LING 411
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
Teaching L2 Writing in the Chinese Tertiary-Level ESL Context
Chen LI
MA TEFL
ASSIGNMENT
Word Count: 5,554 words
(Excluding cover page and references)
Introduction
If second language (L2) learning and teaching as a whole is seen as a demanding intellectual challenge, one of its key components, L2 writing, could well be regarded as the most anxiety-inducing ordeal. Indeed, in view of the complex, multifaceted nature of writing, and the apparently underdeveloped translation from research findings in writing into practical writing pedagogy (Hyland, 2002: 78), Richards and Renandya (2002) observe that “there is no doubt that writing is the most difficult skill for L2 learners to master” (p. 303); and Raimes (in Richards and Renandya, 2002) points out that students are not alone in experiencing writing anxiety because “many of the teachers do not feel entirely comfortable with writing in English, even if it is their native language" (p. 306). This makes L2 writing instruction a daunting undertaking, in spite of being “an important if not dominant focus of work on L2 studies” (Silva and Brice, 2004: 70).
The present-day Chinese English teaching at tertiary-level seems to have echoed the above-mentioned negative perception of L2 writing. As a result, in comparison with other language skills, writing hardly receives sufficient attention in class in terms of allocated teaching time; and students are unwilling to spend time on writing practice after class as they feel it is rather pointless to write something without teacher’s feedback (on the contrary, most students are enthusiastic about practicing oral English). Consequently, for instance, as statistics of the National Entrance Test of English for MA/MSc Candidates have revealed, from 1993 to 1998, the average score of the writing test nationwide was around 40% which was way below the passing score of 60% (Pan, 1999).
While orientating writing instruction to meet students’ writing needs and overcoming the depressing fact that students underachieve in writing tests concerns all Chinese English teachers, it has become particularly poignant for me while working in a tertiary-level ESL context where a written assignment is the primary means for the students to demonstrate their progress and accomplishments to their tutors and school authorities. This prompts me to consider the following questions:
a) Why is mastering L2 writing deemed to be extremely difficult? And why is such a view echoed in the present-day Chinese tertiary-level ESL context?
b) How does the relevant literature shed light on teaching L2 writing?
c) What could be a sensible writing pedagogy for the Chinese tertiary-level English teaching context?
The purpose of this essay is to seek answers to the above questions while reviewing relevant literature on L2 writing. I begin in section 1 by investigating the nature of L2 writing and the evolution of writing pedagogy, providing a summary of the efforts whice have been made on researching and teaching L2 writing. Then, in Section 2, I attempt to answer the above questions by drawing on the pedagogical implications from Section 1 and then propose a practical teaching procedure for the teaching context in question. A brief conclusion is added at the end summarising the salient points this essay presents.
Section 1 L2 writing: an evaluative review of relevant literature
1.1 The nature of L2 writing: theories and pedagogical concerns
Over the years, many theories and models (e.g. Weigle, 2002: 23-35) have been proposed by researchers in order to capture the nature of writing. Hyland (2002) identifies three main approaches towards writing research (predominantly on L1), each with a focused orientation, i.e. text, writer and reader. Using similar categorisations, Silva (1993) also presents an intriguing account of the “distinct nature” of L2 writing. I will briefly examine their findings together with the ensuing pedagogical concerns. A comparison between written and spoken English is also discussed for better conceptualisation of L2 writing.
1.1.1 Text-oriented view
Texts, or the tangible, analysable of writing products have long been the focus of a sizeable volume of research on writing ever since the 1960s (see Raimes, 1991, p. 408 for a succinct review). Hyland (2002, pp. 6-22) broadly classifies research on texts into two perspectives: a) texts are viewed as autonomous objects, i.e. the idea that sees writing as “a textual product, a coherent arrangement of elements structured according to a system of rules” (p. 6), and features an explicit focus on linguistic forms that function in a decontextualised manner with “little awareness of a reader beyond [the immediate audience]” (p. 7); and b) texts are seen as discourse that attempts to serve communicative purposes; in essence, research on this view of writing seeks to analyse the patterns of written language and the functions they serve in order to “accomplish coherent, purposeful prose” (p. 10) and involve issues such as register (the formality of text in accordance with its context, p. 15), genre (schematically and structurally categorised texts that are recognisable to particular reader groups, p. 17) and ESP (English for special purposes). In general, contemporary text-oriented research has seen text predominantly from a discourse analytic perspective, acknowledging the fact that effective writing requires not only the knowledge of how to construct grammatically correct texts, but also considerations of how this knowledge can be applied for communicative purposes.
While the above text-oriented approaches to L1 (first language) writing research are not without their attractions, empirical L2 writing research has unravelled a series of specific issues that characterises the distinctive nature of L2 written texts (Silva, 1993): a) fluency, i.e. L2 writing is a less fluent process, measured by the relatively shorter length of L2 texts (p. 662); b) accuracy, L2 writers make more errors (e.g. morphosyntactic, lexicosemantic errors, and errors with using verbs, prepositions, articles and nouns) overall (p. 663); c) quality, L2 texts are less effective, measured by their lower holistic scores (p. 663); and d) structure, which is a highly complex issue that, in short, “[L2 texts] exhibit distinct patterns of exposition, argumentation, and narration; their response to particular types of academic tasks – answering essay exam questions and using background reading texts – were different and less effective” (p. 668). Overall, L2 writing seems to be less effective than L1 writing, both at lexical and discourse levels.
1.1.2 Writer-oriented view
Writing research from the writer’s point of view, starting in the mid-1970s (see Raimes, 1991: 409), seeks to identify “what it is that good writers do when they are confronted with a composing task” (Hyland, 2002: 23). Hyland (ibid. pp. 22-33) begins his review by seeing writing from an Expressivist view which reacts against the definition of writing as linguistic object but perceives it as a “creative act of discovery in which the process is as important as product to the writer” (p. 23). While being inspirational for further research, the Expressivist view does not address the question of what is “good writing” and, more importantly, how that could be achieved. It also ignores the communicative function of writing in real-world contexts.
Hence, further writer-oriented research attempts to theorise writing from a cognitive point of view (cf. Flower and Hayes, 1981), investigating the process of writing while doing a given task in detail, and setting forth a model that briefly summaries the range of mental activities a writer might have while composing into a handful of sub-processes. Another dimension of writer-oriented research views writing as a social act (Hyland, 2002, pp. 30-33), whereby writing is seen as occuring only within specific situations. This dimension of research, while hard to generalise, has yielded insights on how “particular personal, social and institutional contexts of writing … [could expand] our understanding of what factors can impinge on composition” (p. 33). In summary, a writer-oriented approach makes the achievement of “good writing” more tangible but breaking down the writing process as a whole into its constituent parts, which is likely to make writing less daunting and more manageable.
L2 writing research is certain to have benefited from the writer-oriented research outlined above; in particular, the studies on the writing process have given rise to a vast volume of research on writing pedagogy, which, in turn, has grown into the “process approach” to writing instruction (see, for example, Hedge, 1988; White and Arndt, 1991; and Tribble, 1996: 37). In terms of the L2 writing process, by comparing it with L1 composing processes, Silva (1993, pp. 661-662) concludes that, in general, the two sets of processes are similar, but the following sub-processes in L2 writing process are saliently different from their L1 counterparts: a) planning, L2 writers do less planning, measured by less goal setting, global and local planning, and have more difficulty accomplishing those goals; b) transcribing (producing written text), L2 transcribing is more laborious, less fluent, and less productive, viz. L2 writers might need to constantly refer back to an outline, and consult the dictionary for clarification on certain expressions; this causes more pauses, consumes more time, and produces fewer words; c) reviewing, L2 writing generally involves less reviewing in the sense that less rereading and reflecting on written texts are carried out, but opinions vary in terms of the frequency of revision; nevertheless, specific revision technique such as “revising by ear” are found to be less used in L2 writing and L2 writers focus more on grammar while revising.
1.1.3 Reader-oriented view
As a completed text normally has an eventual purpose to fulfil, reader-oriented writing research, emerging in the mid-1980s (see Raimes, 1991, p. 441), lays emphasis on the interpersonal nature of writing, and suggests that readers normally presume that writers are aware of the audience’s expectations of style and structure. Specifically, Hyland (2002, pp. 33-48) describes reader-oriented writing research from three perspectives: a) writing as social interaction, which requires writers to make composing decisions in line with the potential readers’ interests and needs; b) writing as social construction, which moves the writer away from being an interactant in specific writer-reader interaction, but as a member of a community within which the interaction happens between “the discourses of socially and rhetorically constituted groups of readers and writers” (p. 40); and c) writing as power and ideology, which draws on work done in the field of CDA (critical discourse analysis), stresses that “the most important dimension of social context is the relations of power that exist in it and the ideologies that maintain these relations” (p. 44).
Reader-oriented research has drawn our attention to community-specific text conventions, especially the awareness of writing for real audiences. L2 writers are no stranger to the notion of audience, as they might well have similar concerns while writing in their L1. Yet, establishing a sense of audience is extremely important while teaching L2 writing. On the one hand, by establishing a sense of audience, the students are engaged in communicating with real audiences for real purposes, which makes the writing task more like-life and motivating. On the other hand, for certain L2 writers whose L1 does not share the same organisational pattern with English (i.e. a linear pattern), e.g., Chinese English learners whose L1 features a “centrifugal – symbolised by an inverted cone” (Silva, 1993: 663) organisational structure, would need to continuously remind themselves to adopt the linear pattern that the target audience would expect.
1.1.4 Writing vs. speech
As has been mentioned in the introduction, students in present-day Chinese ESL classrooms are willing to practice spoken rather than written English after class. This is not meant to be detrimental to their overall L2 proficiency development, nor does it impose any necessary negative effect on their writing skill improvement. However, as Nunan (1999: 274) remarks, speaking classes in the past tended to use written English as models, and vice versa, as if the sorts of language produced by speaking and writing are interchangeable.
I am not in a position to argue that such “mixed” writing and speech pedagogy is completely out of fashion or still widely in use in present-day China but, in my own teaching experience, I recall some of the lessons I observed did not guide students to differentiate between spoken and written English. As a result, the students’ compositions were characterised by fragmented sentences and lack of cohesion between sentences and paragraphs, as though they were transcripts of students’ talks. For example, Pan (1999) has selected a few genuine writing samples by Chinese college students who took the CET (College English Test) Band 4 (the date those tests were taken and the finalised scores are also supplied; note that the passing score is 60%):
“1) Some one consid that fresh water will not touch it’s end. (01/1996, 13%)
2) One man’s life lack of money, he will impossible to live on. (01/1995, 33%)
3) So we could believe that the man can live happness in the future. (01/1991, 13%)
4) As is know, that there is much fake commodities in today’s society. (12/1997, 40%)
5) There are two reason case me to choice this careers. The first reason is I am interesting in analysing and designing the electronic circum. (06/1994, 33%)”
The kinds of errors contained in the samples have raised my concern that the distinctive nature of written English, in contrast to spoken English, is noteworthy while conceptualising the nature of L2 writing.
Ur (1996, pp. 159-161) presents a list that summarises the salient differences between written and spoken language: a) permanence, writing has a fixed physical appearance, giving the reader control over the digestion; b) explicitness, unlike spoken language whose interpretation often depends on assumptions, written language operates in a much clearer manner; c) density, written content is usually denser, with fewer fillers, repetitions, and redundancies, than spoken content; d) detachment, unlike speaking interactions in which interlocutors can act upon each other’s responses naturally, the writer-reader relationship features separated space and time; e) organisation, written texts are more carefully organised as writers usually have more time to (re)formulate their texts; f) slowness of production and speech of reception, writing takes a long time to produce, but written texts takes less effort and time to understand; g) standard language, written language normally has to conform to a norm rather than dialectal variations; h) a learnt skill, writing in L1 or L2 must be learnt, whereas L1 speaking skills can be acquired intuitively; i) sheer amount and importance, to express the same idea, written text is often shorter than speech, but speech is more important in everyday interaction and survival.
Nevertheless, we must note that Ur’s list above is premised upon contrasts made between face-to-face conversation and expository prose, whose communicative purposes are distinctly different. In fact, when considering the variety of spoken and written genres and wider communication situations, as Hyland (2002) maintains, spoken and written English “do not divide along clear lines of ‘involvement’, ‘formality’, or ‘complexity’; nor do they display exclusive distributions of particular features” (p. 53). Yet, above all, for L2 writing learners, Ur’s list yields insights into the differences between their everyday conversations and their compositions, which serves well for awareness-raising purposes.
1.2 The evolution of writing pedagogy
As Hyland (2002: 78) points out, to what extent writing research has been translated into practical teaching methodology remains a question to be explored. He further observes that:
“… underlying this question are a number of contested issues about what we accept as criteria for good writing, how they are best communicated to students, and what the nature of teacher intervention should be. Many teachers are confused by the protracted genre-process debate, and the often false dichotomies that this poses…” (ibid.)
The Chinese tertiary-level English teaching context seems to have echoed the above concerns and is particularly slow-paced in incorporating new findings of writing research into pedagogical practices. Before the late 1980s, writing classes in China were dominated by an overt focus on the textual product (see section 1.1.1). Only since the early 1990s has the “process approach” (see section 1.1.2), “genre approach” (cf. Reppen, in Richards and Renandya, 2002, pp. 321-327), and “process-genre approach” (cf. Badger and White, 2000) been introduced to and implemented in China. Yet those approaches were adopted and taught either in a mechanical way, i.e. teachers strictly adhere to the typical procedure of those approaches, regardless of students’ individual differences and institutional influences (e.g. size of class); or in an ad hoc fashion, i.e. though the class procedure may follow the adopted approach, the focus is still on teaching and practicing linguistic knowledge.
Therefore, to cater to the writing needs of Chinese college students, a sensible starting point is to correctly grasp the essence of the above-mentioned writing methodologies and their typical teaching practices, which I will present in the following subsections.
1.2.1 Product approach
According to Pincas (1982, pp. 14-24), the product-oriented approach is closely associated with teaching linguistic knowledge, focusing on learning and manipulating lexical, syntactic and cohesive devices. A typical product approach comprises the following steps:
1) Familiarisation. E.g. the teacher presents and analyses a model text, concentrating on its rhetorical patterns and organisational structures, aiming at familiarising students with the salient features of a specific discourse;
2) Controlled writing. E.g. the teacher drills common sentence patterns used in a particular genre, and guides students to do activities such as paragraph writing;
3) Guided writing. E.g. the teacher asks students to try and compose an error-free text by imitating the model text, followed by teacher correction;
4) Free writing. E.g. on the basis of the previous steps, students “use the writing skills as part of a genuine activity such as a letter, story or essay” (ibid.: 22)
At the teacher-correction phase, the students’ texts are regarded as final products and are judged solely in terms of the correctness of sentential-level language forms and structures. Underpinning this approach is the behaviourist view, which sees teaching as a process starting with teacher-initiated “stimuli” , followed by “responses” by students. The whole writing process is teacher-centred, with little freedom granted to students.
In short, the product approach is mainly concerned with linguistic knowledge and structure of language, and students’ writing development depends heavily on the imitation of model texts provided by the teacher.
1.2.2 Process approach
In the evolution of writing pedagogy, the process approach could be viewed as a reaction against the product approach, as its advocates claim “there will never be the perfect text, but that one can get closer to perfection through producing, reflecting on, discussing, and reworking successive drafts of a text” (Nunan, 1999: 272). Over the years, many models of the process approach have been proposed (see, e.g., Hedge, 1988; White and Arndt, 1991), but they share a common principle, i.e. focusing on the writing process from prewriting to eventual “publication” of the finished text (Tribble, 1996).
Unlike the product approach which stresses linguistic knowledge, the process approach focuses on linguistic skills, such as the strategies that could be employed to solve problems in different stages of the writing process. One of the most explicit models (see Figure 1) of process writing is by Tribble (1996).
Figure 1: Tribble’s (1996: 39) model of the writing process
This model consists of four stages which are discussed below:
1) Prewriting. E.g. students research the writing topic, including reading for relevant information, investigating possible supporting materials, group work under the guidance of the teacher, brainstorming etc. These activities enable students to collect as many ideas as possible;
2) Composing/ Drafting. E.g. students organise the generated ideas according to a certain sequence, select the ones that are compulsory, and form an outline. Students then write their first drafts based on the outline;
3) Revising. E.g. after writing the first drafts, teachers guide students to discussion of their drafts in groups and students revise their drafts according to teacher and peer feedback;
4) Editing. E.g. students read through their drafts, edit it when necessary.
Note that Seow (in Richards and Renandya, 2002) proposes that after the first draft, a responding phase to student writing is in order. He considers this step to be carried out by teacher or peers between drafting and revising (as opposed to being done in the final stage at which teacher response, evaluation and revision of student writing are conducted simultaneously, and after which students are left with nothing further to be done on their part). He also adds a “post-writing” stage where the students’ generated texts are explored by way of group discussion, speech or drama etc. He regards this stage as “a platform for recognising students’ work as important and worthwhile”, which is used to motivate the students as well as to “hedge against students finding excuses for not writing” (ibid. 319).
Note, also, that the actual writing process is much more complex than the above-mentioned four stages. In reality those stages are neither sequential nor orderly, but are inter-related in a recursive manner (see the arrows in Figure 1 which signify the interplay between the stages). Nevertheless, for teaching purposes, having students realise specific writing strategies they can use at each stage of composing might help build their confidence in writing and in turn expand their communication potential.
Process approach is not without its criticisms. Those who are sceptical about the approach argues that a) it contradicts writing reality where the purpose is towards the tangible end-product; b) it overlooks the fact that students whose language proficiency is limited or whose purpose of writing is towards a specific genre (e.g. academic writing) would benefit more from the product approach (cf. Barnes, 1983; Reid, 1984). In view of those critiques, O’Brien (2004) points out that they “stem from misunderstandings” (p.7). In essence, the process approach does not “dissociate writing entirely from the written product through the various stages of the writing process but [it aims] to construct process-oriented writing instruction that will affect [students’ writing] performance” (Seow, in Richards and Renandya, 2002: 315).
In short, the process approach is predominantly to do with the exercising of linguistic skills, and students develop their writing skills unconsciously by doing teacher-facilitated exercises.
1.2.3 Genre approach
Compared to the two approaches outlined above, the genre approach, building on genre theory, is relatively new to the English language teaching sphere, and was not introduced to China until the late 1990s (e.g. Badger and White, 2000: 155, Han, 2001: 36).
In reality, students who write job application letters will have a differing purpose than those who write academic essays. Using a rather “monolithic” process approach will not provide students with sufficient practice in the types of writing they are expected to produce for specific purposes (Reppen, in Richards and Renandya, 2002: 321). Therefore, the genre approach considers varied kinds of writing in line with their situated social contexts.
The genre approach parallels the product approach in many ways. According to the wheel model of genre literacy (see Figure 2), developed by Cope and Kalantzis (1993: 11), there are three phases of a genre-based writing class:
Figure 2: Cope and Kalantzis’ (1993: 11) Wheel Model of Genre Literacy
1) Modelling. E.g. teachers introduce a specific genre using model texts, analysing its function, structure, register etc.;
2) Joint negotiation of text. E.g. both teachers and students write on the same topic, including activities such as observing, investigating and discussions. The role of the teacher is a scriber, noting down students’ findings, and then write-up in line with the genre in question in order to let students understand the whole writing process;
3) Independent construction of text. E.g. students choose a topic to compose in a specific genre.
Note that the “wheel” structure indicates that genre approach does not need to be linear; teachers can start teaching with any of those phases according to students’ needs.
The illustration above shows that there are indeed many similarities between genre and product approaches. However, in practice, the genre approach differs from the product approach in that it lays emphasis on the situated social context the writer composes in. For instance, when writing an email, apart from analysing the vocabulary and sentence structures that are typical of emails (as would have happened using the product approach), genre approach will also guide students to consider the social context of emails, including the purpose and reader, which will then determine the language formality used, length of texts etc. Then, students would eventually produce emails that conform to the desired discourse and social expectations.
In short, the genre approach concerns writing with linguistic knowledge and within situated social contexts. Students develop their writing skills through analysing and imitating the model texts supplied by teachers.
1.2.4 Comparing product, process and genre approaches
On the basis of the foregoing review, I have briefly summarised the strengths and weaknesses of the three writing pedagogies in the table below (Figure 3):
Figure 3: Pros and Cons of the Product, Process and Genre Approaches
Although the process approach is gaining popularity in the Chinese tertiary-level English teaching context, due to its own constraints as outlined in Figure 3 and the contextual constraints, such as large class size, limited class time and lack of qualified teachers, it still has not established itself as the solution to the teaching reality of the context in question.
1.2.5 Process-genre approach
In an effort to harness the strengths of the three approaches discussed above, Badger and White (2000) set forth an amalgamated writing teaching methodology named “process-genre approach” (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: Badger and White’s (2000: 159) Genre Process Model of Teaching Writing
The essential ideas underlying this approach are:
“… writing involves knowledge about language (as in product and genre approaches), knowledge of the context in which writing happens and especially the purpose for the writing (as in genre approaches), and skills in using language (as in process approaches) … writing development happens by drawing out the learners’ potential (as in process approaches) and by providing input to which the learners respond (as in product and genre approaches).” (ibid.: pp. 157-158)
In practice, teachers of the process-genre approach need to emphasise the situation in which writing takes place, and help students identify the communicative purpose in that situation and the associated contextual factors. For instance, to write a job application letter, under teacher’s guidance (see the right column of Figure 4), students will gradually uncover the purpose – apply for a job; tenor – HR person of a specific organisation; field – relevant experience and abilities for the vacancy; mode – formal written English. Then, students try to identify vocabulary, grammar and structure that are suitable for the specific genre, and then go through the writing process of planning, drafting and publishing, until they arrive at their finalised texts (see the left column of Figure 4).
Section 2: Main Implications with Reference to the Chinese tertiary-level ESL context
The main implications which arise from the discussion in Section One will serve as answers to my initial questions raised in the introduction section and they are presented as follows:
2.1 Why L2 writing is so difficult: recognition of the complex nature of L2 writing
The difficulty of L2 writing lies primarily in the complex, multi-faceted nature of writing itself and the challenge of writing in a L2 (see section 1.1). In fact, writing itself is a highly complex matter, regardless of whether it is done in L1 or L2. On the one hand, a good piece of writing must consider both the situated context, i.e. a sense of purpose and a sense of audience; and the language appropriate to that context (i.e. the textual product). On the other hand, a good writer often has a repertoire of writing strategies on which to draw during the composing process.
For L2 writers, the above features of good writing and writers impose enormous challenges. In order to achieve a reasonable writing outcome, L2 writers must have a firm grasp of both lower level skills such as spelling, punctuation, word choice, etc., and higher level skills of planning, organising and editing, which already require considerable efforts, let alone writing with ease and skill. Besides, for those L2 learners whose L1 is distinctively different from English, the challenge is even tougher, because they would have to adjust their entrenched way of organising words and paragraphs to conform to the “linear” thinking pattern of English (see section 1.1.3).
2.2 Why L2 writing is so difficult in the Chinese tertiary-level ESL context: my own observation
As has been mentioned in the introduction section, the results of national-level college English tests have unanimously revealed students’ underdeveloped writing skills. Apart from the difficulties outlined in Section 2.1, in my opinion, two other reasons have come to the fore.
On the one hand, the teachers have seldom found success in writing classes due to lack of appropriate writing pedagogy (e.g. the new writing pedagogies come to China rather late, see section 1.2) and institutional constraints. A typical writing class is characterised by a bottom-up orientation (i.e. an overt focus on the textual product), limited class time (i.e. only one writing class per week), and little further exploration of students-generated texts. On the other hand, students have little interest in developing their writing skills after class, which is ascribed not only to lack of writing autonomy, but also to the fact that the kinds of genres taught in class are of little practical use for their future career development.
In addition, with the thrust of communicative language teaching methodology in Chinese ESL field (cf. Liao, 2004), students with underdeveloped lexical and syntactical proficiency hardly get sufficient practice in consolidating their “low level skills” (i.e. spelling, grammar), which might induce great anxiety when learning to write, whose success depends on a reasonable command of both high (i.e. composing strategies) and low level skills.
2.3 How does the relevant literature shed light on teaching L2 writing, and what could be applied to the Chinese tertiary-level ESL context – the practical use of process genre approach
In section 1.2, I have discussed the evolution of writing pedagogy embodied in four teaching approaches over the years. Figure 3 briefly summarises the advantages and disadvantages of product, process, and genre approaches. It seems that the process-genre approach discussed in section 1.2.5 has incorporated the strengths of its predecessors, which might yield optimum results for writing instruction. However, Badger and White (2000) do not specify how the process-genre approach could be operationalised. Hence, I will present a set of classroom stages in order to put the approach into practice with reference to the Chinese tertiary-level context.
1) Model text analysis. I.e. teachers select texts that can best exemplify a particular genre, analysing in detail the genre’s situated social context and communicative purpose, including the tenor, field, and mode. When this is done, teachers could illustrate and conclude the structure, organisation and language that are typical of this genre. Students could then have a thorough understanding of the form and content required of the genre. Note that this stage may seem similar to the “familiarisation” and “pre-writing” stages in the product and process approaches respectively, but in essence there are major differences: in contrast to “familiarisation”, it presents higher level discourse analysis of the features of a particular genre; compared to “prewriting”, it considers specific strategies associated with particular genres, rather than using the same skills to deal with all kinds of texts.
2) Imitation / Group imitation. I.e. students attempt to internalise the input in the previous stage by imitating the structural language features of that particular genre. They could do so by changing the subject of the model text or write on similar topics; they could also write in groups where they can discuss the features of that genre while composing.
3) Independent writing. I.e. students write on a given topic within a specified social context. They go through the process of planning, drafting and publishing. The teacher can draw on the process approach while at this stage, particularly the planning stage (because L2 writers are generally less skilful in planning, see section 1.1.2) and responding phase if the class size is manageable (see section 1.2.2).
4) Editing. I.e. this stage includes independent, peer and teacher revising and feedback. Time permitting, further exploration of student-generated texts is recommended which could be done in the form of group discussion, speech, and drama.
In essence, in my opinion, the process-genre approach should be premised on the following principles:
1) guide students to understand that writing is a communicative tool determined by its purpose and situated social context;
2) students could learn both linguistic knowledge and writing skills while composing;
3) student learn not only from the teacher but also from the model texts and peers;
4) the teaching process not only features the facilitating role of the teacher and model texts, but also encourages students’ writing autonomy and motivation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, L2 writing is anxiety-inducing for both students and teachers, with the former struggling to master not only linguistic knowledge but also linguistic skills, and the latter confused by contested writing theories and ineffective writing pedagogies, feeling their way as they go. The Chinese tertiary-level ESL context echoes such writing anxiety in terms of students’ reluctance to practice writing and inefficient and ineffective writing instruction.
In an effort to address those issues, I have chosen the process-genre approach as a sensible writing pedagogy and proposed a practical teaching procedure for the approach. The key value of this approach is that it has a balanced and integrated view of the writing process, genre and the textual product; moreover, it takes into account students’ need for input on both linguistic knowledge and skills. It is hoped that further empirical studies could be conducted to verify and explore the practical use and effectiveness of this approach in the teaching context in question.
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