A Genre-Based Approach to Writing Instruction in EFL Classroom Contexts

Abstract

This study explored how 14 foreign-language writers at a university in Japan changed their genre awareness of discussion genre texts (particularly argumentative essays) during a 15-week systemic functional linguistics course consisting of text-based writing lessons assigned as part of a teaching and learning cycle. To obtain in-depth quantitative and qualitative insights into changes in the students' awareness of genre and writing skills, pre-and post-surveys and self-reflection written texts were administered and analyzed. Twelve previously proposed criteria (covering generic structure, lexicogrammar, and multidimensional analyses of attitudes and performance) were used to analyze the self-reflection texts. The preliminary results showed that the students' understanding of generic structure and lexicogrammar improved, especially their comprehension of the second and third paragraphs of the target genre text. The preliminary results of the correlation analysis illustrated that the increased understanding of lexicogrammatical features, such as textual meaning, interpersonal meaning, and experiential meaning, was related to their self-efficacy and confidence in their writing skills. The preliminary analysis results indicated that that applying a teaching and learning cycle and a genre-based approach to writing instruction has the potential to enhance EFL students' awareness of generic structure and interpersonal meaning in writing argumentative essays.

The SFL genre-based approach to writing in EFL contexts

“…Numbers indicate frequency. The criteria are adapted from Burns et al (1996) and Nagao (2018). The 12 criteria are the same as those given in Table 2 Nagao Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education (2019) 4:6 the use of personal pronouns, while learners in the lower English proficiency group did not mention the process (verbs).…”

The Effect of Genre-Based Mentoring on Linguistic Feature Quality of Research Article Absracts by Indonesian Lecturers in Social Sciences and Humanities

“…The findings of this study were in line with those of Nagao (2018), Burgos (2017), Elashri (2013), and Batubara (2013) who found that genrebased approach was effective to improve the students' writing ability. First, Nagao's (2018) findings show that GBA could improve students' awareness of generic structure and interpersonal meaning in writing argumentative essays. Second, Burgos (2017) found that GBA could help students to understand the moves and linguistics features of expository essay.…”

“…This workshop produced the third draft. According to Nagao (2018), the independent construction stage is a process of constructing a text that done by students independently with use all the knowledge that they have obtained in the previous stage. In this stage, the participants started to reconstruct their own research article abstract drafts independently.…”

An Analysis of University Students’ Argumentative Writing: Functional Perspective

“…There has been much attention to the use SFL in learning and teaching academic writing as English for academic purposes (Sugiura, 2017;Nagao, 2018). The findings revealed that the students who have awareness of genre can shape their knowledge of insight.…”