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卜映丹 英国约克大学
In the genre approach, “writing is seen as an essentially social activity in which texts are written to do things, the assumption being that if the reader cannot recognize the purpose of a text, communication will not be successful” (Tribble, 1996, p. 37). Clearly, the approach is reader-oriented. It is to guide students to recognize different genres and write to meet readers’ expectations by showing features of different genres (Hyland, 2003). Apparently, it has strong similarities with product approach; they both emphasize on linguistic knowledge, such as grammar and text structure, but only genre approach concerns about social context (Badger & White, 2000).
When teaching writing based on genre approach, teachers may introduce authentic texts of a particular genre to students and analyze the texts’ features of grammar, vocabulary and structure which reflect a particular social context and communicate specific purposes; then teachers may ask students to practice writing some relevant language forms; finally, teachers may ask students to produce new complete texts which suit the social context with particular language forms ( Badger & White, 2000; Dudley-Evans, 1998).
Showing explicitly what a specific genre looks like in terms of rhetorical organization plays a central role in the genre-based writing teaching. It enables students to produce various acceptable structures and lexical-grammatical patterns and realize communicative purposes easily and efficiently . Firstly, according to Swales (1990), the knowledge of rhetorical organization in a specific genre forms an important part of prior knowledge of students in learning writing; inversely, prior knowledge facilitates students to comprehend how other genres are organized grammatically, lexically and structurally to realize their communicative purposes. Therefore, after students acquire the analysis of various rhetorical structures and lexical-grammatical patterns organized for matching correspondent social contexts in writing classes, their background knowledge of some genre organizations helps them to easily find out and generate the linguistic, structural and purposeful features of other genres.
Additionally, the analysis of target genres in the genre approach enables students to decode how authors manage content in a logically, linguistically and socially acceptable organization, which guides students to make organization successfully and efficiently by learning from the successful ways authors use to organize. Therefore, instruction of certain genres is helpful for students to be capable of applying various acceptable structures and lexical-grammatical patterns to realize communicative purposes.
Actually, the usefulness of genre approach, especially the instruction of rhetorical organization, has been verified by research data. Alex and Robert (1998) report in their article that after a writing experiment on two groups of EFL learners at the advanced level, one instructed with genre structures and the other one without, its result shows that genre group performs better than non-genre group, indicating that teaching rhetorical organization is useful for writing learning of advanced English learners. Moreover, according to Finkins, Forey and Sengupta (2007), the writing teaching activities based on genre approach and adapted to suit the needs of low proficient English learners is particularly suitable and good for the writing improvement of those learners, as those activities effectively develop low level students’ understanding of text by providing them concrete examples of how texts are constructed and deconstructed in specific context. Hence, genre approach is helpful for the writing learning of English learners ranging from beginning to advanced level.
Considering the merits in the explicit teaching of purposeful, structural and linguistic features of a particular genre, teachers should apply the teaching to help students write structurally linguistically and socially acceptable texts. However, as is discussed above, prior knowledge is very crucial to the understanding and application of genre analysis, so teachers need to take students background knowledge into consideration, plan teaching wisely and make their teaching applicable to various writing classrooms. In SFL teaching classrooms, most of the students may have little knowledge and interest of genre writing; thus, using general topics, such as health, crime and technology which tightly associate with students’ experiences and prior knowledge, to lead in the teaching of research and report writing, is an effective way to motivate them and better their initial understanding of genre composing (Hyland, 2007). With regard to the ESP teaching situation, most of the students have had some basic knowledge of a particular target context, and being able to write a text in that context is one of their learning goals; hence, it is applicable to introduce an authentic text of a particular genre to beginning ESP students (Hyland, 2007).
In addition, the techniques teachers use to instruct rhetorical organizations in the classroom should also vary with the development of students’ understanding in genre writing. At the early stages of learning a genre, students know little about how to deconstruct and analyze the genre’s language and structure, so to input the basic knowledge of genre writing and analysis to students, showing students the examples of deconstruction and analysis of texts in special contexts mainly by teachers is considered too be an effective way (Hyland, 2003). After students have a basic idea of the structural and linguistic analysis of genre, it is beneficial to reduce teachers’ support and encourage peer support, as students tend to achieve more effectively by working and learning together than alone (Duley-Evans, 2000), and group work, as one of the student-centered activity, is of high value in the modern teaching theories ( Richard, 2006). After students familiarize the way to deconstruct a genre and store enough knowledge of the genre composing, it is time for students to practice writing independently (Hyland, 2003).
After the independent writing practice is accomplished successfully by students, students will have a good command of a particular genre wiring. As is discussed above, with background knowledge of a genre writing, students can learn other genre writings easily. Under this circumstance, teachers can encourage students to learn and analyze new genres writings by themselves, guiding them to aware that learning features of different genres can make their writings socially, structurally and linguistically appropriate.
However, teaching the structural, linguistic and purposeful features of genre explicitly is relatively prescriptive, as those features reflect restrictive formula; consequently, some inexperienced teachers may be over-prescriptive and fail to encourage students to make variation, which constrains students creativity (Hyland, 2003). Actually, the model of every genre tend to be gradually perfected and varied over time ( Duley-Evans, 1998); so teachers should take current models of genres as tools to facilitate writing learning instead of as prescriptions of genre writing in the writing class.
In sum, to apply genre approach effectively in the classroom, the prior knowledge of students should be valued, and teaching techniques should vary to students in different English proficient levels and with different background knowledge. Moreover, as social writing is quite common in social life, students may need to write different genre writings when they are employed or after they leave school. Hence, guiding students to learn new genre writing by themselves should be part of an effective application of genre approach. Lastly but importantly, teachers should warn that rhetorical structure is changeable and they should not imitate the model all the time but should be creative when necessary.
reference
Badger, R., & White, G. (2000). A process genre approach to teaching writing. ELT J, 54(2), 153-160. doi: 10.1093/elt/54.2.153
Dudley-Evans, T., & Kay, H. (1998). Genre: what teachers think. ELT Journal, 52(4), 308-314. Retrieved from
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.105.2132&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Dudley-Evans, T. (2000). Genre models for the teaching of academic writing to second language speakers: advantages and disadvantages. Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning (chapter 11). Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED417422.pdf#page=158
Forey, G., Firkins, A., & Sengupta, S. (2007). A genre-based literacy pedagogy:teaching writing to low prroficiency EFL students. British Language Teaching Journal. Retrieved from
Its.edu.uy.
Hyland, k. (2003). Genre-based pedagogies: a social response to process. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(1), 17-19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1060-3743(02)00124-8
Richard, J. C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tribble, C. (1996). Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
作者简介：卜映丹（1990.11——），女，25岁，汉族，籍贯广西钦州，英国约克大学13级TESOL（对外英语教学专业）硕士研究生，研究方向为外语教学。
论文作者:卜映丹
论文发表刊物:《文化研究》2016年1月
论文发表时间:2016/6/17
标签：约克论文; 英国论文; 钦州论文; 汉族论文; 期刊论文; 大学论文; 外语教学论文; 《文化研究》2016年1月论文;