An investigation into teachers and students beliefs and attitudes about the application of of the process genre approach to teaching business writing to second year enghlish majored students at ba

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE



AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND
STUDENTS’ BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES ABOUT
THE APPLICATION OF THE PROCESS GENRE
APPROACH TO TEACHING BUSINESS WRITING
TO SECOND - YEAR ENGLISH - MAJORED
STUDENTS AT BA RIA VUNG TAU TEACHER
TRAINING COLLEGE

Submitted to the
Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature
in partial fulfillment of the Master‟s degree in TESOL

By
NGUYEN THI THANH DIEU

Supervised by
NGUYEN DINH THU, PhD

HO CHI MINH CITY, MARCH 2014


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE




AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND
STUDENTS’ BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES ABOUT
THE APPLICATION OF THE PROCESS GENRE
APPROACH TO TEACHING BUSINESS WRITING
TO SECOND - YEAR ENGLISH - MAJORED
STUDENTS AT BA RIA VUNG TAU TEACHER
TRAINING COLLEGE

Submitted to the
Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature
in partial fulfillment of the Master‟s degree in TESOL

By
NGUYEN THI THANH DIEU

Supervised by
NGUYEN DINH THU, PhD
HO CHI MINH CITY, MARCH 2014
i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On completing this M.A thesis, I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of
people, without whose contribution and spiritual support, I would not have
accomplished this research paper.
First and foremost, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my
supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thu, for his scholarly instruction, insightful
comments, warm encouragement, and reading my manuscripts with great care,

without which my thesis could not have been possible.
My special thanks also go to the teachers and students at BRVT Teacher
Training College who were very responsive to the survey questionnaires. In
particular, I wish to thank Tran Thi Thanh Tu, M.A., whose thought-provoking
talks got me to think of new and useful ideas; Mr. Trinh Huu Huong, who spent
hours sharing with me his experience as a writing teacher at BRVT Teacher
Training College; Michaela Van Christine, who was particularly of great help
in searching for relevant references.
Last but not least, my heartfelt appreciation and gratitude are expressed
to my family, my husband, my daughter, Bui Dieu Thao – Mickey whose
intense encouragement, support, sympathy, devotion were a source of
motivation that fostered me to overcome difficulties emerged throughout the
past four years of undertaking my thesis and to complete this study to the best
of my ability.

ii


STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’
BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES ABOUT THE APPLICATION OF THE
PROCESS GENRE APPROACH TO TEACHING BUSINESS WRITING
TO SECOND - YEAR ENGLISH - MAJORED STUDENTS AT BA RIA
VUNG TAU TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

in terms of the statement of the Requirements for the Theses in Master‟s
Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee. This thesis has not been

submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institutions.

Ho Chi Minh City, March 2014

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH DIỆU

iii


RETENTION OF USE

I hereby state that I, NGUYEN THI THANH DIEU, being the candidate for the
degree of Master of Arts in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University
relating to the retention and use of Master‟s theses deposited in the Library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in
the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care,
loan or reproduction of the thesis.

Ho Chi Minh City, March 2014

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH DIỆU

iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE..................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. ii

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY................................................................iii
RETENTION OF USE ..................................................................................... iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................... ix
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................. x
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................... x
LIST OF CHARTS ............................................................................................ x
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... xi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 1
1.1. Background to the study ...................................................................... 1
1.2. Rationale .............................................................................................. 3
1.3. Research questions............................................................................... 4
1.4. Objectives of the study ........................................................................ 5
1.5. Significance ......................................................................................... 5
1.6. Organization of the thesis .................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................ 6
2.1. Introduction .......................................................................................... 6
2.2. Definitions of key terms ...................................................................... 6
2.2.1. Writing.......................................................................................... 6
2.2.2. Definitions of genre ...................................................................... 8
2.3. The main approaches to teaching writing in ESL classes ................... 8
2.3.1. The product approach ................................................................... 9
v


2.3.2. The process approach ................................................................. 10
2.3.3. The genre-based approach .......................................................... 12
2.3.3.1. A brief overview of genre theory....................................12
2.3.3.2. Genre-based pedagogies.................................................13
2.3.3.3. Comparison of the genre approach with product and
process approaches ......................................................................15

2.3.3.3.1. Genre approach: An extension of the product
approach...................................................................................15
2.3.3.3.2. Process approach: A supplement to the genre
approach ..................................................................................17
2.3.4. A process genre approach .......................................................... 18
2.3.4.1. The adapted model of process writing and genre
(Tribble, 1996) ............................................................................ 18
2.3.4.2. A genre process model (Badger and White, 2000).........19
2.3.4.3. The adapted model from Badger & White (2000)..........21
2.4. Advantages of the process genre model ............................................ 22
2.4.1. Awareness of form and function of language ............................ 23
2.4.2. Improvement in writing skills .................................................... 23
2.4.3. Awareness of social nature of writing ........................................ 23
2.4.4. Awareness of readership ............................................................ 24
2.4.5. Motivation .................................................................................. 24
2.4.6. Critical thinking .......................................................................... 24
2.5. Potential difficulties of the implementation of the process genre
approach to teaching ESP Writing .................................................................... 25
2.5.1. New realms of knowledge .......................................................... 25
2.5.2. Appropriate input ....................................................................... 26
vi


2.5.3. Feedback giving ......................................................................... 26
2.6. Business Writing ................................................................................ 26
2.7. Previous studies of the process genre approach in writing teaching . 27
2.8. Chapter summary ............................................................................... 31
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .......................................... 32
3.1. Participants ........................................................................................ 32
3.1.1. Student subjects ................................................................. 32

3.1.2. Teacher subjects ............................................................... 33
3.1.3. Teacher-researcher ............................................................ 34
3.2. Research design ................................................................................. 34
3.3. Data collection instruments ............................................................... 35
3.3.1. Rationale for triangulating data collection instruments ............. 35
3.3.2. Questionnaires ............................................................................ 36
3.3.2.1. Student Questionnaire ................................................... 36
3.3.2.2. Teacher Questionnaire ................................................... 37
3.3.3. Interviews ................................................................................... 38
3.4. Data collection procedure .................................................................. 39
3.5. Methods of data analysis ................................................................... 39
3.6. Summary ............................................................................................ 40
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS .... 41
4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 41
4.2. Data analysis ...................................................................................... 41
4.2.1. Students‟ and teachers‟ beliefs and attitudes towards using the
process genre approach to teaching Business Writing ......................... 41

vii


4.2.1.1. Students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes towards different aspects
of the trial process genre-based instruction in Business Writing
teaching ....................................................................................... 41
4.2.1.2. The level of “interesting” of the application of the process
genre approach into Business Writing teaching .......................... 56
4.2.1.3. The positive effect of the application of the process genre
approach on students .................................................................. 62
4.2.2. The difficulties in implementing of the process genre approach
into teaching Business Writing ............................................................ 65

4.3. Summary ............................................................................................ 66
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............... 67
5.1. Findings ............................................................................................. 67
5.2. Implications ....................................................................................... 67
5.3. Limitations ......................................................................................... 70
5.4. Recommendations.............................................................................. 70
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 72
APPENDIX 1A: STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................ 84
APPENDIX 1B: TEACHER QUESTIONNAIRE ....................................... 88
APPENDIX 2: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN .................................................... 92
APPENDIX 3A: APPLICATION LETTER ..... AN INTRODUCTION ... 97
APPENDIX 3B: APPLICATION LETTER (Analyzed) ............................. 98
APPENDIX 3C: HANDOUTS FOR ROLE-PLAYING .............................. 99
APPENDIX 3D: APPLICATION FOR A POST ....................................... 101
APPENDIX 4D1: APPLICATION ANSWERING.... ................................ 102
APPENDIX 4D2: APPLICATION ...... AN ADVERTISEMENT ............ 103
viii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BRVT

: Ba Ria Vung Tau

CUP

: Cambridge University Press

EAP

: English for Academic Purposes

EBP

: English for Business Purposes

EFL

: English as a Foreign Language

ELT

: English Language Teaching

ESL

: English as a Second Language

ESP

: English for Specific Purposes

FL-IT

: Foreign Languages – Information Technology

GBI

: Genre-based Instruction

L2

: Second Language

OUP

: Oxford University Press

SFL

: Systemic Functional Linguistics

SPSS

: Statistics Package for the Social Sciences

Ss

: Students

T

: Teacher

ix


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Information of the study participants .................................................. 32

Table 2: Necessity of genre analysis at Pre-writing .......................................... 42
Table 3: Realization of form and function of language .................................... 44
Table 4: Social nature of writing ....................................................................... 45
Table 5: Intended audience ................................................................................ 46
Table 6: Motivation ........................................................................................... 47
Table 7: Improving Writing Ability .................................................................. 49
Table 8: Critical Thinking ................................................................................. 51
Table 9: Balance of criticism and praise in feedback ........................................ 53
Table 10: Students' Creativity ........................................................................... 55
Table 11: Students‟ level of “interesting” of the application of the process
genre approach into Business Writing teaching ........................................ 57
Table 12: Teachers‟ level of “interesting” of the application of the process
genre approach .......................................................................................... 60
Table 13: Students' difficulties .......................................................................... 65
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: The adapted model (Tribble, 1996: 60) .............................................67
Figure 2: A process genre model (Badger and White, 2000: 159) ...................69
Figure 3: Application of the process genre model (Yan, 2005: 21) adapted from
Badger and White (2000)...................................................................................69
LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1: Positive effects of the implementation of the Process Genre Approach
on students: Students‟ response ......................................................................... 62
Chart 2: Positive effect of the implementation of the Process Genre Approach
on students: Teachers' response ........................................................................61
x


ABSTRACT
The genre-based instruction has so far been flourished in the field of
ESP Writing in terms of course design and materials development in Viet Nam.

Less attention, however, has been given to the application of the process genre
approach to teaching English Business Writing. This study aimed to find out
(1) BRVT Teacher Training College teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards
and beliefs in the implementation of the process genre approach into teaching
Business Writing and (2) potential difficulties facing teachers and students in
dealing with this implementation.
Participants in this study are 52 second-year students from two classes
(14 D1 and 14 D2) and 14 English teachers from English Department of this
college. Two sets of questionnaires (one for teachers, one for students)
followed by in-depth interviews with selected teachers and students were
employed to gather information. They were later analyzed to find out whether
or not teachers and students like to implement the process genre approach into
teaching Business Writing and what some potential problems these subjects
met. Student subjects were given a careful instruction based the process genre
approach before responding to a set of questionnaire while teacher subjects just
involved in a questionnaire-based survey.
The results of the study revealed that this implementation had some
positive effects on students rating from the most positive to the least positive as
follows: writing competence, awareness of audience, motivation, awareness of
writing, creativity, critical thinking. Also, some difficulties of teachers and
students in the implementation of the process genre approach into Business
Writing that needed to be overcome were the time constraint, the new realm of
knowledge, learners‟ English proficiency, and reference materials.

xi


CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the study

With the globalization of trade, Business English or English for
Business Purposes (EBP) has become the fastest growing field in English for
Specific Purposes (ESP), similar to Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998:53)‟s
comment as "currently the area of greatest activity and growth in ESP". This
idea is supported by Foz-Gil & González-Pueyo (2009), who state that the
participants of an international community with different mother tongues and
cultural backgrounds are likely to use English in an internationally accepted
way in order to make them understood and carry out their transactions.
Accordingly, English written communication skills in the field of Business
have taken an increasingly greater role.
In the context of Viet Nam‟s merging into World Trade Organization
(7/11/2006), there has been a great demand for Business English in the age of
an integrated market economy. It is the big demand that has urged more and
more universities and colleges in Viet Nam to offer English for Business
Purposes (EBP) or English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses to meet the
global trend as well as students‟ future career needs.
In Ba Ria – Vung Tau province, the first reality proves that pedagogical
graduates find it hard to get jobs as English teachers and tend to apply for jobs
in companies or businesses instead. The second reality shows that there has
recently been a growing demand for employees proficient in using English for
their professions in fields of tourism and business. To meet such demands, in
2009 BRVT Teacher Training College opened a new branch – English for
Business and Tourism.
The teaching of Business Writing, mainly teaching of business letters, at
this college has faced some kinds of difficulty. As an eight-year experienced
writing instructor, the researcher gives a very objective comment that most of
1


students, who do not have a good command of grammar rules and lexicon, take

it for granted that writing is just a process of translating words and filtering
meaning from one language to another, which results in their dull and devoid of
content pieces of writing. Clearly, this is not the appropriate approach to
writing because Kroll (1991: 261) asserts that producing a successful written
text requires not only a good knowledge of a number of language systems but
also an ability to effectively use them for a particular audience and a particular
purpose. Similarly, Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000: 142) elaborate that the
communicative purpose of writing can achieve only when its product must be
readable and comprehensible. Moreover, Hyland (2003a: 18) claims that the
important thing a writer has to do is to make use of language patterns to
produce a coherent, purposeful text. The second problem is resulted from that
the current approach to teaching writing is overemphasized on the product
approach; consequently, the writing teachers hardly raise students‟ awareness
of the communicative nature of writing. Last but not least, most of the students
and writing teachers are „afraid‟ of business knowledge because they have
never taken part in any business courses so far; however, they have to learn and
teach with a business-related material for low-intensive courses.
One more rather important objective obstacle is that in an EFL country
as Viet Nam, the language learners are rarely exposed to English especially
demands of English writing, so the level of difficulty of teaching Business
Writing increases markedly. With the above-mentioned difficulties, the
teaching of Business Writing is really a challenge. Providing teachers and
students with an effective approach to teaching and learning Business Writing
is accordingly due attention.
The next part will discuss appropriate approaches to teaching ESP in
general,

and

English

Business

2

Writing

in

particular.


1.2. Rationale
Since 1990s, many researchers have advocated the genre-based
instruction (GBI) whose focus is on the analysis of schematic structures of
professional and academic discourses can be employed in the ESP contexts
(Bhatia, 1993; Flowerdew, 1993; Hopkins & Dudley-Evans, 1988; Kaur and
Chun, 2005; Swales, 1990; Wang, 2007). As a result, much research in GBI
proves that it is helpful for the teaching of ESL writing (Foz-Gil & GonzálezPueyo, 2009; Hammond, 1987; Henry and Roseberry, 1998; Kay & Dudley –
Evans, 1998; Kaur and Chun, 2005; Osman, 2004; Mora & Flores, 2009;
Myskow & Gordon, 2010; Ning, 2008; Nordin and Mohammad, 2006; Zare-ee,
2009). In Vietnamese pedagogical contexts, a fair number of studies have been
conducted using GBI in ESL writing teaching; however, they have mainly
centered on the course/ syllabus design or materials development (Tran, 2000;
Tran, 2005; or writing teaching in high school contexts (Đinh, 2011; Lam,
2013; Nguyen, 2013; Nguyen, 2013)
However, the GBI in pedagogical contexts also receives much criticism.
First, it tends to be overly prescriptive, emphasizing on rules of construction of
a particular genre over others (Bhatia, 1993). Second, it is considered to be
restrictive, especially when employed by unimaginative teachers (Kay and

Dudley-Evans, 1998); and lastly, it is complained for its undervaluation of the
skills needed to produce a text and for seeing learners as largely passive
(Badger and White, 2000).
Many linguistists propose a solution to „fix‟ GBI‟s shortcomings. Many
scholars agree that the process and genre-based approaches should be
combined together in teaching ESL writing (Badger and White, 2000; Hyland,
2003a; Kaur and Chun, 2005; Kim and Kim, 2005; Kim, 2006; Yan, 2005).
Hyland (2003a) explains that genre pedagogies will become an effective
methodology for second language writing teaching when they are supported
with strategies for planning, drafting, and revising texts. Moreover, this dual
approach allows students to study the relationship between purpose and form
3


for a particular genre while they experience the recursive processes of
prewriting, drafting, revision, and editing (Badger and White, 2000; Yan, 2005)
and contribute to amplifying students‟ writing potentials (Kim, 2006).
In Vietnamese tertiary pedagogical contexts, the process genre approach
is applied in teaching writing for academic and professional purposes to some
extent. However, no research has so far been conducted on the implementation
of the process genre approach into teaching Business Writing and potential
problems emerging during this implementation. As a result, it is difficult to
identify the positive and negative effects of this eclectic approach on
Vietnamese teachers and learners so as to document the prevalent constraints of
this implementation in the context of Business Writing teaching and learning.
Moreover, as Richards and Lockhart (1994: 29) affirm, the underlying
framework made up of teachers‟ knowledge and belief directs their classroom
actions. Clearly, the investigation of attitudes and beliefs of teachers and
students before the implication of any innovative approach is a necessity.
Based on all of the above reasons, hoping that it would help to fill such a

gap, the researcher decided to conduct a study “An investigation into teachers’
and students’ beliefs and attitudes about the application of the process genre
approach to teaching Business Writing to second–year English-majored
students at Ba Ria Vung Tau Teacher Training College.”
1.3. Research questions
The main purpose of this study is to investigate students‟ and teachers‟
beliefs and attitudes towards the application of the process genre approach into
teaching English Business Writing. Besides, this study aims at exploring the
constraints teachers and students face in implementing this eclectic approach in
the Vietnamese context, and suggests some ways of coping with them.
Therefore, the thesis answers the following research questions.
a. What are the students‟ and teachers‟ beliefs and attitudes towards applying
the process genre approach into the teaching of English Business Writing?
4


b. What are the difficulties the second-year English majors or teachers at
BRVT Teacher Training College might experience when learning or
teaching business letters writing through the process genre approach?
1.4. Objectives of the study
The thesis makes an attempt to investigate (1) the attitudes and beliefs of
EFL teachers and students towards the applicability of the process genre
approach to teaching Business Writing, (2) possible constraints against
successful implementation of the process genre approach in the given context.
1.5. Significance
The research is hoped to (1) gain more insights into genre-based writing
instruction in ESP, (2) inform the teachers and administrators of the importance
and necessity of the applicability of the process genre approach to teaching
Business Writing, (3) call for the cooperation of ESP practitioners to help
students overcome the difficulties they might meet during the learning of

Business Writing, (4) offer a back-up for the improvement of the ESP syllabus
in general and for development of Business Writing material tailored for
Vietnamese students, (5) may serve as an inspiration for further studies into the
genre-based approach in the field of ESP.
1.6. Organization of the thesis
The present study consists of 5 chapters. Chapter 1 presents the
introduction, which introduces the background of the study, rationale, research
questions, objectives and significance of the study, and organization of the
thesis. Chapter 2 gives a scholarly discussion of issues relevant to the thesis by
theoretical concepts and empirical studies. Chapter 3 presents the research
design and methodology employed in the study. The issues covered in this
chapter are described in terms of participants, research design, instruments,
procedure of the study, and methods of data analysis. Chapter 4 reports on the
data analysis as well as the discussions of the findings of the study. Chapter 5
presents the conclusions, implications, and recommendations for further
research together with some limitations of the study.
5


CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
This chapter reviews theoretical literature as well as empirical research
related to the application of process genre approach into writing teaching. The
theoretical parts fundamental to the research introduced first are definitions of
key terms, main approaches to teaching writing, three models of process genre
approach, impacts of the implementation of the process genre approach upon
learners and teachers, difficulties teachers and students might encounter when
the process genre approach is implemented into writing teaching, and Business
Writing. Then, empirical studies in which process genre approach is

implemented in writing pedagogy is reviewed.
2.2. Definitions of key terms
2.2.1. Writing
Throughout the development history of ESL/ EFL literature, writing has
been defined, basing on three main approaches.
Writing, as stated by Byrne (1988:1), is the act of forming “graphic
symbols” that are put together according to certain styles to form words and
sentences. Moreover, Tribble (1996:3) also agrees that writing is representative
of what to be spoken in the graphic forms and adds that the development and
representation of thoughts in a structured way. According to this perspective,
writing is seen as a „textual product‟ which results from arranging words,
clauses, and sentences coherently basing on a system of rules.
From another different viewpoint, writing is considered as a cognitive
process (Flower and Hayes, 1981; Zamel, 1983). Specifically, this process
includes a set of recursive sub-processes such as planning, drafting, revising
and editing (Flower and Hayes, 1981: 367). Obviously, conceptualizing writing
in this way just stops at defining writing as a mere thinking process and
considers all kinds of writing to follow the same route. In addition, Zamel
6


(1983: 165) pointed out that writers during these sub-processes explore and
generate ideas to make them meaningful. According to this perspective,
writers‟ ideas, thinking, and experiences are put an emphasis on. Critically, this
viewpoint undeniably fails to pay sufficient attention to such important factors
as (1) audience (who to read), (2) communicative purpose (why to write), and
(3) situation (when, where, how to write).
In the third approach, writing is thought to carry out the communicative
functions of language (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain, 2000; Hyland, 2002;
Hyland, 2003a; Raimes, 1983; Widdowson, 1980). Different from two abovementioned viewpoints, the communicative approach to writing puts an

emphasis on audience and purposes of writing. Following this approach,
writers, in order to achieve the communicative purposes of texts, have to select
their words carefully and put their ideas in ways that make their readers
comprehend what the writers intend to convey. This approach hence overcomes
drawbacks of the above approach.
Combining main factors, for example text, processes, purposes and
audience, emphasized in three above-mentioned approaches. Hyland (2003a:
23) states writing is “a sociocognitive activity which involves skills in planning
and drafting as well as knowledge of language, contexts, and audiences”. This
comprehensive definition of writing deals with two aspects of language,
cognitive and social. Moreover, it relates to recent literature of the process
genre approach to teaching writing (e.g., Badger & White, 2000; Belbase,
2012; Kim & Kim, 2005; Nararenko & Schwarz, 2010; Nordin and
Mohammad, 2006; Samway Davies, 2006; Xu, 2005; Yan, 2005). Therefore, it
is adopted as the definition of what writing is in the current research.
The chosen definition of writing above has to a certain extend
accompanied with the meaning of the term „genre‟. The following part will
discuss deeper about this theoretical aspect.

7


2.2.2. Definitions of genre
Over the few decades, genre scholarship has been most fully developed
in three focal traditions, namely North American New Rhetoric studies,
Australian systemic functional linguistics, and ESP. Therefore, the term genre
is defined in distinctive ways.
New Rhetoric scholars (Johns, 1997; Johns et al., 2006; Martin, 1985;
Miller, 1984) define genres on the basis of social actions they are used to
accomplish within the situational contexts. It is clear that the focus here is

mainly on the rhetorical contexts in which genres are used rather linguistic
forms. Unlike New Rhetoric studies, Australian functional linguistics is more
linguistic because the term genre here emphasizes the interrelationship between
language and the social context. For instance, Christie & Martin (1997) state
that in genres language systematically links to context through patterns of
lexical-grammatical and rhetorical features. In the ESP tradition, genres are
recognized not only by their formal properties but also by their communicative
purposes within social contexts (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990). Particularly,
Swales (1990), defines genres as „communicative events‟ featured both by their
„communicative purposes‟ and by different patterns of structure, style, content,
and intended audience (p.58). Richards et al. (2010) in Longman Dictionary of
Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics describe „genre‟ as “a type of
discourse with particular and distinctive communicative functions that occurs
in a particular setting and has distinctive and recognizable patterns and norms
of organization and structure” (p.245). This defining of genre concerns two
dual aspects, linguistic and social, so it is employed in the current research.
2.3. The main approaches to teaching writing in ESL classes
In the history of second language composition teaching, a variety of
approaches have been employed by writing teachers depending on their
viewpoint of what features are most important in a piece of writing. This part
reviews major writing approaches that directly affect the integration of the

8


process and the genre approach to have the dual approach, the process genre
approach.
2.3.1. The product approach
In this approach, teachers mostly concern the final product of writing
and measure the final pieces of writing from students against criteria of

vocabulary use, grammatical use, and mechanical factors such as spelling and
punctuation (Brown, 1994: 320). The teaching practice in the product-oriented
writing instruction follows four sequential writing stages: familiarization,
controlled writing, guided writing and free writing (Pincas, 1982). In the first
stage, familiarization, teachers give students sample texts and then teach them
grammatical features and vocabulary. In the controlled and guided writing
stage, students practice the language features provided by do several exercises
which mainly focus on the substitution of vocabulary in given structures. In the
last stage, students are given advanced tasks in which they use their own
knowledge to construct the new similar texts independently.
It is obvious that this approach helps learners especially at a lower level
of language proficiency produce their own texts confidently and easily because
they just try to imitate models provided by their teachers at the initial stages of
writing so as to reproduce parallel texts either in class or after class. Hence,
after long practice, students can build up self-confidence and produce error-free
pieces of writing. Therefore, this approach serves well in writing for the examdriven purpose. It is this advantage that encourages most of Vietnamese high
school teachers to employ this approach in their teaching writing.
However, the product-based approach has some limitations. The first is
that student writers lack a sense of audience and motivation. According to
Eschholz (1980: 24), the final products are regarded as “mindless copies” of
given models. The students here mechanically „copy‟ the given model to
reproduce a similar products and Zamel (1982: 195) critizes that these writers
have no idea of why and for whom they are writing. Hence, Nunan (2000)
comments that writing in this case is to produce a text for teachers to evaluate,
9


not to communicate meaningfully with others in the real world. Sharing the
same viewpoint, Racelis and Matsuda (2013) emphasize that writing is seen as
an exercise in order to improve language learning not as an act of

communication to accomplish real-world purposes. Accordingly, writing tasks
teachers require do not invoke realistic contexts of writing such as audience,
purpose, genres or the writer‟s position in the literate community. Hence, the
writers have little or even no interest in writing.
The second weakness concerns the roles of teachers and learners. The
teachers are so powerful because they decide how students will write by giving
model texts and measure the final products basing on the models. Meanwhile,
students are totally passive. They have no right to write in the way they like
and express their thoughts freely. Besides, they are not given the time to
interact with their friends to negotiate meaning and refine their ideas so as to
produce the best writings.
Thirdly, in the product-based approach, students have no chance to
realize the process of creating a piece of writing. Kay and Dudley-Evans
(1998) evaluate that writing in the product approach is considered as a rigid,
formulaic, unthinking way of constructing particular texts. Clearly, writers in
this case completely ignore various stages of composing such as brainstorming,
generating, and planning ideas. Different from the product approach, the
process approach emphasizes the composing processes.
Below is elaborated the process approach.
2.3.2. The process approach
Producing a written text is a “non-linear, exploratory, and generative
process…” (Zamel, 1983: 165). Therefore, to produce a good piece of written
text, in the process model, students are engaged in the recursive processes of
planning, gathering information, drafting, revision, and editing (Campbell,
1998; Tribble, 1996; White & Arndt, 1991). This means that the steps of the
writing process are not operated separately. Writers plan, collect information,
draft, and edit but then they can re-do any of these steps until the final written
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piece of writing is complete. For example, when they move to the stage of
revising, they might go back to the stages of reading and collect information
and drafting to generate ideas to produce the first draft.
In this approach, writers move from collecting information to publishing
a written text. There are a lot of models of the writing process. However, the
widely accepted model is prewriting - drafting - revising - publishing. In the
first stage, writers are engaged in several steps, for example searching for
ideas, generating, grouping, and outlining. In the next stage, they discuss and
consult ideas with their friends and teachers to produce multiple drafts of a
written product. After receiving feedback from peers and/or teachers, they have
to revise their drafts or even go back the preceding stages to find ideas until
they have the better drafts. In the stage of revising, they have to edit minor
errors. Finally, they submit their finished products to the teacher.
Obviously, the first virtue of the process approach concerns that roles of
teachers. Teachers are non-directive but facilitating; that is, they assist writers
to express their own meanings by creating an encouraging and co-operative
environment with minimal interference (Hyland, 2003b: 18). Also, they engage
in guiding students to collect data or outlining, providing input and feedback
during the revision and evaluation stages. Secondly, learners can benefit from
the process-oriented approach learning. Leaners can enhance the active and
creative roles in finding information of a given topic, consulting with peers
and/ or teachers to select the appropriate ideas, producing several drafts and
editing their final drafts. An idea of this can be found in Hyland‟s (2003b: 18)
when he considers the learner in the process writing class as “an active
processor of information”. Moreover, they can develop a sense of audience
through peer and teacher reviews (Boughey, 1997). One more benefit the
learners can get from the process approach is that they can know more
techniques such as brainstorming, outlining, drafting, and peer/ teacher
feedback to improve and refine their writing products.
Apart from the advantages stated above, the process-based model still

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has some disadvantages. It is criticized as (1) regarding all writing as being
produced by the same set of processes regardless of the target audience and the
content of the text and (2) giving insufficient importance to the kind of texts
writers produce and why such texts are produced (Badger and White, 2000;
Bazerman, 1980; Hyland, 2003a), and (3) offering learners insufficient input,
particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge (Badger and White, 2000), (4)
failing to take into account the social and cultural aspects that have an impact
on different kinds of writings (Atkinson, 2003).
Little attention to the socio-cultural aspects and intended audience of the
process approach will be supplemented by the genre-based writing instruction
discussed below.
2.3.3. The genre-based approach
Over the past thirty years have seen increasing attention given to the
notion of genre and its application in language pedagogy. Genre, according to
Hyland (2004), has become “one of the most important and influential concepts
in language education” (p.5).
2.3.3.1. A brief overview of genre theory
Hyon (1996) identifies three broad, overlapping schools of genre theory:
New Rhetoric studies, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and English
Specific Purposes (ESP). New Rhetoric theory takes a primary concern on the
situational contexts in which genres occur rather than detailed analyses of text
elements and also places emphases on the social purposes that these genres
fulfill in these contexts (Coffin, 2001; Freedman & Medway, 1994; Miller,
1984). Thus, New Rhetoric theory puts a focus on socio-contextual descriptions
of genres. The second orientation based on Halliday‟s (1994) Systemic
Functional

Linguistics (SFL), known in the US as the „Sydney School‟

examines the interplay between functions of language and social context
(Hyon, 1996). According to this approach, different genres are all purposeful,
interactive, and sequential and language is systematically linked to context
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through patterns of lexico-grammatical and rhetorical features (Christie &
Martin, 1997; Barwasi and Reiff, 2010). Besides, language is considered as sets
of choices conveying different meanings (Christie, 1997; Christie and
Unsworth, 2000; Martin, 2001). Hence, language users can make choices from
these sets of meanings to turn out functional texts in terms of various contexts
(Wu and Dong, 2009). Different from these above orientations, ESP makes the
concern for both social function or communicative purpose and formal
properties in their definitions of genre (Bhatia, 1993; Flowerdew, 1993;
Hopkins and Dudley-Evans, 1988; Hyland, 2003a; Swales, 1990; Weissberg,
1993). Accordingly, a typical ESP approach to genre analysis has to define the
communicative purpose the genre is assigned to achieve and analyze a genre‟s
rhetorical moves and how these moves are carried out textually and
linguistically (Barwasi & Reiff, 2010: 48). In other words, this approach aims
at identifying the purpose and examining the genre schematic structure and the
textual and lexico-grammatical features involved.
To sum up, New Rhetoric, Australian Systemic Functional studies, and
ESP that embrace distinctive approaches to defining and analyzing genres are
reflected in the genre-based teaching applications developed within each
of the three research fields.
The following part will elaborate more about genre-based pedagogies.
2.3.3.2. Genre-based pedagogies
Although all three schools above attempt to describe and explain the

regularities of purpose, form, and situated social action, they differ in the type
of pedagogy.
North American New Rhetoric researchers suggest the application of
genre theories into first language teaching within a variety of disciplines such
as rhetoric, composition studies, and professional writing (Hyon, 1996).
However, they do not present clear methodology to apply the genre theory in
the classroom. Take Miller (1984) as an example; in her article „Genre as
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