Quick Tip: Getting Started With Genre-Based Pedagogy
by Angela Hakim
Genre has become an increasingly important
concept in second language writing, and genre-based pedagogies have become core
to the second language writing classroom, but many instructors who are
unfamiliar with or new to genre-based approaches to writing instruction may
lack the necessary confidence to get started in adopting a genre-based
approach. They may feel uncertain about which genres to teach and what to focus
instruction on (Tardy et al., 2022), as well as how to get started. In this
article, I provide a few ideas for getting started with genre-based
pedagogy.
Getting Comfortable With Genre
Analysis
One way that teachers can begin to become
comfortable with genre-based approaches is by practicing analysis of genres themselves.
Johns (1997) has recommended this as an approach for introducing genre to
students, but it’s useful for teachers to examine “everyday genres,” too.
Gathering and reviewing a few examples of a familiar genre can help beginners
to genre analysis get started.
To do this, select a genre you are
familiar with and interested in exploring (e.g., book reviews, food or travel
blogs, Twitter posts, anything really). Then, gather a few samples of these.
Read the samples through a few times and ask yourself about the context; the
purpose(s); and typical organizational, language, and formatting features of
these samples, as well as elements that might make some of them unique.
Congratulations! You’ve just conducted basic genre analysis.
Though this is, perhaps, an
oversimplification of more sophisticated processes of genre analysis, it is a
good start. What you have to keep in mind is that genres are not static, and
they vary. That can be frustrating when you’re trying to see what a set of examples
has in common, but the more you become familiar with a genre, the easier it
becomes to see what a prototypical feature might be and what might be unique in
an example text.
Becoming Familiar With Aspects
of Genre-Based Pedagogy
After trying your hand at genre analysis
of a familiar genre, think about how you could apply this in the classroom.
Following are the primary aims of genre-based writing instruction:
Aims of Genre-Based Writing
Instruction
-
Genre awareness:
Raise students’ awareness of how genres work.
-
Genre-specific
knowledge: Raise students’ awareness of the contexts, purposes,
conventions, and linguistic resources employed in genres.
-
Scaffolding:
Scaffold instruction to walk students through the collaborative and independent
production of target genres.
Genre-based writing instruction typically
uses tasks and activities that work toward these aims. These tasks and activities
might focus on, for example,
- discussion around the context,
audience, and purposes of a target genre;
- guided inductive analysis of samples of
the genre;
- teacher modelling;
- collaborative writing; and
- the writing, drafting, and review
processes of independent production.
These tasks are often staged and
sequenced following the teaching-learning cycle. There are several great resources available to teachers to
become familiar with genre-based writing instructional strategies, but Tardy
has written a particularly reader friendly and very affordable one called Genre-Based
Writing: What Every ESL Teacher Needs to Know.
In the Classroom
After you have explored a familiar genre
and some typical genre-based tasks and activities, you can try a genre-based
task in the classroom. Though many books and resources focused on genre-based
pedagogy recommend adopting a genre-based approach to overall course or
assignment design, you might want to start out by trying one genre-based task.
Incorporate genre-based activities in
small ways, for example, with a think-pair-share activity in which students
examine samples of a genre to identify what they think might be the context and
audience of the target genre or by having them gather and examine examples of a
genre they would like to learn more about or from their own area of
study/major. This actively engages students with genres that will be of
relevance and interest to them. See a few more examples of tasks and activities
available on the TESOL blog by
Betsy
Gilliland and Elena
Schvidko.
Reflect
Reflecting on your teaching is just good
practice, but it’s especially important when you’re trying something new out.
You might consider what went well, what did not go well, and what you would
like to change. You could also reflect on how your own understandings of genre
and genre-based pedagogy have evolved. Finally, you may well want to think
forward to what you would like to do next with genre-based pedagogy—a full
assignment or course redesign, perhaps. You might also want to think about
leaning on colleagues and
critical
friends with whom you can share your experiences, concerns, and
reflections.
The ideas I offer here are not new.
However, for instructors who are genre curious but do not feel confident in
getting started, I hope this article has offered some encouragement, food for
thought, and a way into genre-based pedagogy.
References
Johns, A. M. (1997). Text,
role, and context. Cambridge University Press.
Tardy, C. M., Hall Buck, R., Jacobson,
B., LaMance, R., Pawlowski, M., Slinkard, J. R., & Vogel, S. M. (2022). “It's
complicated and nuanced”: Teaching genre awareness in English for general
academic purposes. Journal of English for Academic
Purposes, 57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2022.101117
Angela
Hakim is a global professor of English at
the University of Arizona, where she teaches International Foundations Writing.
Her research focuses on genre-based writing instruction, academic literacy
support in higher education, English for academic purposes, and English medium
instruction.
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