follow models to reproduce their writing and are not aware of which language to be used to achieve their intended writing purposes (Dixon, 1987; Raimes, 1991, cited in Hyland, 2003b: 26) This accounts for the comment of Bhatia (1993) and Kay & Dudley - Evans (1998) that genre approach has a tendency to be overly prescriptive This deficit is supplemented by the process approach because writing through this model is discovery-oriented, ego-centered, and writer-centered (Hyland, 2003a/b) Consequently, proponents of the process approach strongly believe that students can discover what they want to say and write more successfully through this model than in the genre one (Kim, 2006)

In short, to produce a good piece of writing, a student writer knows not only knowledge about language (form) as required in product and genre approaches, knowledge of the context in which writing happens and especially the purpose for the writing (context, and content) as in genre approach, but also possesses skills in using language (skills) as in process approach (Badger and White, 2000) Consequently, an effective method for writing needs to incorporate the insights of three approaches above

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2.3.4 A Process Genre Approach

As discussed above, each approach possesses its own strengths and weaknesses, and they are largely complementary Therefore, many writing instructors donot rigidly adopt just one approach in their writing classes but combine these approaches together This section reviews popular models for combining approaches in teaching ESL writing

2.3.4.1 The adapted model of process writing and genre (Tribble, 1996)

Flowerdew (1993) proposes a writing model with six activities listed (1) using the results of genre analysis, (2) mentioning instances of genres, (3) learners doing their own genre analysis, (4) concordancing, (5) „on-line‟ genre analysis by learners as an aid to produce their own texts, (6) translation based

on instances of a given genre He explains the first three activities help learners consider the social context from which the text occurs, the role of the text in genre as well as distinguish linguistic features of the genre The last three activities depend on the availability of a collection of appropriate text samples and aim at helping writers with getting accustomed to certain genres It is obvious that the whole process above is rather complicated and time-consuming in classroom practice However, Tribble (1996) sees positive sides

of Flowerdew‟s (1993) model These activities can help students raise awareness of contextual and textual features of genres and withdraw textual and contextual aspects Hence, he thinks that it is essential to extend a model in which the relation among content, context, process, and language knowledge interrelate with each other As a result, Tribble (1996: 60) proposes a writing cycle (Figure 1) as follows

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TEACHER research into genre

Select genres for classroom study

Collect corpus data

STUDENT research into genre

Prewriting WritingRevising Editing Publishing

Figure 1: The adapted model (Tribble, 1996: 60)

The figure above shows two different ways to develop writing The first linear route begins with prewriting, to writing, revising, editing and ends with publishing The second route is recursive and with the invention of teachers, learners can move backwards and forwards to refine their writing before publishing the final drafts In this model, teachers spend much time studying genres and prepare learners with knowledge of genres The only source students can make reference to is from teachers Obviously, students under this model are able to produce texts with contextual and textual features However, they are so passive in their learning process because they just receive knowledge that their teachers „feed‟ Moreover, they have no chance to consult their peers‟ ideas or get involved in the genre analysis before writing These

„holes‟ will be „mended‟ by the process genre model of Badger and White (2000)

2.3.4.2 A genre process model (Badger and White, 2000)

Badger and White (2000) propose a genre process model which incorporates the insights of product, process, and genre approaches This model considers writing as a process with a series of stages from a particular situation

to a text in which the teachers facilitate learners' progress by enabling appropriate input of knowledge and skills (ibid.)

Badger and White‟s (2000: 159) model is described in Figure 22 In the writing classroom, teachers need to provide a real-world situation that requires

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a written text in a genre and then provides sufficient support for learners to identify the purpose and other social aspects of context such as tenor, field, and mode Then, learners have to draw on knowledge of vocabulary, structure, organization and use appropriate skills such as planning, drafting, redrafting, editing, and publishing Finally, learners produce a text reflecting the situation from which it occurs It is special that different genres require different kinds of knowledge and different sets of skills Therefore, when learners lack knowledge, they can obtain from three possible sources, for example from other friends, teachers, and samples of the target genre However, the input is not always required because dash ( -) is shown on the right-hand side column

of Figure 22 , which means learners might ask for help from teachers and texts, from learners and texts, or from texts only

Figure 2: A genre process model (Badger and White, 2000: 159)

Clearly enough, Badger and White‟s (2000) model reflects exactly the three indispensable aspects of writing, as a product with linguistic and generic

A process genre model of writing Possible

input

Situation

Consideration of mode/ field/tenor

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features, as a process with recursive activities, and as a social act with

communicative purpose and intended audience

2.3.4.3 The adapted model from Badger & White (2000)

In comparison with the original process genre model by Badger and White (2000), the version of Yan (2005) (Figure shows more clearly how elements of the process and genre approaches work in unison Six steps such as preparation, modeling and reinforcing, planning, joint constructing, independent constructing, and revising illustrated in the right-hand column interact in a recursive way with themselves and with other writing skills The left-hand column shows clearly what the teacher and/or students have to do in each step In the preparation stage, teachers prepare a real-life situation which requires a written text for students and then analyze the situation to identify the purpose and genre involved This helps students to recall their old knowledge relating to the genre and predict structural features of this genre At the second step, the teacher introduces a model of the genre and lets students consider the social purpose of the text as well as intended audience, and the teacher then discusses how the text is structured and how it is organized to accomplish its purpose Students in the third step, planning, are asked to do some activities such as brainstorming, discussing, reading related materials to collect information so that they can relate the topic they will write to their experience

In the joint constructing step, teachers and students work together to produce a text Teachers use the writing process consisting of brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing; whereas, students contribute ideas The final product will be a sample for students to refer to when they write individually Thus, this step fosters collaborative writing between teachers and students and among students themselves Also, it shows students necessary steps they have to experience so

as to have refined writings In the independent constructing step, students use their knowledge, skills, feedback from friends and/or teachers to produce their own texts Before submitting the final products, students should spend some time revising, editing their writings or evaluating their friends‟ writings

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The model by Yan (2005) has the left-hand column that verifies the way how genre is taught explicitly from providing a real-life situation in which a text arises, to analyzing the social purpose and rhetorical structure of the genre mixed with writing processes: brainstorming, clustering, drafting, editing, evaluating The right-hand column demonstrates the collaborative writing between teachers and students

It is the advantages of Yan‟s (2005) model that encourages the researcher to employ this model in her study

Figure 3: Application of the Process Genre Approach (Yan, 2005: 21)

adapted from Badger and White (2000)

2.4 Advantages of the process genre model

Many scholars (Badger and White, 2000; Kaur and Chun, 2005; Kim & Kim, 2005; Kim, 2006; Ning, 2008; Yan, 2005) support the integration of the process and genre approaches to form the process genre approach because of its

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making valuable contributions to the ESL writing pedagogy The following part will summarize some of these important contributions

2.4.1 Awareness of form and function of language

In the process genre approach, learners get involved in analyzing a variety of genres at the pre-writing stage Moreover, they participate in a critical self-evaluation (revising, editing, responding and evaluating) Therefore, Kaur and Chun (2005) also explain that learners will be able to reflect on the similarities and differences existing between different types of genres to understand their situated use and variety As a result, they are likely

to enhance their consciousness and sensitivity to the forms and functions of language (Carter, 2003: 64, cited in Kaur and Chun, 2005) Similarly, Bhatia (1993) (cited in Kim and Kim, 2005) agreed that analyzing both formal and function features facilitates students‟ recognition of how and why linguistic

conventions are employed for particular rhetorical effects (p.6)

2.4.2 Improvement in writing skills

The genre-based approach improves students‟ linguistic skills (Flowerdew, 2000; Henry and Roseberry, 1998) Accordingly, in the hybrid of the process and genre approaches, several researchers explained that learners get involved in a whole recursive writing process and realize the social functions of genres and the contexts in which these genres are used; therefore, student-writers improve their writing skills and write their own texts with more confidence (Belbase, 2012; Chaisiri, 2010; Hansan & Akhand, 2010; Kaur and Chun, 2005; Kim & Kim, 2005) Moreover, Kim (2006) comments that together with the process approach, the genre approach can contribute to

„amplify students‟ writing potentials‟

2.4.3 Awareness of social nature of writing

Through the blend of process and genre approaches, students are certainly aware that a piece of writing is meant to achieve a particular purpose which comes out of a particular situation (Badger & White, 2000;Kim and

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Kim, 2005; Kim, 2006; Nordin and Mohammad, 2006) Similarly, Kaur and Chun (2005) argue that the process genre approach can offer us a way of looking at how a written product is used to accomplish its purpose in a social context

2.4.4 Awareness of readership

Under the process genre approach to teaching writing, students are required to create texts from social contexts in response to the communicative purpose they intend to achieve as well as to “meet” their audience‟s expectations, so this model prepares them to write for audiences outside the classroom (Kaur and Chun, 2005; Yan, 2005)

2.4.5 Motivation

The genre-based instruction prepares students for real-world writing (Kaur and Chun, 2005; Lin, 2006; Osman, 2004; Paltridge, 2004; Shuhua, 2009; Yan, 2005) In particular, Yan (2005) emphasizes that although writing lessons are carried out in a classroom, they relate strongly to real-life situations and motivate students Consequently, students feel more motivated when practicing reproducing professional genres useful for their future professions

2.4.6 Critical thinking

Learners become „more critical and perceptive‟ as readers and writers during the writing process (Swales, 1984: 84) because they keep a discerning eye on their own and other people‟s writing products as well White & Arndt (1991) argue that learners make intelligent choices on the content knowledge to

be used and how it could be organized for better effect This idea is well supported by that learners make constant self-reflections and receive constant feedbacks (Holst, 1995; Hyland 2003) Additionally, they engage themselves in critical evaluation by reflecting on similarities and differences existing between different types of genres to understand their situated use and variety (Kaur and Chun, 2005)

2.5 Potential difficulties of the implementation of the process genre

approach to teaching ESP Writing

2.5.1 New realms of knowledge

Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 158) propose one of potential problems that ESP teachers might encounter is the new realms of knowledge Badger and White (2000) argue that different genres require different kinds of knowledge and different set of skills Therefore, teachers must be expert writers of many genres and should draw on their own knowledge of, and skills in particular process genres Similar to Badger and White (2000), Henry and Roseberry‟s (2001) also comment that “in order to teach effectively, language teachers need

to know which linguistic features are associated for each strategy in a particular move of a particular genre” (p 155) As for learner-writers under the treatment of the process genre approach, Johns et al (2006: 244) emphasize the crucial role of knowledge of genres as follows:

How writers discover what they want to say, what content they decided

to include, why they should include it and how they should structure it, and the effects of the content they include will likely have within particular rhetorical situations and on particular audience – these all depend on writers‟ knowledge of the genre in which they are writing

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2.5.2 Appropriate input

Badger and White (2000: 158) state that “What input is needed will depend on their particular group of learners” As a result, teachers will meet difficulties in deciding on appropriate input for different groups of learners Also, Yan (2005) proposes that teachers are responsible for arousing curiosity and self-confidence by matching student interests to the writing topic

2.5.3 Feedback giving

Excessive attention on student errors may short-circuit students‟ writing and thinking process, making writing only an exercise in practicing grammar and vocabulary rather than a way to discover and express meaning (Zamel, 1982) Accordingly, Krashen, (1984: 11) suggest that moderation in giving feedback is encouraged and more importantly, the focus of the feedback on the rhetorical features rather than on linguistic errors Similarly, the teacher takes

an interventionist role, ensuring that students are able to understand and reproduce the typical rhetorical patterns they need to express their meanings (Hyland, 2003) The difficulty lies in how to reach a balance between what is imposed and what is negotiable The same viewpoint comes from Kaur and Chun (2005) in that teachers help students have a sense of text form; however, doesnot impose upon the learner

Theoretically, the process genre approach is thought to be implemented

in teaching writing with some positive effects on learners as well as expected obstacles

Practically, a number of studies employing the process genre approach

in teaching ESL writing in many parts of the world have showed encouraging

conclusions of these impacts The following section looks at them in more detail

2.6 Business Writing

In the mid-1970s and 1980s, Business English, an area of ESP, began to focus more and more on functional areas However, since the late 1980s,

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Business English teaching placed much more emphasis on the need to develop the skills for using the language learned (Ellis & Johnson, 1994) In the Business English area, Business Writing takes a vital part According to Jones (1995), a traditional Business Writing course consists of office corespondence, such as business letters, reports, memos, short proposals Among these genres, business letters are the most common form of English writing communication (ibid 13) Kolin (2013) classifies business letters into cover letters, inquiry letters, special request letters, sales letters, and customer relation letters (collection letters, refusal-of-credit letters, adjustment letters, complaint letters, and follow-up letters) Following Swales‟ (1990) and Bhatia‟s (1993) definition

of genre, Foz-Gil & González-Pueyo (2009) comment that business letters have

a recurrent schematic structure recognized and used by the members of business community That is the reason why GBI can be employed to teach business letters

2.7 Previous studies of the process genre approach in writing teaching

In Malaysia, Osman (2004) carried out an experiment using GBI, in which the process approach was combined with the genre one, to teaching writing for specific purposes Involved in the treatment were 36 students who were pursuing a Diploma in Communication Studies, and the experiment was conducted in one semester Osman analyzed the brochures in terms of communicative purposes and rhetorical moves After comparing the students‟ performance in the pre-test and post-test, the researcher found that the students showed improvement as indicated by their performance in the post-test when compared with their performance in the pre-test Another interesting result from the survey at the end of the experiment revealed that the students appreciated the GBI approach in the English class because they had the opportunity to use the language in real writing situations and most importantly the approach helped them with the language needed for brochures

Also in Malaysia, Foo‟s (2007) study investigated the effects of training

60 lower Form Six from a secondary school in Penang to apply process-genre

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writing knowledge and strategies in writing the expository essays The students were assigned to two treatment groups, named (1) an experimental group that received process-genre writing instruction, and (2) a control group that received product centered writing instruction Each group was given sixteen eighty-minute sessions of treatment time The subjects were tested before treatment, immediately after treatment and three months after the treatment

period The process-genre oriented writing instruction brought back positive

effects for students in the experimental group First, it helped them develop the strategies to write better essays Specifically, analysis from their essays revealed that the students who received process-genre oriented writing instruction were able to communicate their ideas in writing more effectively to the reader and developed more relevant ideas to support the purpose of their writing task, compared to the students who received product centered instruction Second, it not only promoted their awareness of conceptual writing strategies but also enhanced their overall writing proficiency and their willingness to apply practical writing strategies to composition as well

In Colombia, Veladia (2009) combined process genre approach with portfolio dossier with the hope to improve short story writing of senior class students in a state school in Bogotá The student participants, 33 eleventh-graders, had English proficiency at the A1 level defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages Three interventions were enacted with the intention of raising students‟ understanding of the process from organizing a short story to the publication of their own story in an e-portfolio dossier In the first intervention, the research did an online survey with the purpose of gathering students‟ information about knowledge of the writing process, about technical skills and facilities they had, and about the best communication sources to implement during their own writing project Besides, a diagnosis test was carried out to know about students‟ English proficiency level In the second intervention, the researcher designed an action plan to solve difficulties shown in the diagnosis stage At this phase, the researcher also taught students how to create an e-portfolio dossier as well as