Learning to Mean in Spanish Writing: A Case Study of a Genre‐Based Pedagogy for Standards‐Based Writing Instruction

Abstract

This case study reports the results of a genre-based approach, which was used to explicitly teach the touristic landmark description to fourth-grade students of Spanish as a foreign language. The instructional model and unit of instruction were informed by the pedagogies of the Sydney School of Linguistics and an instructional model for integrating the three modes of communication, as well as the literature on content-based instruction. An analysis of the writing of a focal student, Jackie, provides evidence of the potential of the pedagogy to develop students' ability to appropriate the linguistic representation of content in ways that current frameworks do not yet consider. Thus, implications of the findings are explored related to the integration of functional linguistics, genre theory, and genre-based pedagogy for instruction that is informed by the World-Readiness Standards, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines-Writing, and the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements for presentational writing.This article describes the results of the implementation of an interactive instructional model through which the touristic landmark description was explicitly taught to fourth-grade students of Spanish as a foreign language (Troyan, 2014). The pedagogy was informed by the genre-based pedagogies

Writing recounts of habitual events: Investigating a genre‐based approach

“…Specifically, the data show that explicit instruction was needed on the stages and the linguistic features of the recount—content, organization and cohesion, and tone—to support students’ production of culturally informed recounts. This result echoes the findings of earlier studies in other FL and second language contexts in the United States, such as Byrnes () and Ryshina‐Pankova () in the FL university context; Troyan (, ) in the early FL education context; de Oliveira and Lan (), Ramos (, ), Schleppegrell (), and Schulze () in the L2 context; and Colombi () in the university‐level heritage language speakers context.…”

“…In the elementary school FL context, Troyan (, ) analyzed the differences between beginning students’ descriptions of a historical monument in Spanish prior to the genre‐based instruction and their descriptions following the instruction, which unsurprisingly demonstrated their increased control over the linguistic features that expressed register in that particular genre.…”

Moving toward multiliteracies in foreign language teaching: Past and present perspectives … and beyond

“…Others, however, deliberately took on proficiency frameworks and their limited potential for developing a sense “of what it takes to communicate capably across, or for that matter, even within cultures” (Warford & White, , p. 401). Crane (), Maxim (), and Troyan (), for example, proposed organizing the FL curriculum according to a genre‐ and discourse‐based orientation that would reflect a social understanding of language in use through a careful selection of written and oral texts appropriate for each level.…”

Grand challenges and great potential in foreign language teaching and learning

“…For example, Rifkin () concluded that “two decades of guideline‐influenced instruction have failed to have an impact on student learning” (p. 582). For this reason, we require more work investigating the validity of these tools, following the lead of Dandonoli (), Norris and Pfeiffer (), Troyan (, ), and Tigchelaar, Bowles, Winke, and Gass (). If we are using those tools as indicators and starting points for goal‐setting, then we must validate them and identify their limitations in order to more effectively guide student language development.…”