Genre and language teaching

Genre based approach has become a major trend in English language teaching (ELT). It’s not new, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) are early examples. In recent years, teaching and learning around text genres has developed into the mainstream of ELT that including primary school, secondary school, and university as well as English language learners.

According to Paltridge, “genre studies have taken place in different ways I different parts of the world” (2001, p.16). The rationale for adopting a genre-based framework is that it facilitates clear links to the students' purposes for writing beyond the writing classroom. Thus, the primary factors in curricular selection are ensuring a balance of text types, to enable students to perform a broad range of social purposes for writing in English in future, and selection of specific genres based on the students' most immediate academic needs.

Rossberry and Henrry (2007) suggest, for advanced language learners, lexical knowledge plays a greater role than grammar in the acquisition of native-like fluency. The present study was to test this view by examining the language errors of university entry-level students whose first academic language is not English and to determine with some precision what kinds of errors these students make, how these errors relate to specific parts of written genres and what guidelines may be followed to overcome such errors. To do this, an error analysis was undertaken, involving a short tourist information text written in English by 40 Malay-speaking students at the University of Brunei Darussalem. It was found that the majority of errors, as expected, were errors of usage, not grammar, and that there was a relationship between the types of errors and the move-strategy (way in which a genre move is realized in content). It is concluded that, at the academic level, raising students' awareness of usage types and patterns with relation to genre moves is far more crucial than instruction in grammar. Furthermore, it is proposed that instruction in usage must be undertaken in small-group or individual settings and must be relevant to the student's immediate language task.



Reference:

Henry, A. & Roseberry, L. R. (2007). Language Errors in the Genre-based Writing of Advanced Academic ESL Students. RELC Journal. 38(2), 171-198.

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