Genre Analysis - How low can you go?

Kia ora colleagues,

The numerous papers I've been reading on genre analysis (GA) (and its close cousin discourse analysis) have generated many questions. Honing down the implications of GA as an Approach to language teaching and learning, I found myself thinking about how it might be applied in the ESOL class I teach (which I have described in last week's posting).

My first question centered around whether or not GA can be effective with lower level students; or perhaps put another way: to what extent it can be helpful in working at or below the intermediate ability level. I am sceptical about its efficacy for ESOL learners at these lower levels, but would like to understand it better. Assuming that my scepticism is perhaps misplaced, however, then my next question concerns whether, and to what extent, my taking a GA approach with my ESOL class of approximately intermediate level migrant ESOL students would impact on the course syllabus. Would it entail merely minor adjustments or complete rethinking/reformulation of the syllabus? Would I have to throw out all the materials I've developed or collected over the past year and a half and start anew, or could I just integrate or mesh the GA approach in some fashion with what I'm already working with?

My first question about the efficacy of using GA with lower level students is prompted by a claim by Michael McCarthy in his preface to Discourse Analyis for Language Teachers that discourse analysis (which I think is a closely related cousin of GA) is "not a method of teaching languages; it is a way of describing and understanding how language is used" (McCarthy 1991, p.2). McCarthy later amended his position, writing with Ronald Carter another book on the subject in 1994 in which they supported the idea of providing students with a metalanguage by which to analyse the language they were learning. Flowerdew (1993) also discusses a number of what he terms "metacommunication tasks" in which learners analyse and discuss a piece of discourse.

Now, working with metalanguage or metacommunication suggests to me firstly a fairly sophisticated level of cognitive abilities and secondly a reasonably fluent and accurate skill in the target language through which my students would be trying to communicate the rather complex ideas flowing from their mental ruminations. They're struggling enough to learn basic communication in the target language, let alone capture, store and retrieve some new metalanguage! And, would they even be motivated? What is more, Genre Analysis seems to me to be heavily concentrated on reading and writing communication (important, of course, but perhaps better suited to EAP/ESP?).

I don't doubt that, Discourse and Genre Analyses can indeed contribute appropriate subject matter for the advanced English learner. Additionally, and very importantly, such approaches can help them to critically examine the many, often quite distinctive cultural and
discourse-community assumptions associated with various types of communication in the target language (and in comparison with their native languages). So, I remain sceptical but open to what, in terms of real value, can such approaches offer students operating at the lower language levels.

Perhaps making GA work at these lower levels is simply a matter of scaling back the Approach and incorporating elements of it that might be useful without getting too entrenched in the metacognitive, analytical component. Paltridge (2001) examines conversation in light of the genre approach and its application in the language learning classroom, despite differing views in the literature as to whether conversation should be treated as a genre in language learning classroom at all (Swales,1990). Paltridge (2001) points out that focusing on conversation conventions such as openings and closings, internal structures, turn-taking, repair, etc. is as important as teaching grammar and vocabulary. He concludes that "focusing on them in the context of conversation as a genre provides both a context of use and a communicative setting that learners are already familiar with, even though they are not always sure of the different sets of rules for participating in their second language." (pp. 39-40)

Finally, to my second and related questions briefly... How much adjustment to the course syllabus might I need to make in order to incorporate a genre analysis approach? I think I can get by in the near term being opportunitist about applying GA in the context of my current syllabus (and assuming I can find appropriate elements of it to use in my intermediate level context). Over time, I could begin to critically examine components of the coure syllabus with an eye to aligning them more completely with genre analysis providing a substantially greater proportion of the pedagogical underpinnings, as appropriate.

Ka kite ano,

Mike

References:

Flowerdew, J. 1993. An educational, or process, approach to the teaching of professional genres. ELT Journal 47 (4): 305-16.

McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

McCarthy, M. (1994). Language as Discourse. Perspectives for Language Teaching. Essex: Longman Group.

Paltridge, B. (2001). Genre and the Language Learning Classroom. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Swales, J.M. (1990). Genre Analysis. English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cmbridge University Press.