Chinese EFL Teachers’ Cognition about the Effectiveness of Genre Pedagogy: A Case Study

Abstract

Developing students’ communicative competence became the primary goal of the current College English Curriculum Requirements in 2004 in China. There has been increasing concern, however, that this goal has yet to be realized, particularly in relation to the teaching of writing. This study investigated the potential of a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL-) informed genre approach to enhance Chinese students’ communicative competence in writing. As teachers’ beliefs have a strong impact on the effectiveness of their teaching practice (Borg, 2003), the study examined six Chinese College English teachers’ shifts in their beliefs and practices after attending a training workshop in the genre-based approach to writing development. Using pre- and post- workshop interviews and classroom observations and drawing on the analytical frameworks of teacher cognition (Borg, 2003), teacher knowledge (Shulman, 1986) and interactional scaffolding (Hammond and Gibbon, 2005), the study found that professional training in SFL genre pedagogy had a positive impact on teachers’ cognition about writing instruction, albeit with one notable constraint; the teachers paid only partial attention to the social purpose of the targeted genre, thus limiting the successful implementation of the pedagogy to a certain extent.

A Sociocultural Perspective on EFL In-Service Teachers’ SFL/Genre Knowledge Development

“…This study adopted a case study approach due to the consideration that the approach not only provides aids for the researcher to explore the case occurred in a detailed manner but also provides an example in a real-life context (Cohen, 2007;Shi, Baker and Chen, 2019). Another reason for using a case study as the research approach is that this study involves several teachers who have had similar experience, as well as multiple data sources as interviews and document analysis (Creswell, 2016;Shi et al, 2019). Teachers who have undergone SFL/genrebased training program from one of the universities in West Java, Indonesia, participated in this study.…”

CLT using CEFR and EIL in Southeast Asia and East Asia in the English language classroom

“…However, this may not be the answer to any major improvement. It is teachers’ beliefs and attitudes that drive their classroom practices and determine the degree to which they adopt, adapt or reject the implementation of any new curriculum (Shi et al, 2019: 316).…”

“I never imagined” pronunciation as “such an interesting thing”: Student teacher perception of innovative practices

“…These are valuable components of teacher education that are used around the world; yet, research into prospective L2 teachers' uptake of specific pedagogical innovations is relatively scarce (Tang et al, ), but urgently needed. Research in education has highlighted the need to improve both learners' language learning outcomes as well as the various innovations that have been implemented to address this need (e.g., Howard & Millar, ; Shi, Baker, & Chen, n.d.). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore our student teachers' perception of innovative pronunciation teaching techniques.…”