SKKN Applying genre- based approach in teaching 12th graders’ writing skills in High school

PART I: INTRODUCTION

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. Rationale of the study

The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has reformed English

textbooks concentrating on the four skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing.

Of the four skills, many teachers and students alike consider writing to be most

difficult and complicated to teach and to learn. In fact, there are a variety of reasons

for this problem, and therefore finding appropriate techniques and methods for

teaching writing effectively to students requires long serious research. English is a

required subject for high school students in Vietnam nowadays. But most of

important tests including graduation and university entrance exams do not have a

writing component. As a result, students only focus on learning grammar and

vocabulary. They have considerable difficulty in learning the writing skill.

At Ha Huy Tap High school, the dominant approach to teach writing is process

approach which focuses only on process of writing. As the teacher of English at Ha

Huy Tap High school, when teaching my students in writing lessons, the author

realized that my students did not seem to be interested in learning writing and had

some difficulties to learn writing better.

It appears to me that I need to make some changes. And the question was

raised that “How can teacher help students to make an improvement in learning

writing?”. Through reading the literature, the writer was impressed with the idea of

teaching writing through a genre-based approach. I decided to experiment this

approach to my teaching writing to my own students in my school. The aim of this

action research is to examine whether a genre-based approach to writing is helpful

to students or not. In what follows I shall concentrate on: “APPLYING GENRE-

BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING 12TH GRADERS’ WRITING SKILLS

IN HA HUY TAP HIGH SCHOOL”

At this paper, teacher observations and student surveys were collected to

determine the effectiveness of using this approach. The research results of the study

become a reference for the process of teaching, testing, assessment and developing

the capacity of students in high school.

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. Aims and objectives of the study

This study is designed with an aim to improve students’ writing performance

of English by applying genre-based approach to teach writing skill to students.

In order to achieve this aim, the following objective was set out for the study:

To examine how genre-based approach to teaching writing affected students’ writing

performance.

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. Research questions

My theme focuses on making clear about:

–

What is genre-based approach?

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–

–

How is genre-based approach applied?

Does applying genre-based approach help improve the quality of my

students’ writing?

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. Scope of the study

Because of the limitation of a minor study, the research is only conducted at

Ha Huy Tap High School in order to recognize the problems in learning writing

skills of the 12th grade students with the textbook “Tieng Anh 12” by Pearson,

Vietnam Education Publishing House. The study mainly focuses on application of

genre-based approach in teaching writing.

The research scope includes the two classes, namely class 12A4 and class

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2A5 at Ha Huy Tap High school, Nghe An province. In total, more than 70 students

take part in this study.

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. Methods of the study

The researcher decided to adopt action research because this type of research

is aimed at improving a situation. After a preliminary investigation had been carried

out, a writing instruction course was designed, and then implemented in the school

year 2022-2023 with the participation of more than 70 students from two classes

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2A4 and 12A5 at Ha Huy Tap High school. The data was then collected through

survey questionnaires. Questionnaire responses were analyzed by means of

descriptive statistics. In addition to the questionnaires, students’ writing were

collected through pre-test and post-test and analyzed to measure the students’

progress in their writing performance.

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. Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study systemized the theory of a genre-based approach in

teaching writing, together with its advantages and disadvantages. The study also

provides suggestions for successful application of the approach into teaching

composition in real classroom.

Practically, the research provides language teachers and learners with a

number of activities and exercises using the genre-based approach in all stages of

writing.

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PART II: CONTENTS OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

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.1. A definition of writing and its important

One way of viewing writing, called cognitive view, is to see writing as

decision making. When we write something, whether it is an email message, a letter,

or an essay, we are engaged in making one decision after another. We decide what

to begin the text with, whether to include or leave out an idea that comes to mind,

whether to begin a new paragraph or continue the same one, what information to

place in the beginning of a sentence and so on. Successful writing is the result of

making the right decisions most of the time the act of composing and revising.

“The ability to write effectively is becoming increasingly important in our

global community and instruction in writing is thus assuming an increasing role in

both second and foreign education” (Alderson and Bachman, 2002). Bazerman

(1989) stated that “writing makes things happen in the social world, and much of

that social world is embodied in previous pieces of writing”. In addition, Alderson

and Bachman (2002) confirmed that “the ability to speak and write a second

language is becoming widely recognized as an important skill for educational,

business and personal reason.”

Nunan (1995) also said “language exists to fulfill a range of communicative

functions and that these functions will be reflected in the shape of the language

itself” (Nunan, 1995). Therefore, “writing will be an essential component in the

learning program.”

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.2. Different approaches to teach writing

There are three most widely known approaches to teach writing: product

approach, genre approach, and process approach. First, the product approach

emphasizes the final product of writing with a special focus on correctness and

conformity to rules. Second, the genre approach focuses on the appropriate writing

structure, the content, and the style to be used for the purpose at hand. Finally, the

process approach is a sequential process where the writer goes through several

specific processes to produce a piece of writing, including planning, drafting,

revising, and editing.

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.3. The genre-based approach

.3.1. Definition of genre

As this paper focuses on the genre-based approach, it’s necessary to understand

the concept of “genre”. What is genre? For Callaghan and Rothery, “genre is the

way people make meaning with one another in stages to achieve their purposes.”

(1993:35). Genre has the special characteristics as follow:

▪

It is culture specific, and it develops and changes along with the culture.