The application of genre based approach in teaching writing skill at tran mai ninh secondary school

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING CENTER
OF THANH HOA CITY

INITIATIVE

THE APPLICATION OF GENRE-BASED
APPROACH
IN TEACHING WRITING SKILL
AT TRAN MAI NINH SECONDARY SCHOOL

Writer: Phạm Thị Hồng Vân
Position: Teacher
School: Tran Mai Ninh Secondary school, Thanh Hoa city
Subject : English


THANH HOA YEAR 2017

2


TABLE CONTENT
Trang
1. INTRODUCTION

2

1.1.

Reasons for choosing the topic

2

1.2.

Aims of the research

3

1.3.

Scope and research methodology

4

2. MAIN CONTENT
2.1.

4

Theoretical background

4

2.1.1. The definitions of genre

4

2.1.2. Genre-based approach

5

2.2.

Practical background

6

2.3.

Solutions and methods for implementation

7

2.3.1. Solutions

7

2.3.2. The tasks, objects and time for research

8

2.3.3. The methods for implementation

9

2.3.4. Some demonstrations for research

10

3. RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH

17

4. CONCLUSION

21

5. REFERENCE BOOKS

22

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1.INTRODUCTION
1.1. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC.
For such a long time, writing, together with reading, has always been put
priority. The product approach, the process approach and sometimes the
product-process approach towards writing have been implemented in Tran Mai
Ninh Secondary School where I am currently working as well as in many other
secondary schools in Vietnam. However, most students find writing struggling,
and many of them don’t meet the writing requirements. Moreover, many
students in Vietnam cannot make distinction between different kinds of texts.
This may result from traditional teaching method which focus on grammar, and
writing is sometimes taught at sentence level. The genre-based approach
towards teaching writing, in fact, has been implemented in many other countries
for the last few decades; however, it is still new to Vietnamese teachers. I find
genre-approach really interesting and I am really interested in trying out the new

teaching approach to writing with the hope that I will help my students improve
their writing skill.
The motivation behind this research proposal comes from the researcher’s
personal observations new approach to teaching writing she has learnt during a
course on Professional Development for Vietnamese teacher trainers in RELC,
Singapore.
The goal of this study is to examine whether genre-base approach to
writing instruction would help improve the quality of students’ writing and
overcome their writing difficulties. The recount genre is chosen to keep the
instruction relevant to the grade ten and eleven students who were the subject of
the study.
The research proposal focus only on the effectiveness of genre approach
to teaching recount writing, and it designed to investigate the following
questions:
1. What is the quality of my students’ recounts?
2. What problems do my students encounter when they write recounts
3. Does using genre-based approach help improve the quality of my students’
writing when they write recounts?

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As a teacher of English at high school, I myself always desire to find out and
apply the new methods of teaching in order to meet the educational goal. From
my own experiences, I finds this area important for further research because if
the study proves the successful of genre-based approach in teaching recount
writing, it will be a basic to investigate the effectiveness of this new approach
towards teaching writing and other skills. This project seeks to investigate the
effectiveness of the genre-based approach on teaching recount writing for
students in grade 6th and 9th at Tran Mai Ninh secondary School, Thanh Hoa

province, Viet Nam. The findings in this study are mainly based on data
collected from students’ writing samples before and after teaching sessions. The
writing samples will be analyzed based on raters’ checklists and then compare
with the holistic analysis done on five sample compositions.
* Survey results before applying genre-based approach in writing
Class
8A

Very good
2 students =

Good
6 students =

Average
22 students =

Weak
10 students =

( 40 students)

5%

15%

55%

25%

1.2. AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
To introduce how to apply the genre-based approach in teaching writing at high
school.
- To introduce the advantages of the application of genre-based approach in
teaching writing.
- To explore the effectiveness of the genre-based approach to teaching
recount
Writing.
- To assess the quality of students’ writing as well as finding out the
problems they encounter when they write recounts and most importantly,
the effect of the genre-based approach on the overall performance of
students when they write recount texts.
- To make easier for students to produce acceptable structures in their
writing tasks. Therefore, an assigned genre seems to serve as an
influential tool for both the learning and teaching of writing (for both

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students and teachers)
To encourages students to participate in the world around them, to
comprehend writing as a tool that they can utilize, and to realize how
writers manage content to promote logical organization. It also allows
students to become more flexible in their thinking and eventually to
realize how authors organize their writings.
1.3. SCOPE AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
*Scope: Researching in the process of teaching English at Luong Dac
Bang High school.
* Research methodology: making survey, reading reference books,
applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences.

2. MAIN CONTENT
2.1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1.1. The definitions of genre
As this lesson 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.
 It is goal-oriented.
 It has distinctive stages: beginning, middle and end.
 It contains particular linguistic features
According to David Butt et al. (1995), genre, which relates to the purpose of
the text, is one of the contexts of a text. The other context is register, which is
made up of three variables: field, tenor and mode. Field refers to what is talked
about or written about. It can be something that happened, is happening or will
happen. Tenor is the relationship between the writer and the reader or between
the speaker and the listener. Mode is the channel of communication, the kind of
text that is being made to convey a message.
“Genre” refers not only to types of literary texts but also to the predictable
and recurring patterns of everyday, academic and literary texts occurring within
a particular culture (Hammond and Derewianka, 2001) In the western countries,
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genre, either spoken or written, is often identified/grouped according to its
primary social purposes. According to Swale (1990) the genres which share the
same purposes belong to the same text-types. Derewianka (1990) identified
further six main genres according to their primary social purposes:
+ Narratives: tell a story, usually to entertain.
+ Recount: to tell what happened.

+ Information reports: provide factual information.
+ Instruction: tell the listeners or readers what to do.
+ Explanation: explain why or how something happens.
+ Expository texts: present or argue a viewpoint.
+ Procedure: give instructions how to do/ make something
These social purposes of the text-genres in turn decide the linguistic
inputs of the text (i.e. their linguistic conventions, often in form of schematic
structure and linguistic features). Specifically, schematic structure refers to
internal structure or text organization of the text-type in forms of introduction,
body and conclusion, while language features consist of linguistic aspects such
as grammar, vocabulary, connectors, etc. that the writers have to use in order to
translate information/ideas into a readable text.
2.1.2. Genre-based approach
The genre-based approach to teaching writing is often referred to the
Curriculum Genre or Curriculum Cycle. According to Hyon, “genre-based
pedagogy, in all form, involves some kinds of classroom consideration of genres
and the contexts in which they are found.” (1996: 697). In “Exploiting How
Texts Works” (1990) Beverly Derewianka described the curriculum cycle, which
includes four stages:
Stage 1.Building the Field: This gives the students time to gather information
about what they will be writing. Teacher can introduce the text type by
discussing the words connected to the text type, planning some activities to
familiarize the students with the subject matter and the text type and locating
sample texts for immersion and modeling. This stage, such activities are
listening, speaking, reading, information gathering, note taking, and field trips
can be organized. This stage ties in perfectly with Units of Inquiry. The students

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are already familiar with Unit, the concepts, and the vocabulary.
Stage 2. Modeling the Text Type: This stage aims at preparing students for
the next stage. Teacher explicitly introduces a model that is similar to the one to
be written later as a joint construction by the class. The teacher may get students
to discuss the purposes for the use of this text in the society/daily lives. Students
have the chance to become familiar with the purpose, overall structure of the
text, and linguistic features of the text type they are going to write.
Stage 3. Joint Construction: Before students write independent texts, it
would be useful for them to participate in group writing. A text may be jointly
constructed by the whole class, a group of students or the teacher and the
students write a text together, considering both the content and the language.
Stage 4. Independence Writing: Students write on their own texts on a
related topic based on which had been given or discussed. Each student chooses
his/her own topic and writes drafts, referring to the models. Then, the students
consult with the teacher or their peers and receive their comments. Editing and
publishing are the final steps.
2.2. PRACTICAL BACKGROUND
Writing skill is seemed to be difficult for all students in learning foreign
language at high school. According to me, the difficulties include those in
generating and organizing ideas using an appropriate choice of vocabulary and
putting such ideas into an intelligible text.
For my students, besides these difficulties, they also have to face many
other obstacles when learning to write compositions in English.The first
difficulty rests in the fact that English in Vietnamese secondary schools
nowadays is treated primarily as a compulsory subject for studying and for
exam-driven purposes rather than as a tool for communication. Students have
been asked to do the multiple choice tests on their final exams, which include
several sections on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing. In
the writing section, students are asked to “rewrite” some sentences in another
way but keep exactly the same meaning as the given ones. They are also asked

to repair word order in jumbled-word sentences or fill in the blanks with the
suitable verbs or verbal phrases. As passing exams is vital for students’ lives,

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most of the time in class, a large number of teachers may be in more favor of
teaching such writing skills to help their students pass the exams.
Secondly, the “so-called” teaching writing approach of composition
deployed by teachers at present may expose some difficulties for students in the
performance of the compositional writing skills. In terms of teaching English
paragraphs, most of the teachers just focus on providing their student writers
with vocabulary relating to the required topic and some guiding questions in
order to help them shape their ideas into the completed paragraphs. Teaching
writing in this way only benefits them to an extent that it can assist them in
producing the error-free texts following the models of correct language.
In addition, there was a tendency among Engish teachers in secondary
schools to ignore teaching writing. Teachers provided students with less
opportunity to practice writing English. In other word, the English teachers in
general were more concentrate on teaching skills such as reading and listening ,
and language components such as vocabulary and grammar.
In short, writing classes at secodary school nowadays are still
predominantly language-based writing classes that focus on sentence writing for
sentence building tests, rather than focusing on creating paragraphs to serve the
purpose of plurality of real readers outside the classroom context.
2.3. SOLUTIONS AND METHODS FOR IMPLEMENTATION
2.3.1. SOLUTIONS
- Teacher should know the both advantages and disadvantages of the application
of genre-based approach in teaching writing English as well as solutions to their
problems.

- In order to apply the genre-based approach in teaching writing, teacher will
need to do the following steps:
1. Planning
2. Drawing up a syllabus
3. Selecting material
4. Preparing activities
5. Evaluating the teaching
- Teacher should minimize the difficulties in teaching writing, the exercise of

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writing is not directly writing paragraph or composing the text. It can be started
by writing sentences. Students should be able to construct the sentences,
overcome problem with sentence and write connected sentences.
- After the students have the ability to construct the sentences, the writing
exercise is increased by giving experience to the students to write paragraph, the
text or the whole text. This activity will have students to become independent
writers.
- Teacher should be interested in teaching writing, because their suggestion
instead that paying attention to what students say will show an improvement in
writing.
2.3.2. METHODS FOR IMPLEMENTATION
DATA COLLECTION PLAN
a. Participants: Fifty five students of Class 8A at Tran Mai Ninh Secondary
School, Thanh Hoa city were invited to take part in an experimental writing
class in which I used the genre-based approach in teaching writing English in
order to teach the student (participants) to write on the recount text. This
extracurricular writing activity was conducted outside their regular class hours
in order to offer the student participants a lot of opportunities to practice more in

the writing skills. I saved time because I took the existing recount writing
samples of the students to analyze.
b. Methodology
The researcher intends to use qualitative method to analyze students’ writing
samples before and after the teaching sessions in two different ways.
- The first way is to use rater’s checklist (see appendix 1). A rater’ checklist that
highlights the features to be assessed is devised by the researcher. It is taken
from a page from Oxford University Press. The students’ writing samples will be
collected and given to two raters for assessment. Neither of them knew which
sample are the existing writing samples and which ones are collected after the
teaching sessions. Both of them are high school teachers who are familiar with
the marking scheme for writing.
- The second way is to use holistic rating of writing samples (see appendix 2).
This holistic assessment is based on the recount rubric of Department of

10


Education and Children’s Service, Government of South Australia. In this ways
the writing samples of students will be assessed based on three main categories:
structure, grammar and writing features, and they will be classified as weak,
average, good or very good depending on how they meet the demand of the
criteria.
c. Data collection procedure
Prior to the teaching sessions using genre-based approach to teaching, I will
collect five existing writing samples of five grade ten students at random.
I intend to teach students on recount writing based on genre approach in four
lessons. Four ninety-minute lessons will be taught during the treatment period,
probably starting in February, 2015. The students were taught at sometime
outside their normal curriculum time. The lessons are planned to progress in this

order:
• Lesson 1: Building knowledge of the field
• Lesson 2: Modeling the text
• Lesson 3: Joint construction
• Lesson 4: Independent construction
After the teaching treatment, I asked students to write a recount, and then I
collected five writing samples from the same students whose writings were
collected previously.
The writing samples was assessed by the two raters and I based on the rater’s
checklist and the holistic assessment table.
2.3.3. Data analysis
I planned to analyze the data in order to answer the three questions:
1. What is the quality of my students’ recounts?
2. What problems do my students encounter when they write recounts?
3. Does using genre-based approach help improve the quality of my students’
writing when they write recounts?
When the raters finished their checklist, if the results were too different, the
researcher would ask the two raters to work together to compare and make the
final decision. I intended to answer the questions based on both the results of the
rater’s checklists and the holistic assessment.
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Based on the checklists and the holistic assessment on the students existing
writing samples, I found the answers for the first and second questions. I would
assess the quality of each student’s recounts before teaching sessions as well as
the general quality of all the student’s recounts.
The same thing is done with the writing samples collected after the teaching
sessions, and based on that, I would assess the quality of each student’s recounts
after teaching sessions as well as the general quality of all the student’s recounts.

2.3.4. Some demonstrations for the application of genre-based approach in
teaching writing English.
Model 1: a sample for writing a paragraph.
UNIT 9

NATURAL DISASTERS

PERIOD: 76

SKILLS 2 ( Part: Writing )

A. OBJECTIVES: By the end of the lesson, Ss can:
- Listen for general and specific information about natural disaster in a news
report.
- Write a new report on natural disaster.
B. AIDS: Posters, pictures

C. TEACHING AIDS: TV programmes, textbook, hand outs, pictures…
D. PROCEDURE:
Teacher’s Activities
Stage 1: Building the field

Student’s Activities
- Work in groups

Activity 1: Show some pictures of natural disasters.

- Look at pictures and
answer the questions.

- -

Ask students to answer.

- Lead in the advantages and disadvantages of the

12


television
Stage 2: Modeling the composition text
Activity 2: Read the paragraph about a natural

- Listen to the teacher

disaster and answer the questions.
Nghe An province was badly affected again when a
typhoon hit the area last night. The storm began at

- Read the text about

around 11p.m. and raged throughout the night. Dozens

natural disaster

of people were seriously injured and hundreds of others
wereleft homeless. The severe winds caused extensive
damage to property, including homes and business,
particularly in Cua Lo, a coastal town in nghe An. The
storm had already weakended by the time emergency

workers arrived in the area. Rescue operations have
started and many people trapped in collapsed or
damaged buildings have been freed. Workers are now
clearing up the debris left behind by the severe storm.
The government has already sent rescue equipment to
Nghe An, as well as food and medical supplies. People
left homeless have been taken to safe areas, where
temporary accommodation will be built to house them.
The weather bureau has issued flood warnings for Nghe
An and nearby provinces as heavy rain is expected to
continue over the next few days.
Questions:
1. What is the text about?
2. What type of the natural disaster ?
3. Where and when did it occur ?
4. What are the effects of this disaster ?

- Answer the

5. What has been done to help the victims of the

questions

disaster?

1. It’s about a natural

13

- The paragraph is a text presenting an issue.. It can

disaster

be a spoken or written text of such kinds as a speech,

2. Storm

an advertisement, a review, …

3. in Nghe An

* Introduction: giving the name of the disaster.

province last night

* Series of argument: - where and when it occured.

4. Dozens of people

- The effects

were seriously

- Rescue activities

injured and hundreds

* Conclusion: reaffirming the general issues.

…………in Cua Lo, a

- Ask students to find out emotive words, connectors,

coastal town in nghe

that are used in the text.

An.

Activity 3: Study the texts again and find out emotive

…………

words and connections that are used in the text.

- Listen to the teacher

- Ask students to do first then giving feedback.

- Write down

- Give students a chart and explain to them the form of a - Work in pairs to find
exposition.

out emotive words,
connectors that are

Type of natural disaster
What is this disaster?

When and where did the
disaster occur?
What are the effects of this
disaster?
What has been done to help the

used in the text.

- Listen to the teacher
- Write down

victims of the disaster?

*Language features:
- Use the simple present tense for timeless statements &
current fact
- Use of words that express feelings (emotive words)
- Use of words that show the writer’s attitude.
- Use of words that link cause and effect.
*Features of a good argument:
- Clear point of view.
- Generalizations/ reasons to support argument
- Evidence to prove or support
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- Cause and effect
Stage 3: Joint Construction
Activity 4: Discussion
Group 1+2 :

- Work in groups

Group 3+4:

- Discuss the natural

Group 5+ 6:

disaster .

- Divide the class into 6 groups and ask them to
discuss then complete the table below.

- Useful structures:

Stage 4: Independent construction

+ Provide Sb with St /

Activity 5: Write a paragraph about the advantages and

Provide st for sb

disadvantages of one the mass media discussed in

+ make someone/

activity 4.

something +

- Ask students to write individually

adjective:

- Move around to conduct the activity

+ result in…

Activity 6: Correcting

+ cause extensive

- Introduces peer correction if time allowed

damage to …

- Pick up some writings to correct in front of the class

+ bes badly/

- Give marks

seriously affected. . .

Homework:

…..

- Ask students to do the writing part in workbook and

- Share ideas with

prepare new lesson at home.

other groups
- Write a paragraph
individually
- Peer correction
- Listen to the teacher
- Do homework

Model 2: a sample for writing a paragraph
UNIT 11: Science and technology
PART: WRITING ( Skills 2 )
(WRITING ABOUT THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES)
I. OBJECTIVES

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By the end of the lesson , students will be able to :
- Understand the social functions and the typical generic structures of a
procedure.
- Write a paragraph about advantages and disadvantages of robots
II. METHOD: Integrated, mainly communicative
III. TEACHING AIDS: TV programmes, textbook, hand outs, pictures…
IV.PROCEDURE:
Teacher’s Activities

Stage 1: Building the field

Student’s Activities

Activity 1: give a picture of robot

- Work in groups

and ask students the questions.

- Look at pictures and
answer the questions.

1.
1. What
What is
is this
this ??
2.
2. Do
Do you
you want
want to
to have
have aa robot
robot at
at home
home ?? Why?
Why? Why
Why not?

not?

- Ask students to answer.
-

Lead in the advantages and disadvantages of

- Listen to the teacher

robots
Stage 2: Modeling the composition text
Activity 2: Read the text about advantages and
disadvantages of robots and answer the questions.
I disagree with the idea that robots will only bring
benefits to people in the future. Robots will also have

- Read the text about the
advantages and
disadvantages of TV

some negative effects. Firstly, they will be very
expensive and we will spend too much money buying
and fixing them. Secondly, robots in factories will be
able to do everything the workers do, therefore robots
will make them jobless. Thirdly, robots in our homes

16


will do all the housework for us, so we will become

- Answer the questions

lazy and inactive. In short, robots will do many things

1. It’s about the

for us, but they may not improve the quality of our

disadvantages of using

lives.

robots.

Questions:

2. There are 3

1. What is the text about ?

3. adverbs. They are

2. How many main ideas are there?

Firstly, Secondly and

3. What is used at the beginning of each main

Thirdly

idea ?

4. There are 5.

4. How many parts are there in a paragraph ?

- A paragraph is a text presenting one side (for or
against) of an argument to persuade the reader or
listener. It can be a spoken or written text of such
kinds as a speech, an advertisement, a review, an
argument…
* Introduction: giving the writer’s point of view.
* Series of argument: convincing readers.
* Conclusion: reaffirming the general issues.
- Ask students to find out emotive words, connectors,
that are used in the text.
Activity 3: Study the texts again and find out emotive
words and connections that are used in the text.
- Ask students to do first then giving feedback.
- Give students a chart and explain to them the form of - Listen to the teacher
a exposition.
- Write down
Expositions
↕
Introduction

Arguments

- Work in pairs to find

Conclusion

out emotive words,
connectors that are used
in the text.
Emotive words: most, a

17


lot of, especially, very,

Writer’s point of

Paragraphs

Reaffirming

view (+ a preview

with topic

general issues almost, too much, only…

of the argument/ a

sentences+

* Connectors:

question or

emotive

- Firstly/ Fisrt / To begin

emotional

words

with / first of all,…

statement)
*Language features:

- Secondly / Besides,

- Use the simple present tense for timeless statements

Alternatively/

& current fact

…

- Use of words that express feelings (emotive words)

- Finally / Last but not

- Use of words that show the writer’s attitude.

least / …

- Use of words that link cause and effect.

- because , however, so,

*Features of a good argument:

although, in addition….

Moreover /

- Clear point of view.
- Generalizations/ reasons to support argument
- Evidence to prove or support

- Listen to the teacher

- Cause and effect

- Write down

Stage 3: Joint Construction
Activity 4: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages
of using robot labour.
Group 1+2 : Discuss about the advantages
Group 3+4: Discuss about the disadvantages
- Divide the class into 4 groups and ask them to
discuss then complete the table below.

Introduction

------------------------------------------

Argument 1

-----------------------------------------Firstly/ Fisrt / To begin with / first

(advantage)

of all,…
------------------------------------------

Argument 2

-----------------------------------------Secondly / Besides, Moreover /

(advantage)

Alternatively/…
------------------------------------------

- Work in groups

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- Discuss the advantages

Argument 3

------------------------------------------ Finally / Last but not least / …

(disadvantage)
Conclusion

-----------------------------------------In conclusion, To sum up, On

using robot labour -

balance, In short,…

and disadvantages of
complete the table.

------------------------------------------ Guide students to do and then ask them to share ideas - Useful structures:
+ help/encourage
with other groups
- Ask students to pay attention to the basic structures
used in the table.
- Move round to help if necessary.
- Correct if necessary.
Stage 4: Independent construction
Activity 5: Write a paragraph about the advantages
and disadvantages of one the mass media discussed in
activity 4.
- Ask students to write individually
- Move around to conduct the activity
Activity 6: Correcting
- Introduces peer correction if time allowed

- Pick up some writings to correct in front of the class
- Give marks
Homework:
- Ask students to do the writing part in workbook and
prepare new lesson at home.

someone to do

something: help us to
learn, encourage us to
buy. . .
+ make someone/
something + adjective:
make things memorable,
make them jobless, make
us passive, make us
become lazy and
inactive. . . . . . . . . . . .
- Share ideas with other
groups
- Write a paragraph
individually
- Peer correction
- Listen to the teacher
- Do homework

3. RESULTS AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH
After about three months applying this research in teaching writing English at
Tran Mai Ninh Secondary school, I have got some satisfactory results. First, my
students generally appreciated the models or examples showing specifically

what they have to do linguistically. Studying a given genre also provided them

19


with an understanding of why a communication style is the way it is through a
reflection of its social context and its purpose. Moreover, this research helped
students form a kind of background knowledge and they could activate in the
next learning situation. After learning writing English in genre-based approach,
students can write better. I compared two writings of a student, I found that he
could correct some errors she made in the first writing, communicating
intentioned sufficiently and effectively. The ideas were well- organized with
coherence and clarity. They used and controlled of grammatical structures better
( as detailed in the following tables).
* Survey results after applying genre-based approach in writing
Class
8A

Very good
6 students =

Good
14 students =

Average
18 students =

Weak
2 students =

( 40 students)

15%

35%

45%

5%

Below are two writings of each student:

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Student 1’s writings

Before applying genre-based
approach in writing

After applying genre-based
approach in writing

21


Student 2’s writings
Before applying genre-based
approach in writing

After applying genre-based
approach in writing

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4. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
4.1 Conclusion.
In short, this writing review suggests that the genre approach works best
when it is joined with the process approach. In the combined process called the
process-genre approach, the final artifact is created through a sequence of
several activities undertaken after students understand the structural and
linguistic features of a particular situation as reflected in a text. Students’ steady
progress is expected to come out of teachers’ facilitation with regards to the
appropriate input of knowledge and skills at different stages. Therefore, if the
process and genre approach are balanced in the curriculum, students will better
improve their writing skills through experiencing a whole writing process as
well as realizing the social functions of genres and the contexts in which these
genres are used. The genre-based approach can be effective in helping students
in my school to learn the organizational structure as well as linguistic features of
a certain genre. Together with the process approach, the genre approach can
contribute to amplifying students’ writing potentials.
Surely, this research can not avoid having limitations and making
mistakes. I hope it will be helpful for teaching writing English at my schoo as
well as at other secondary schools.
4.2. Recommendation
Through practical teaching and performing this subject I would like to propose a
number of the following:
- The textbook should be reduced to allow teachers more time for checking
students’ writings.

- Form of assessment and examinations should be improved, the test subject
does not have much exercise test, as this will not assess skills "Speaking,
Writing" ... The students. Thereby limiting dependence, lazy students to gain the
knowledge, skills, vocabulary ... .that help students self evaluate their true level.
These are innovations that I have boldly applied in teaching writing for students
to improve the quality of assessment in particular, and the quality of teaching in
general. I hope to receive many comments of colleagues to my teaching
initiative.

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Confirmation of the principal
(approved by)

Thanh Hoa city, March 29th, 2017.
I assure this is my writing assignment, not copying
the contents of other people

Written by

Phạm Thị Hồng Vân

REFERENCES

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Sydney National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research
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approach to the teaching of EAP/ESP writing. TESOL Quarterly, 32, 147-156
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Australia, PTY LTD.

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comparison of two approaches to teaching genre. In A. M. Johns (Ed.), Genre
in the classroom: Multiple perspectives (pp. 145-161). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
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10. Rothery, J (1986). Working Papers in Linguistics, Writing Projects 4,
University of Sydney, Linguistic Department

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