Kay and Dudley-Evans (1998: 311–12) suggest ways of fostering the
positive aspects of genre-based approaches in the English classroom by:
•
allowing for variations due to cultural
and ideological factors;
•
contextualising a text by considering its purpose, audience, institu-
tional expectations, values, etc.;
•
immersing students in a variety of typical and non-typical texts from
the
chosen genre;
•
making the examples authentic;
•
promoting
learner interaction;
•
using genre as part of a process-based approach to writing.
Clearly the analysis of genre itself does not impose a methodology upon
the English language teacher. Genre analysis makes explicit the conven-
tions governing typical examples of a text type, written or spoken, and
attempts to account for these conventions by relating them to cultural
goals. The conventions and explanations can be taught as immutable rules,
or through discovery procedures, as suggested above.
As Connor (1996: 168) observes, there has been a ‘paradigm shift’ in the
teaching of second language writing over the past few decades:
The emphasis is no longer on the product. Instead, writing is taught as
a process, in which each stage – prewriting, composing, and editing – is
important. In addition, writing is not considered a solitary act; it
involves teachers, peers, and other readers. The responses of other
readers are a vital part of writing considered as a social construction of
meaning. The second language teacher who is familiar with the
teaching of writing as a process does not teach her students to write
through model compositions. Instead, she focuses on helping students
make revisions in students’ drafts from the beginning to the final
editing.
Process-based writing has examined anew the status of the ‘product’, that
is, the model that in earlier approaches guided second-language composi-
tion. A genre approach, which focuses on the constraints that a discourse
community places on the writer, seems at first glance to conflict with a
process-based methodology, since a genre approach once again presents a
‘model’, or at least a generic ‘formula’ such as Swales’ four-move introduc-
tion to research articles, for learners to follow. This apparent conflict
explains the reservations expressed by language teachers about teaching
genres, as reported in Kay and Dudley-Evans (1998), cited earlier in this
chapter. It also helps us to understand Martin’s (1985: 61) criticism of the
use of process-based writing in the teaching of English as a first language in
Culture and Written Genres
87
C:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Cracknell\My Documents\corbett\corbett.vp
13 August 2003 16:39:05
Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile
Composite Default screen
Australia. Martin argues that process-based writing, at its most extreme,
dislocates language use from a cultural context, and no amount of
groupwork, or ‘conferencing’ can make up for this loss:
With its stress on ownership and voice, its preoccupation with children
selecting their own topics, its reluctance to intervene positively and
constructively during conferencing, and its complete mystification of
what has to be learned for children to produce effective written
products, [process writing] is currently promoting a situation in which
only the brightest middle-class children can possibly learn what is
needed. Conferencing is not used to teach but to obscure.
There is clearly a balance to be sought between imposing a rigid model for
imitation, and the denial of any kind of explicit instruction about products
at all. A possible solution to the problem lies in the construction of writing
tasks that vary the ways that generic models are integrated into the
language-learning process. White (1988) brings together a collection of
useful case studies and suggestions for effective process-based writing. In
the comparison of product and process approaches shown in Table 4.1, it is
evident that imitation has been replaced by the communicative task, and
the model has been re-introduced but in a less imposing way at a later stage
in the drafting of the student’s writing:
In his introduction to the same book, White suggests five main stages in
the training of writers: identifying goals, brainstorming, organising ideas,
directing towards an audience, and redrafting. Clearly, in the process-
based approach, models are guides to effective writing, but should not nec-
essarily be slavishly imitated. Each writing task is different, after all, and
the writing task given might well demand a degree of originality. Generic
models can be introduced at different stages in the writing process – to
88
Intercultural Approaches to ELT
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
