A survey on the application of the genre based approach to the teaching of writing skills to twelfth graders hau nghĩa high school in long an province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCIES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A SURVEY ON THE APPLICATION OF THE GENRE-BASED A

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCIES & HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

A SURVEY ON THE APPLICATION OF THE GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO THE TEACHING OF WRITING SKILLS TO TWELFTH GRADERS AT HAU NGHIA HIGH SCHOOL

IN LONG AN PROVINCE

Submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

In partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By NGUYEN THI HUYNH NHU

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my former thesis supervisor, Prof Dr Do Huy Thinh, who had great contribution for the very beginning of the thesis

I owe a great deal to my supervisor Doan Hue Dung Ph D., for her patient guidance, thoughtful comments, and valuable assistance from the embryo to completion of the thesis Without her help and encouragement, I could not have finished the thesis

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all my lecturers for their helpful instructions during the Master course at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and to all of my classmates who have inspired and encouraged me during the study process and completion of the thesis

My special thanks go to Mrs Nguyen Thi Kim Van, Principal of Hau Nghia High School and Mrs Hoang Thi Hong, leader of English Teacher Staff, for their enthusiastic help in approving me to carry out the research I would also like to thank all teachers and students at Hau Nghia High School for their help and co-operation in completing the questionnaires

Last but not least, my sincere thanks go to my parents, my two younger sisters,

my colleagues at the Reunification Palace, especially my husband, Majority Tran Dinh Luong, who always encourage and stand by me during the course Without their suggestions, support and kindness, I would never have been able to pursue this work to the end

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

“A survey on the application of the Genre-based Approach in the teaching

of writing skills to twelfth graders at Hau Nghia High School in Long An Province”

in terms of the statement of Requirements for Thesis in Master’s Programs issued by Higher Degree Committee

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, October 17th 2012

Nguyen Thi Huynh Nhu

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Nguyen Thi Huynh Nhu, being the candidate for the degree

of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis 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 the purpose of the study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan

or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, October 17, 2012

Nguyen Thi Huynh Nhu

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i

Statement of originality ii

Retention and use of the thesis iii

Table of contents iv

List of abbreviations vii

List of figures ix

List of tables x

Abstract xi

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.1.1 The need of teaching writing in high school 2

1.1.2 Description of English language program at HNHS 4

1.1.3 Teaching writing in HNHS 7

1.2 Purpose of the study 9

1.3 Significance of the study 10

1.4 Delimitations and limitations 10

1.5 The organization of the study 10

Summary 11

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 13

2.1 Common approaches to the teaching of writing skills 13

2.1.1 Approaches to teach writing 13

2.1.1.1 The Controlled-to-Free Approach 13

2.1.1.2 The Product/Pattern Approach 14

2.1.1.3 The Communicative Approach 14

2.1.1.4 The Process Approach 14

2.1.2 From the Process Approach to the Genre-based Approach 15

2.2 The Genre-based Approach in the teaching of writing skills 17

2.2.1 The connection of Genre, Texts and Grammar 17

2.2.1.1 The nature of genre 17

2.2.1.2 Texts 20

2.2.1.3 Function of grammar 21

2.2.1.4 Cohesion and Coherence 23

2.2.2 Pedagogical principles of the Genre-based Approach 24

2.2.3 The benefits and problems of the Genre-based Approach to teaching writing 26

2.2.4 The Curriculum Cycle 27

2.2.4.1 The building knowledge of the field 28

2.2.4.2 Modeling of the text 28

2.2.4.3 Joint construction of texts 29

2.2.4.4 Independent construction of texts 29

2.3 The Genre-based approach as an integrated approach 31

2.3.1 The relationship between writing and reading 31

2.3.2 The relationship between writing and speaking 32

2.3.3 The GBA as an integrated approach 34

Summary 36

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 37

3.1 Research contexts 37

3.2 Research questions 38

3.3 Research design 39

3.3.1 Participants 39

3.3.1.1 Students 39

3.3.1.2 Teachers 39

3.3.2 Instruments 40

3.3.2.1 Questionnaires 40

3.3.2.1.1 Student Questionnaire 41

3.3.2.1.2 Teacher Questionnaire 42

3.3.2.2 Interviews 43

3.4 Data collection 44

3.4.1 Student Questionnaire 44

3.4.2 Teacher Questionnaire and interviews 44

3.5 Data analysis 45

Summary 45

CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS 46

4.1 Students’ responses 47

4.1.1 Students’ views on the learning of writing skills 47

4.1.2 Students’ attitudes to teachers’ ways of conducting writing period……… 51

4.1.3Students’ writing activities 54

4.1.4 Students’ suggestions 59

4.1.5 Discussion of the results of student questionnaire 60

4.2 Teachers’ responses 63

4.2.1 Teachers’ attitudes to the teaching of writing skills 63

4.2.2 Teachers’ attitudes to the application of the GBA 67

4.2.3 The learning – teaching cycle 70

4.2.4 Teachers’ suggestions on the use of the GBA 74

4.2.5 Discussion of the results of teacher questionnaire 75

Summary 77

CHAPTER 5 FINDINGS, SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION 79

5.1 Summary of findings 79

5.2 Suggestions 81

5.2.1 To teachers 81

5.2.2 To students 85

5.2.3 To the lesson plan 87

5.3 Suggestions for further research 88

5.4 Conclusion 88

REFERENCES 91

APPENDIX 1 Student Questionnaire 97

APPENDIX 2 Teacher Questionnaire 102

APPENDIX 3 Student Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) 107

APPENDIX 4 Teacher Questionnaire (English Version) 112

APPENDIX 5 Interview transcript 117

APPENDIX 6 Interview transcript 120

APPENDIX 7 Interview transcript 122

APPENDIX 8 Interview transcript 124

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

GBA Genre-based Approach

GBI Genre-based Instruction

HNHS Hau Nghia High School

EFL English as Foreign Language

ESL English as Second Language

ESP English as Specific Purpose

ELT English Language Teaching

MOET Ministry of Education and Training

USSH University of Social Sciences and Humanities

HCMC Ho Chi Minh City

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Writing genres for 12th graders 7

Table 3.1 Teachers’ general information 38

Table 4.1 Teachers’ ways of conducting the writing class 52

Table 4.2 Information students want to know before starting to write 54

Table 4.3 Students’ ideas about the assistance of genre analysis 56

Table 4.4 The ways students deal with materials from teachers 57

Table 4.5 Students’ suggestions to teachers 59

Table 4.6 Students’ suggestions on writing activities as adopting the GBA 60

Table 4.7 Teachers’ teaching experiences 63

Table 4.8 Students’ mistakes in writing 65

Table 4.9 Attentions drawn in designing the lesson plan 66

Table 4.10 Frequency of using activities in teaching writing 68

Table 4.11 Ways of conducting the second stage of the learning – teaching cycle 72

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 The Curriculum Cycle by Callaghan, Knapp and Noble (1993) 30

Figure 2.1 The Curriculum Cycle by Vigotsky (1978) 31

Figure 4.1 Students’ interests in learning writing 48

Figure 4.2 Language skills students pay most attention to 49

Figure 4.3 The most important component in writing 50

Figure 4.4 Students’ attitudes to teachers’ teaching approaches 53

Figure 4.5 Students’ attitudes to teachers’ teaching approaches in learning other skills 53

Figure 4.6 Students’ ideas about writing tasks in the textbook 58

Figure 4.7 The most difficult skills to teach 64

Figure 4.8 Teachers’ ideas about writing process as adopting the GBA 70

Figure 4.9 The most difficult stage in the learning – teaching cycle 71

Figure 4.10 Teachers’ ideas about the last stage of the learning – teaching cycle 73

Figure 4.11 Teachers’ ideas about writing tasks in the textbook 74

ABSTRACT

The research studies the advantages and disadvantages of the application of the Genre-based Approach in the teaching and learning of writing skills to 12thgraders at Hau Nghia High School This research also tries to find out the difficulties that teachers are facing with as adopting this approach The subjects consist of 395 students of the twelfth grade and eleven English teachers at this school The research uses the questionnaires and interviews as the main tools to get necessary data which are analyzed carefully using frequency analysis

The findings indicate most of teachers and students realize that the knowledge of genre has strong affects on students’ learning of writing In term of theory, the GBA help students gain the understanding of genre including the specific linguistic features (grammar, vocabulary and discourse) as well as the whole generic structures, approaching the communicative purposes of texts It provides students organizational skills and opportunities to experience with reading skills

In term of practice, students can work together on how to produce the texts that reflect the specific genre Additionally, the four stages of the teaching – learning cycle also show its benefits to teachers in designing the lesson plan and in generating the class activities However, it is the fact that the difficulties still exist They are identified as the limited span of time, students’ low awareness of the importance of the learning of writing skills and low interests in in-class activities, the ignorance of writing process and the role of teachers and students Some suggestions for improving this situation are presented based on the study’s findings in three sections: to teachers, to students and to the lesson plan, which are interrelated These suggestions aim at helping students and teachers, to what extent, improve the quality of the teaching and learning of writing skills as using the Genre-based Approach Furthermore, the suggestions for further research are also introduced in order to have a full view of the GBA in different contexts and

However, reality shows that Vietnamese high school students who have finished the twelfth form can hardly produce a good piece of writing

in terms of grammar, vocabulary and text structures in English although they have spent years learning English and most of them can do their written tests rather well It can be said that writing has been a great challenge for both teachers and students in high school

In the past, writing has been treated poorly and usually left to the last stage

of learning Hedge (1998, cited in Simpson, 2004) notes that this skill was often relegated to the status of “homework” due to pressure of time and syllabus requirements According to Tribble (1998, cited in Simpson, 2004), writing was considered as a tool for the practice and reinforcement of specific grammatical and lexical patterns He also claims that students were basically “writing to learn” and not “learning to write” as instructed by this traditional product- oriented approach When students write in foreign language, the purpose of writing is to catch grammar, spelling and punctuation errors

However, teaching English in general and writing in particular has been changed positively when the ability to write accurately and effectively is necessary for almost all people not only in their work and study but also in their real life At work, employees have to write formal documents, letters of application, reports,

minutes and so on They sometimes write thank-you notes to their grandmothers, messages, love letters, dreamy poems, secret diaries, personal wish lists, and - just for fun – stories of romance, science fiction, and adventure At schools, stated by Zemelman and Daniels (1998), junior and senior high school students want to write, can write, and do write They write school assignments, at higher levels, they have to write up researches and dissertations Moreover, as Lindemanm (1995:172) stated

“writing permits us to understand not only the world, but also the self”

1.1.1 The need of teaching writing in high

school

Obviously, speech is not the only way to communicate with each other Written language also does this function and even better That is the reason why writing skills have been paid much attention in teaching and learning second/foreign language It is the fact that writing is usually included as a part of our second/foreign-language syllabus Liz Hamp_Lyons & Ben Heasley (2006:3) state that “writing helps our students learn” is an additional and very important reason Furthermore, they think writing itself helps reinforce the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary In writing, students have a chance to adventure with the language, to go beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks Writing engages students with the new language; the effort to express ideas and the constant use of eye, hand, and brain is a unique way to reinforce learning As writing, students think a lot and carefully consider finding the right word or the right sentence to convey their messages Besides, the close relationship between thinking and writing makes writing a valuable part of any language course

3

Harmer (1998) has the same idea According to him, writing provides students of English as a foreign language with reinforcement, language development, learning style and, most importantly, writing as a skill of its own right

Penny Ur (1996) assumes that learners of a foreign language should have the ability to perform serious kinds of written texts which are similar to those educated people are expected to produce in their own language

Zemelman & Daniels (1998) state that junior and senior high school students want to write, can write, and do write After all, in learning to write, students are invited – compelled, really – to make sense of the world, to weigh ideas, to explore values, to find their own connections, to invent voices, styles, personae

on a page and then most importantly, to test everything out by communicating with others, sharing writing and exchanging responses

According to Trible (1998), he simply finds that writing is a language skill which

is difficult to acquire but writing is the most wonderful and meaningful subject to teach As for Harmer (1998), writing is a basic skill, just as important as speaking, listening and reading Therefore, there should have a greater need to learn and teach writing

Another reason for the teaching of writing stated by Raimes (1998) is that writing is an effective tool in learning new vocabulary or grammatical structures

in many of the integrated syllabuses, especially at lower level

More broadly, Lindemanm (1995) considers writing as economic power which well opens doors to better career In the context of high school, writing well helps students a lot to write their term papers and essays, perhaps in college He adds that writing is as social necessity which helps human beings make sense of the world, establishing form of social commitment because in our society

“putting it in writing” has greater force than speaking

As mentioned above, writing is a skill which is both limited in value and difficult

to acquire However, writing, to some extent, serves a variety of pedagogical purposes Byrne (1988) gives us some First, writing enables us to provide for different learning styles and needs It is likely that writing is an aid to retention to make students feel more ease and relaxed Second, written work serves to provide learners with some tangible evidence that they are making progress in the language The third purpose lies in the exposure to the foreign language through more than one medium, especially if skills are properly integrated, appears to be more effective than relying on a single medium alone Forth, writing provides variety in classroom activities, increasing the amount of

language contact through work that can be set out of class and needed for formal and informal setting

In summary, the ability to write has to be consciously learned In the context of education, it is also worth remembering that most exams, whether they are testing foreign language abilities or other skills, often rely on the students‟ writing proficiency in order to measure their knowledge As Harmer (1998: 3) said “being able to write is a vital skill for “speakers” of a foreign language as much as for everyone using their own first language Training students to write thus demands the care and attention of language teachers

1.1.2 Description of English language program at HNHS

The English syllabus for 12th graders at HNHS is a part of the general syllabus from the MOET Students use English 12 as their main course book The course book includes 16 units in which four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) are heavily focused and equally considered Moreover, there are 6 consolidations Each unit is about a certain topic Teachers and students work together in 2 semesters totally 37 weeks with 111 periods (one period = 45 minutes) Every semester, students will do three 15-minute tests and two 45- minute tests and of course there are also parts of correction for those tests given

by teachers The first 8 units are taught in the first semester and the rest in the second one Each unit is often taught in 5 periods Each language skill accounts for 1 period; the last period is devoted for reviewing “Language Focus”

- Reading: students deal with normally a text (less than 300 words) This part aims at helping students get acquainted with the topic It also provides information of the whole unit and develops students‟ reading skills

- Speaking part includes many activities for practicing speaking skills according to language functions and the topic of the unit Those activities are communicative ones in which students can work in pair, groups or individually

- Listening part is often a refined paragraph or a dialogue concerning the main topic of the unit Its purpose is to enhance students‟ listening comprehension as well as to correct students‟ mistakes in pronunciation and grammatical structures

- Writing: supplies students many tasks that helps students improve their writing skills in English Writing is both theme-based and genre-based designed such as letters, description paragraphs, reports, messages…

- Language Focus concentrates in three main parts: Pronunciation, Grammar and Vocabulary As for Pronunciation, students have chance to practice how to pronounce ending syllables, stress in two/three syllable words, rhythm, basic intonation in English Grammar (and vocabulary) provides all of the main grammatical points for the whole unit, helps students easier to understand and use it

After studying any unit, there is always a period for consolidation Therefore, students have chance to look back again what they have already learnt in class The consolidation units are presented as “TEST YOURSELF” basing on the standards from the MOET Those tests help students check again their ability and understanding of the lesson

However, one period for each skill is not long enough for students to practice in class and teachers find hard to convey all of the messages of the lesson There is

no doubt that with such little time, teachers and students have a challenge in reality A lot of problems for teachers as well as students in teaching and learning English in general and writing in specific still remain This matter requires both teachers and students great efforts to handle the lesson

Writing is, actually, a very difficult subject for students to learn at HNHS How

to help students engaged in learning writing is hard reality for teachers at this school In 2008, the MOET in Long An Province held a yearly program which introduced some new teaching approaches to teachers in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning English in general and writing skills in specific for high school students Among those approaches is the GBA This program had

a strong influence on the improvement of teaching and learning of English Teachers collected a lot of useful instructions on how this approach worked effectively In other word, all of teachers at HNHS have been trained to apply the GBA It is the fact that this approach has been applied in the teaching of English

at HNHS for a few years According to the course book, 12th graders learn to use

a variety of writing genres Some writing genres that 12th students deal with are described in table 1 The writing genre is dictated by purpose and audience Classifying various writing genres provides an insight into that particular style of writing Whether it be descriptive, expository, or letters, learning about different writing genres helps students become better writers and more critical evaluators

of information Therefore, the GBA is assumed to help students a lot in writing those genres effectively with confidence

Although teachers were trained to apply this approach and this approach is instructed by the MOET, teachers and students face with lots of difficulties as using the GBA Teachers always take their students‟ learning abilities into careful consideration so that teachers will find how to design the lesson appropriately, especially with the application of the GBA As designing the lesson plan for writing, teachers tend to design more activities that help students get familiar with the writing lessons As usual, teachers often give students a piece of model to illustrate what they will write Teachers explicitly teach the theory and help students to make the outlines After students finish their first draft, teachers also give comments to their writings English program for students

in high school was innovated, however, in teachers‟ opinions, some topics are not practical and appropriate with students‟ ability This research tries to make clear and has a closer look at writing situation at this school

Genre Class assignment

Descriptive writing

- describing typical features of a Vietnamese conical leaf hat

- describing school education system in Vietnam

- describing the world you would like to live in the future

-describing main features of a desert

- describing a book

- describing a sport event (a football match)

- a short description of an international organization

- describing a chart

Expository writing

- writing a report based on given information

- writing about measures to protect endangered species and possible results

Table 1 Writing genres for 12 th graders

1.1.3 Teaching writing skills at HNHS

Leki (2004) found that instead of being the last skills taught and instead of being

a servant to grammar, writing now has become much more important in language curriculum That is true in our country now English has been a required subject

in high school curriculum for a long time In recent years, the new curriculum of the subject English in high school education program has created a great change

in learning and teaching this subject In this curriculum, all language skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) have been included Teaching and learning writing skills at Hau Nghia High School (HNHS) in Long An Province

is such a case Some teaching approaches have been applied to enhance students‟

learning of writing skills The current method that English teachers are using to teach writing skills is the Genre-based Approach (the GBA) This approach has been applied for a few years at this school Obviously, this approach places its emphasis on the importance of exploring the social and cultural context of language use on a piece of writing as Derewianka (2001) says It also highlights the magnitude of readers and the linguistic conventions that a piece of writing needs to follow in order to be successfully accepted by readers in regards to grammar, organization and content It means that this approach emphasizes the important role of writer-reader interaction on a piece of writing (Reid, 1995) The teacher‟s role in this approach is viewed as authoritative rather than authoritarian (Rothery, 1996) As an expert in the classroom, the teacher provides students with systematic guidance and careful support through various activities so that students ultimately gain the control of written genres At the same time, he/she also recognizes the importance of students‟ contributions to the teaching-learning process

Last but not least, the genre-based approach emphasizes the explicit teaching of the linguistic conventions of the genre for second language novice student writers (Christie, 1990) It is argued that students cannot produce a particular text-type successfully if they are not taught explicitly about linguistic conventions of that text-type with respect to language features and schematic structure

However, teaching and learning writing skills does not seem to meet the objectives And writing seems to be the most difficult to teach and learn Generally speaking, students at HNHS still find writing boring and make little progress Having a close look through the writing paper assignments that the students write at home as well as through the writing parts from some final tests,

a lot of problems can be found They seem to pay more attention to other skills such as speaking, reading and listening As a result, their ability to do a piece of writing becomes problematic

The most difficult thing is that teachers cannot engage their students‟ interests in learning writing as applying the GBA due to many reasons such as the course

book design and the content, the course objectives, students‟ level or due to the teaching approaches Hence, it can be said that there still exists some difficulties

in the application of the GBA in the teaching writing skills

1.2 Purpose of the study

Most of 12th graders at HNHS do not seem to have a good motivation in learning writing skills Although the GBA is involved in the communication purpose, reader expectation, and the schemata structures, the students have to struggle with structural issues including selecting the proper words, using the correct grammar, generating and developing ideas from the specific topic They fail to

do their communicative purposes in writing or concerning with the social context They feel very confused of the organization, discourse or grammatical structures to suit such writing genre Therefore, their problems in writing still exist

the purposes of the study are:

1 To find out the advantages and disadvantages of the GBA in the teaching

2 To investigate difficulties that students and teachers at HNHS are facing

as applying the GBA in teaching and learning of writing skills

3 To suggest solutions toward improving the teaching and learning of writing skills as applying the GBA

2 What difficulties do teachers at HNHS have as applying the GBA in the teaching of writing skills?

learning of writing skills as applying the GBA?

1.3 The significance of the study

The analysis of the findings from the survey will help to identify the causes of problems as applying GBA into the teaching of writing skills so that recommendations are offered to facilitate the writing process It is also hoped that English teachers of the school will taken into consideration whether it is necessary to adjust the writing lesson plans and the writing tests at HNHS All attempts aim at improving learners‟ ability to write The GBA has been a new trend in the setting of teaching English in high schools Therefore, the investigation into the use of the GBA is a great necessity This study is generally helpful to teachers and students in any other high schools in Vietnam where the situation is as the same

1.4 Delimitations and limitations

Due to the space-time limit, the research is confined to the teachers and students

at HNHS in Long An Province It places focus mainly on the application of the GBA in the teaching and learning of the writing skills, not other aspects or every activity in the classroom In addition, the number of teacher and student samples

is relatively small and therefore may not be truly representative to all the population Therefore, the study may not be generalized in other settings

1.5 The organization of the thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters

 Chapter one addresses the background of the study, the problems associated with teaching writing skills in high school, writing teaching and learning at HNHS, and the purpose of the study This chapter also provides the significance, delimitations and limitations, and the organization of the study

 Chapter two gives a review of the relevant literature to the issues of the GBA in the teaching and learning of writing skills in three main sections: (1) some common approaches to teach writing in which the benefits of the GBA are also dicussed (2) the GBA in the teaching of writing skills (3) the GBA as an integrated approach to the language teaching

 Chapter three, which is organized in two sections, deals with the methodology of the study The first section is to identify the research questions underlying the study It clarifies more about the objectives that the research is looking for The second section is devoted to research design, including descriptions of participants and the instruments, how to get enough reliable data to serve the research questions

 Chapter four analyzes the questionnaire responses (students‟ responses, teachers‟ responses to the questionnaires, teachers‟ interviews) The data analysis is intended to identify (1) real situation the teaching and learning

of writing skills at HNHS, (2) difficulties that students and teachers at this school are facing as applying GBA in the teaching and learning of writing skills, (3) activities that can enhance students‟ learning of writing skills as adopting the GBA

 Chapter five will discuss about the recommendations and suggests some activities and strategies that are helpful for students and teachers in the teaching and learning of writing skills The conclusion is also included in this chapter

Summary

This chapter aims to provide a general look at the study including the background, purpose, the significance, limitations, especially the organization of the thesis Hopefully, this thesis brings about practical benefits to the teachers and students at HNHS in terms of teaching and learning writing skills by pointing out students‟ and teachers‟ problems and giving useful and feasible

suggestions, thus making the learning of writing skills of the students concerned more effective

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides reviews and analysis of some related literature regarding the teaching of writing skills and the GBA and effective professional teaching for teachers The first part concerns some common approaches in teaching writing in which benefits of the GBA are also discussed The second part is devoted to mention reviews on the GBA in teaching writing including real context of the application of genre approach in teaching writing It then continues to define and give example of genre itself Following this, it examines the relationship of genre, texts and grammar and discusses the pedagogical principles and also the curriculum cycle as using the GBA in teaching writing The last part mentions the GBA as an integrated approach in teaching writing in which the relationship between writing and reading, writing and speaking are analyzed

2.1 Common Approaches to teach writing

There are several books and research papers related to teaching of writing skills for EFL or ESL students Raimes (1998) raises a variety of approaches to teaching writing but concludes that there is no specific way to teach writing in schools It can be said that the way to teach writing is dependent on the contents, kinds of writing and learners‟ competence

2.1.1 Common approaches to the teaching of writing skills

2.1.1.1 The Controlled-to-Free Approach

This is a traditional teaching approach and a product of the audio-lingual period Byrne (1988) finds that it emphasizes on step-by-step learning and formal correction Students are taught how to write and combine various sentence types and manipulation exercises are use to give them the experience of writing connected sentences This approach stresses the features of grammar, syntax and mechanics In other words, it emphasizes accuracy than fluency

2.1.1.2 The Product/Pattern Approach

Writing correct sentences is not sufficient for students to do written assignments

at academic institutions Raimes (1998) agrees that grammatical accuracy is not the first concern J Reid (1993) and Burns ((1990) are supporters of this approach It helps students discover elements in a composition and strategies to create them such as thesis statement, topic sentence, unity, organizational strategies and paragraph patterns Byrnes (1988) argues that this approach stresses the importance of the paragraph as the basic unit of written expression That means it teaches students to construct and organize paragraphs It also use a variety of techniques such as forming paragraphs from jumbled sentences, writing parallel paragraphs, developing paragraphs from topic sentences Generally speaking, this approach gets students to express themselves effectively

at a level beyond the sentence

2.1.1.3 The Communicative Approach

This approach stresses the purpose of a piece of writing and audience for it The classroom activities help students to develop their awareness of the audience‟s expectation It is easy to devise situations which allow students to write purposefully They can write to one another or use writing in role-play situations

It is the fact that it motivates students to write and how writing is a form of communication

2.1.1.4 The Process Approach

This teaching approach places its emphasis on the process of writing which usually consists of three stages: pre-writing, writing and rewriting As Zemelman (1998) says that the act of writing helps to express one‟s personal feelings, experiences or reactions Besides the purpose and audience, students also care about the steps of writing They start with a draft, and then revise, reorganize and redraft Students have chance to share their work with peers, teachers and get feedback on their ideas This is a process of discovery of new ideas and new language forms to express those ideas

2.1.2 From the Process Approach to the Genre-based Approach

For ages, the Process Approach has been applied in the teaching of writing skills However, in the reality, this approach is not the best if it works alone

Obviously, a process approach emphasis on the writers as an independent producer of texts That is one of its limitations as Tribble (1998) says this approach does not necessarily address the needs of a learner who has to write for readers unknown to him or her In this approach, the stress is put on the cycle of writing activities from the stage of the generation of ideas and collection of data through to the “publication” of a finished text This sequence of activities typically occurs in four stages “prewriting, composing/drafting, revising and editing” (Badger & White, 2000:154) Prewriting concerns the phase of gathering Draft is a process of writing a rough outline of what will be addressed Students make a rough draft and share it with their peers and teachers to receive comments, and then make modifications to their writings Revising takes place at this point Editing is the last stage in which students correct their mechanical mistakes like spelling and punctuation

It is believed the procedures of process writing helps learners develop more effective ways of conveying At the same time students can comprehend the content they want to express as well as discover what they want to say then write successfully However, teachers who have applied this approach may find that it less deals with linguistic knowledge such as grammar and the organization of the content Another thing is that in this approach, writing proficiency only takes place with the support of the repeated exercise of the same writing procedures

If the Process Approach is viewed as the writer-centered, the genre approach is more socially oriented The knowledge of language often goes with the social purpose It focuses more on the ways in which writers and texts need to interact with readers, or we can say, on the viewpoint of readers than writers In this approach, writing is a social activity and texts are written to do things The success of this kind of communication is exposed by readers‟ recognition of texts

According to Derewianka (2003), the GBA begins with the whole text as a unit

in the focus rather than the sentence Here, a "text" refers to "a piece of language

in use", which is a "harmonious collection of meanings appropriate to its context" and hence has "unity of purpose" In other words, texts are stretches of language that may be considered complete in themselves as acts of social exchange

The GBA is applied to conduct the classroom activity in the process of teaching and learning based on genre Since this approach has been popular, student writers have more benefits from studying different kinds of texts (Yan 2005) The GBA, teaching and learning focuses on the understanding and production of selected genres of texts Teaching and learning around text genres has become increasingly influential in main stream ELT in a number of situations, including

“primary, secondary, tertiary, professional and community teaching contexts” involving native speakers of English as well as ESL and EFL learners” (Derewianka, 2003)

Furthermore Gee adds that genre represented a stage or goal – oriented social process: “genre are referred to as social process because members of culture interact with each other to achieve them; as goal oriented, because they have evolved to get things done; as staged because it is usually takes more than one step for participants to achieved their goals” The other rational for adopting genre based approach is that, genre based approach facilitates clear links to the student‟ purposes for writing beyond the writing classroom (Lin, 2006)

Due to the above-mentioned weaknesses of the GBA, Badger & White (2000) experimented with using the genre and process approaches together as an alternative in a model called the process-genre approach This dual approach works well if the writing cycle begins with models, descriptions of the key linguistic features, discussion of the social situation and analysis of recommended rhetorical patterns of each genre

2.2 The Genre-based Approach to the teaching of writing skills

Basically, the GBA is teaching language based on results of genre analysis Genre analysis is the study of how language is used within a particular setting (Swales, 1990) and is concerned with the form of language use in relation to meaning (Bhatia, 1999) Genre analysis is a tool to examine the structural organization of texts by identifying the moves and strategies, and to understand how these moves are organized in order to achieve the communicative purpose

of the text Genre analysis also examines the text-patterning or textualization in genres to show statistical evidence of a particular linguistic feature in a specific genre and the specific features of the genre that the evidence textualizes Finally genre analysis examines the lexico-grammatical features of genres to identify the linguistic features chosen by expert users of the genre to realize the communicative purpose, and to explain these choices in terms of social and psychological contexts (Henry & Roseberry, 1998) Other considerations in genre analysis include the communicative purpose of the target genre, the roles

of the writer and the audience, and the context in which the genre is used The results from analyzing a genre serve as the instructional materials in the GBA

2.2.1 The connection of Genre, Texts and Grammar

The GBA has been discussed so far mainly focuses on the language processes involved in doing things with language Therefore, genre is mentioned in term of processes and different genres result in the use of different structural and grammatical resources This part will address the relationship of three elements: Genre, Texts and Grammar

2.2.1.1 The nature of Genre

The term “genre” has been around for a long time, since the early 1980s As genre has been developed in literacy education, it has been articulated within two related and different paradigms The word genre itself comes from the French word for kind or class It was first introduced in the area of English as specific purpose (ESP) in 1981 an ESP journal article by Elaine Tarone and her colleagues on the language of scientific reports (Paltridge, 2001) He explains

that genre as means for analyzing text has become a means for better pragmatic and linguistic understanding of texts Further explanation from Chaldler (2005) that term genre is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory, and more recently linguistics, to refer a distinctive type of the texts

Most discussion of the pedagogical potential of genre in education draws heavily

on the definitions given by Swales and Martin First, John Swales (1990: 58), who works on the ESP approach, says “A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale of the genre This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style.” This is a synthesis interpretation, focusing on the communicative purpose of genre, and giving a way of looking at the language in use that differs in many respects from that inherent in process approaches, which can complement them Both Swales and Martin agree that it is the communicative purpose that brings genre into being, shaping the “schematic” structure that is “the beginning, middle and end structure of text” and influencing choices of content and style (Swales, 1990 and Martin, 1985)

According to Paltridge (2001:26), he pays much attention to the conventions or the patterns of writing are worth mentioning “Genre theory grounds writing in particular social contexts, and stresses the convention-bound nature of much discourse Writing, therefore, involves conformity to certain established patterns, and the teacher‟s role is to induce learners into particular discourse communities and their respective text types”

Fiske (1987:114) views a genre as “a means of constructing the audience and the reading subject” Chandler (1998) suggests that genres are “textual schemata” and our background knowledge plays an important role in decoding a text He adds that “from the point of view of the producers of texts within a genre, an advantage of genres is that we can rely on the readers already having knowledge and expectations about works within a genre”

Additionally, another broad notion of genre is also provided by an Australian semiotician, Anne Freedman (1994) Firstly, she thinks genre is an organizing concept for our cultural practices, secondly any field of genres constitutes a network of contrasts according to a variety of parameters; thirdly, genre is place occasion, function, behavior and interactional structures: it is very rarely useful

to think of it as a kind of „text‟, fourth, cultural competence involves knowing the appropriateness principle for any genre However, she brings the concept of genre outside of the constraints or boundaries of a text, has had little influence on education It follows a “de Saussure model” where langue (the language system)

is the favored object of systematic study and parole (the dynamic social activity)

is considered unsuitable (Saussure, 1974)

In term of meaning, genre is determined by the language system and structures of texts Texts are produced in and determined by social contexts Therefore, we are able to recognize the social elements in the structure and grammar of individual texts

It is the fact that the theory of genre may provide an answer for the question

“what are the types of writing the writer typically engages in creating?” Grabe and Kaplan (1996) answer that writers write different types of genres and these genres have identifiable formal properties, identifiable purpose and a complete structure Like Freedman and Medway (1994), Grabe and Kaplan do mention two types of narrative genres, that is, fictional and non fictional genres, where the readers have difference expectations from each of the two

The description and classification of Grabe and Kaplan also reflect that any written text should have a structure that implies with the type of genre written

The writer should therefore have enough knowledge about the formal properties and the conventions of the writing tasks that he or she is engaged in

2.2.1.2 Texts

Knowledge of genres is one of the many “knowledge” and “competences” that a reader brings to the task of reading and which a writer assumes the reader will know Within each genre and sub-genre we find typical text constructions, it is useful to look at how such constructions can be described

Kress (1989) refers genre as “forms of text” rather than text types According to him, genres have specifiable linguistic characteristics which are neither fully determined or largely under the control of individual speakers or writers That is the reason why he is more interested in what De Saussurre identifies as “parole”

or everyday usage He also shows the difference between the systematic- functional model and the genre as social process model which has significant implications when it comes to developing a pedagogy that makes it possible for teachers to make the appropriate classroom interventions when teaching writing (Kress and Knapp, 1992) Kress adds that the knowledge of the characteristics of texts and of their social place and power should form a part of any curriculum whether in one subject area, or “across the curriculum” At this point, Wittgenstein (1995) finds that language and meanings are always performed and exchanged by language users through the understanding of rules and conventions

of exchanges – what he calls “language games” for example orders, commands, instructions, explanations, recommendations, requests, descriptions and narrations Each can be defined in relations to the rules specifying their properties and uses The dynamic, performative aspect of texts seems to be a far more useful model for classroom teachers the less-flexible, structural text-type model

Marianne Celce-Murcia & Elite Olshtain (2000) views coherence as a feature of

a text that is related to top-down planning and organization “A well written text, however, also has to conform to more local and specific features of text such as

choosing suitable items and grammatical forms, appropriate use of cohesive devices, and using proper punctuation and other details of form”

It is not redundant for students to know about the purpose of texts and texts‟ organization, structures to perform a particular purpose to suit such genre In school, students get acquainted with literary texts, factual texts and media texts Each has its own modes of communication A text is any complicated act of communication such as greeting between friends in the street, or a television advertisement, a novel, a film and so on As far as speech and writing are concerned, a text stands alone as an act of communication Different types of texts have distinctive characteristics depending on what they are made to do They can be classified and organized in a multitude of ways; everyday, formal, entertaining and informational Traditionally, different types of texts have been identified according to establish conventions Therefore, teachers need to equip students a technical understanding of how texts work by using technical language for the task

2.2.1.3 Function of grammar

The genre and grammar-based approach creates a closer congruity as the concept

of genre is not deterministic or derivative, but relies on the relationship between social purpose and available grammatical resources Additionally, context is the strong motivation or a virtual framework to produce texts So the purpose is to identify the relationships between the virtual nature and actual contexts, which is where the notion of genre is fundamental Without genre, grammar is too abstract

to be effectively teachable Grammar remains simply a set of rules for correctness or appropriateness This is one of the key reasons that progressivism rejected grammar, as it was seen as a set of rules for social conformity Grammar

is one of our key literacy technologies Obviously, without knowledge of grammar, the process of becoming literate becomes hazardous It becomes meaningfully when it is linked to the purpose and functions of texts

Grammar is the name given to resources available to users of a language system for producing texts A knowledge of grammar by a speaker and writer shifts language use from the implicit and unconscious to a conscious manipulation of language and choice of appropriate texts It is clear to find that grammar first considers how a text is structured and organized due to the characteristics of particular genres in relation to purpose, audience, message and structure It then look at how all parts of the text – such as sentences, tense, reference, cohesion and so on – are structured, organized and coded, so as to make the text effective

as written communication and, in particular, how all the parts are used to serve the purposes of language users

Finally, a genre-based grammar will deal with the syntactical aspects of grammar

or how the language is organized within sentences; for example, the appropriate use of prepositions, plurals, articles, agreement and so on The genre and grammar model of language helps us realize the forms that language takes in social contexts in which texts are commonly used It requires us to look at the structures and grammatical features that make up these forms Grammar therefore needs to deal with language from three perspectives: the generic, the textual and the syntactical It is necessary to consider how genre themselves make particular demands on the grammatical choices we have when producing a text From a technical point of view, grammatical terms fall into two broad categories: formal and functional The formal categories give us a way of classifying the bits and pieces that constitute sentences and texts The functional categories on the other hand help us understand what bits and pieces are doing For example, terms like noun, adverb and adjective are formal categories because they formally classify types of words: a noun is the name of a thing; an adverb is a word that modifies the meaning of a verb or adjective and so on Words like subject, object and predicate, on the other hand, are terms that tell us how nouns, adverbs and adjectives are being used in a sentence In order to have

a useful technical description for what is happening with language we need to have a terminology that describes both form and functional

Broadly speaking, Genre, Texts and Grammar have a close relationship in writing They have stated their vital role in the orientation for student‟s way of effective writing The knowledge of three basic categories may facilitate students‟ writing skills

 Genre, the social context and relations in which texts are produced

 Text, the language processes used to construct products

 Grammar, the choices and limitations language – users have when putting words together in texts

In the application of the GBA in the teaching of writing skills, teachers and students have to pay much attention to those aspects in order to produce a good piece of writing with right purposes of communication The GBI is actually an integration of the product approach and the process approach resulting in a process-genre approach (Badger and White, 2000) In using this approach, the students in a writing class recognize that:

“Writing involves knowledge about language (as in the product and genre approaches), knowledge of the context in which writing happens and especially the purpose for the writing (as in genre approaches), and skills in using language (as in process approaches), writing development happens by drawing out the learners’ potential (as in process approaches) and by providing input to which the learners respond (as in product and genre approaches)”

(Badger & White, 2000:157-158)

2.2.1.4 Cohesion and Coherence

When writers put together texts in a particular genre, they follow the constraints

of the genre For writing to be truly accessible, however, it also needs to be both cohesive and coherent It means that as writing texts, a number of linguistic techniques at disposal to stick texts together are often used Writer can use various grammatical devices to help readers understand what is being referred, even when words are left out or pronouns are substituted for nouns In general, cohesion is achieved through the use of pronouns and reference words, lexical repetition and other logical markers

The cohesive devices help to bind elements of a text together so that we know what is being referred to and how the phrases and sentences relate to each other

As Harmer (1998) says, for a text to have coherence, it needs to have some kind

of internal logic He adds that when a text is coherent, the reader can understand

at least two things: the writer‟s purpose and the writer‟s line of thought In order words, the text is not coherent because it is without purpose

Coherence, therefore, is often achieved by the way in which a writer sequences information, and this brings us back to the issue of genre and text construction

So far, genre has been discussed in terms of process and the use of different structural and grammatical resources as engaging in different genres

2.2.2 Pedagogical principles of the GBA

One of the underlying principles mentioned first is as Halliday and Painter say that language should be learned through “guidance and instructions” It is based

on the work of Vygotsky, a notable Soviet social psychologist He stated that

“Instruction is one of the principal sources of the schoolchild‟s concepts and is also a powerful force in directing their evolution; it determines the fate of the total development” (Vygotsky 1996:157) His work was to describe the gap between a child‟s actual development determined by independent problem- solving and his/her potential development achieved when assisted The research

of Halliday (1975) and Painter (1991) showed the ways in which parents actively support their children in their construction of spoken texts scaffolding their language use At this point, we can say the curriculum of modeling, joint construction and independent construction would provide a more effective approach to teaching students to write

From the first principle mentioned above, it obviously entails another underlying principle of the GBA that with the guidance and instruction, it is believed that teachers play a crucial role in organizing learning challenges for students That means genre pedagogy was developed to be highly interventionist It placed emphasis on the importance of teachers‟ intervention in learning process

Gibbons (2002) says that intervention should be given according to the students‟ needs and teacher‟s purposes in learning Intervention within the genre approach does not mean „spoon-feeding‟ students but scaffolding their learning In line with this, based on the underlying principle of intervention pedagogy, the GBA has been developed as “a visible pedagogy” for teaching language (Feez, 1998:26)

So “a visible pedagogy” implies another principle for the application of the GBA It suggests applying explicit teaching as giving appropriate intervention

in learning process The idea of explicit teaching is also supported by many other authors Their critics not only called for a new curriculum focus on grammar and the genres of school writing and but also for more explicit pedagogy to support its implementation In the context of teaching particular text types using the GBA with students, explicit teaching of a text includes the teaching of the text‟s social purposes, generic structure, and linguistic features (Derewianka, 2003; Gibbons, 2002; Feez 1998; and Callaghan, Knapp & Noble, 1993) Johns (1997, cited in Hyon, 2006) hopes that explicit teaching can provide “a shortcut for the initiated to the processing and production of familiar written texts”

However, there have been many matters around these pedagogical principles

of the GBA For the first abovementioned principle of intervention, two major issues emerged are that to what extent should a teacher intervene to help students with their language learning and what is the most appropriate way for the teacher to intervene in student learning That leads to the risk of creating a teacher-centered environment or “spoon-feeding students” The idea of explicit teaching in the GBA is a critique of the „natural‟ approach to language teaching which appreciates students‟ natural and unconscious learning process It has been argued that with explicit teaching, “students are rarely conscious of what is expected of them in terms of language learning” (Feez, 1998:25; Gibbons, 2002:59) This argument suggests that the natural approach

assumes all students are the same and learn in the same way However, in reality, there is a great diversity in any classroom, both in background knowledge and learning styles With a different idea, Hyon (2002), in a study about the effect of genre-based instruction in developing students‟ reading skills, concludes that "explicit teaching about genre features can be useful for building ESL students' genre awareness and for facilitating their text processing and production" Specifically, he adds such teaching may improve students' genre sensitivity, their ability to identify important text information, their reading speed and confidence, and the organization of their writing

2.2.3 The benefits and problems of the Genre Approach to teaching writing

Firstly, on the positive side, students generally appreciate the approaches showing what they have to do linguistically Studying a given genre also provides students with an understanding of why a communication style is the way it is through a reflection of its social context and its purpose Swales (1990) says that rhetorical construction plays a very important role in writing improvement as prior knowledge From this point, it is clear that genre approach brings together formal and functional properties of language in writing instruction, and it acknowledges that there are strong associations between them The tie of formal and functional properties of language in writing instruction is helpful to facilitate students‟ recognition of how and why linguistic conventions are employed for particular rhetorical effects

Secondly, the genre approach encourages students to participate in the world around them, to comprehend writing as a tool they can utilize, and to realize how the writers manage content to promote logical organization It also allows students to become more flexible in their thinking and eventually to realize how the authors organize their writings

Despite some beneficial roles of genre approach in helping learners to produce

a written work with confidence, there remain some concerns about this

approach One is that this approach underestimates skills required to produce the content Another concern is that it neglects students‟ self-sufficiency Genre approach focuses much on the conventions and genre features and is less helpful for students in discovering the texts‟ true message due to the targeted aspects of the specified genre Therefore, if teacher spends much time explaining how language is used for a range of purposes, with a variety of readers, students are likely to be passive In other words, genre approach is blamed for limiting students‟ creative thoughts of content

In short, the process approach or the genre-based approach has its own strengths and weaknesses So the combination of these two approaches will work better in providing students with full knowledge and realization in their improvement of writing

2.2.4 The Curriculum Cycle

In classroom practice, as Derewianka (2003:142) argues, “There is no single teaching or learning method, strategy or technique that is specific to genre theory” She also adds that “practices vary depending on such factors as the nature of the student group (for instance EFL/ESL, beginner/proficient, tertiary/adult migrant/secondary/primary) and the emphasis placed on particular aspects of pedagogy (for example the degree of explicitness)” However, in the practice of teaching language using the GBA, one widely accepted instructional approach in Australian schools is the curriculum cycle, also referred to as „the teaching and learning cycle‟ According to this instructional approach, as developed by Martin and Rothery, “teachers first model texts from a genre and discuss text features, then assist students to explore the genre‟s social purposes” (Johns, cited in Hyon2002:5) In other words, the curriculum cycle attempts “to engage students in awareness of the social purposes, text structure, and language features in a range of identified text types of genre” (Callaghan, Knapp and Noble, 1993:180) There are four main developmental stages of the curriculum cycle: building knowledge of the