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Date Posted: 17:46:48 07/14/03 Mon
Author: Carlos Gagliardi
Subject: Task 11

Task 11
Explain what a genre-based approach is.


Genres are abstract, socially recognised ways of using language, such as going shopping, travelling, and even arguing. When writing we follow certain conventions for organising messages.
There are three broad approaches to genre, each of which conceptualises and analyses genre in a different way.
A Systemic Functional view: a genre is defined as a staged, goal oriented social process. This involves the interaction of participants using language in a conventional, step-wise structure.
An ‘ESP’ perspective: a genre comprises a class of communicative events linked by shared purpose recognized by the members of a particular community. These purposes are the rationale of the genre and help to shape the ways it is structured and the choices of content and style it makes available.
A ‘New Rhetoric’ view: gives less emphasis to the form of discourse and more to the action it is used to accomplish, seeking to establish the connections between genre and repeated situations and to identify the way in which genres are seen as recurrent rhetorical actions.
Genres thus provide us with resources for getting things done in all areas of life. We all have a repertoire of appropriate responses we can call on to engage in recurring situations, from shopping lists to job applications. Genre analysts have sought to elaborate many of these for the better understanding and teaching of ESP."
Dr. Derewianka began the seminar by explaining genre in general terms, showing us how specific genres serve specific social purposes, and how genres can be identified by examining the structural organisation of a text, as well as the linguistic features within it. Several examples of generic structure were given, including how to write procedures. A simple procedure such as a recipe, for example, when appropriately written, has a text structure of goal > materials > procedure (steps). Following this, we looked at how recipes, as well as other text structures, are not static, and have evolved over the years in response to the sociocultural context of the day.
After discussing several common text structures, we were asked to identify several genres from a selection of authentic texts. Even for a group of expert speakers, it was not an easy task. One can imagine how a learner might feel when asked to produce a text of a given genre for the first time.
To show us how genre can be taught, Dr. Derewianka introduced us to the curriculum cycle, which is employed in Australian K-12 public schools. This cycle reflects language as a social phenomenon; with teachers modeling a particular genre and assisting with joint construction of a similar text before having students attempt to create a text independently. Vocabulary and grammar appropriate to the genre are dealt with as required during the development of the text, which is organised in a structure appropriate to the intended social purpose.
Although most of the examples given were from first language learning contexts, Dr. Derewianka stressed the need for the specific instruction of genre in EFL and ESL contexts. Considering that in all languages people organise texts according to what is appropriate for their society, the cultural specificity of genre may not easily be grasped without the type of modelled approach presented in the seminar. Dr. Derewianka spoke of how a genre-based approach can be translated into EFL contexts by considering the nature of both the learning environment and the texts, and by placing greater emphasis on the development of vocabulary and other language features which may not be as urgent in a classroom of native-speaker children.
WRITING ACROSS GENRES
Some years ago, Percival (1982) published a very successful research report. His "research" explored a variety of breakfast cereals in terms of their "crunch factor" and how this factor interfered with foreign students' understanding of spoken English at breakfast tables. Although the report was in fact a spoof, it was an excellent model of a research report and has even been used for teaching the purpose, generic structure and grammatical features of this genre of writing. This case demonstrates that written genres exist not just as the inventions of linguists, but for specific human social purposes. Percival used the genre to make fun of the field itself, but without the existence of the genre, and his ability to manipulate it, he would have been unable to achieve the same impact.
Genre literacy, which developed mostly in Australia during the last decade, is an attempt to create a new pedagogic space in the writing classroom, and is underpinned by the language descriptions of Functional Grammar (Halliday, 1994). In essence it involves a methodology for teaching how a text "hangs together" and creates meaning in its particular context of use. Because of its emphasis on texts, and not sentences, it moves beyond traditional literacy pedagogies that stress formal correctness. It also goes beyond the process pedagogies which stress "natural" learning through "doing" writing (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993). This is not to say that grammar, or the enabling effect of students learning to write by actually writing are ignored -- far from it. Instead, it is an approach that raises students' awareness of the linguistic features of a genre and thus allows them to develop literacy across a variety of genres they will encounter in any curriculum, or even in non-school environments.
Reference:
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/LANGUAGELEARNING/OtherResources/GlssryOfLnggLrnngTrms/WhatIsAGenre.htm

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