The influence of genre-Based activitieson students’ foreign language writing

THE INFLUENCE OF GENRE-BASED ACTIVITIESON STUDENTS’ 
FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING 
Nguyen Thi Minh Tam* 
University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 
Received: 09/01/2020; Revised: 06/03/2020; Accepted: 25/08/2020 
Abstract: The findings from recent studies ofgenres and genre-related issues reveal that learners’ genre 
awareness couldenhance their linguistic knowledgeandtheir language skills as well (Cheng, 2006;Johns, 
2015). Students’ awareness of various genres may allow them to produce texts of different genres, many 
of which would potentially appear in their future job contexts. In this study, genre-based activities were 
employed in an English linguistic class. During seven weeks, the students, after being lectured on 
linguistic contents, practiced the linguistic knowledege and skills they learned through genre analysis 
activities and then follow-up activities. In the mid-term and end-term assignments, students were 
required to produce two texts of one and the same genre. The texts that students produced were then 
compared in terms of the agreement between language choices and communicative purposes to specify 
the changes in their English writing; observations and informal discussion were also conducted. The 
possible influences of genre-based activities on students English writing were then discussed. 
Key words:Genre, genre analysis, genre-based activities, language teaching, writing skills 
1. Introduction 
Genres are staged, goal-oriented social processes (Martin, 1985). Genre analysis, which emerged in 
1980s and blossomed in the 1990s, is the study of naturally occurring written discourse, focusing, in 
particular, on analysis beyond the sentence level (Bhatia, 2004).Studies of genres and genre analysis are 
more and more welcomed nowadays as the findings from recent studies reveals that developing students’ 
awareness of various genres is essential in promoting students’ language skills (Barwashi & Reiff, 2010; 
Cheng, 2006, 2015; Yasuda, 2011). This paper reports the findings of a research conducted with 21 English 
learners in a linguistic class, in which genre analysis activities and follow-up activities (the combination of 
these two types here after called genre-based activities) were employed to seek the answer to the research 
question: “How could genre analysis activities in a linguistic class influence Vietnamese students’ writing 
competencein specific genres in English?” 
The paper starts with a brief overview of genre and genre analysis and the interrelation between genre 
analysis and writing skill development. Next, the action research design and instrumentation areelaborated. 
The findings are then presented and discussed so that the influence of genre-based activities on students’ 
English writing can be seen. 
2. Literature review 
2.1. Genre and genre analysis: an overview 
Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them (Martin, 1985). In 
Martin’s perspective (1992, 1997, 2000) on genre analysis, which is grounded on systemic functional 
linguistics, genre is defined as “a system structured in parts, with specific means to specific ends” (Vian Jr. 
& Lima-Lopes, 2005, p. 29, as cited in Figueiredo, 2010, p.127). For Swales (1990), genres constitute a 
class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These 
* Email: minhtambb@gmail.com 
purposes arerecognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute 
the rational for the genre. In functional linguistics, genres aredefined as a recurrent configuration of 
meaning, which enacts the social practices of a culture (Martin & Rose, 2008, p.6). To be more specific, 
genres canbe characterized by recurrent global patterns, and the organization of each genre can be 
distinguished by recurrent local patterns. A genre is a highly structured and conventionalized discourse 
which occurs among the members of a community (Bonyadi, 2012). 
In functional view, the basis for classifying texts into genre could be the social processes that the 
texts enact. Any linguistic analysis should start with the communicative purposes to be realized by the texts, 
and language only serves as the input bank for any linguistic choices in order to realize different 
communicative purposes, as language is a meaning making resource (Halliday, 1970). Taking Systemic 
Functional Linguistic (SFL) approach in their study on genres and teaching genres, Knapp and Watkins 
(1994) define genres as a useful way to classify the social processes that are realized through the use of 
language (p.25). In Knapp and Watkins’ (1994) perspective, genres are perceived at two levels. At a higher 
level, genres are defined and classified according to the general social processes that they are doing: 
describing, explaining, instructing, arguing, or narrating. At a lower level, genres are defined and classified 
according to the types of specific products such as personal recounts, manuals, recipes, and debates. In this 
paper, the term “genre” is used to refer to a group of texts in the same subject area, of with the same 
communicative purpose, used in similar situations, and in the same mode. 
Figure 1. Classification of genres (Knapp & Watkins, 1994, p.26) 
Genre analysisis the study of naturally occurring written discourse focusing, in particular, on analysis 
beyond the sentence level (Bhatia, 2004). Any genre analysis starts with identifying the communicative 
purpose(s) of the texts or genres under investigation and the use of language in institutionalized settings 
controlled by communicative conventions existing in and created by a group of participants in a defined 
discourse community (Martin, 1985); but the key step in genre analysis is the identification of the key 
features of a text (which is based on the conventions set by the disco ... ur tour commentaries 
with the contents? What modification would you make and why? 
Figure 3. Tutorial 2 genre analysis task requirement 
 It was observed from this tutorial that students’ genre awareness had been noticeably enhanced in 
the sense that students managed to link most of their comments on language choices with the genre features, 
the text purposes, and the contexts where the texts appeared, and the audience of the texts. The suggested 
conversion of the written entries into the tour commentaries and the demonstration of the commentaries 
were quite successful with two out of four groups. For the other two groups, the commentaries did not 
sound very natural for spoken language, which might be due to students’ English proficiency levels, but 
students’ efforts in evaluating the transitivity realization in relation to the genre features and the text 
purposes could be clearly observed through the comments and language revision they gave. 
 Figure 4. An example of students' comments on the texts 
 As could be seen in Figure 4, suggestions of adding new elements/details to the texts, or adding lead-
in parts were popular. Many clauses of existential processes were changed into material processes. Many 
mental process clauses were changed from the “like” types to the “please” types. Verbal processes were 
inserted with projecting/quotation clauses. Some declarative mood clauses were converted into 
interrogative mood clauses (into rhetorical questions) for the sake of engaging the audience in the 
commentaries. 
In tutorial 3, students chose the texts of one genre among, but not limited to, those in the suggested 
list. The texts were chosen at their preference and convenience, so students seemed to be more confident 
and interested in the task than in the other two tutorials. 
Task: How much does the realization of thematic structure and cohesive devices in the blog posts/ 
product manuals/ course information leaflets / travel brochures / book introductions / academic 
compositions support the communicative effectiveness of thesetexts?What modifications would you 
make to enhance the communicative effectiveness? 
Figure 5. Tutorial 3 genre analysis task requirement 
With their experience in genre analysis activities in the previous tutorials, most groups became more 
confident in their analysis. Students not only modified the small details at clause levels (use another 
cohesive devices or change the thematic structures of the clauses), but they became more ambitious in their 
attempts to rewrite the texts, with major revision suggested to above-clause level in the texts. The language 
choices were revised in a much more creative way including changing the thematic progression in the texts 
or employing grammatical metaphors to enhance the cohesion of the texts. Almost no teacher-student 
interaction was needed in this tutorial, but students’ task fulfillment was remarkably productive. 
In my informal talks with students, I found that once students become aware of the possible influence 
of language choices in fulfilling the functions of the texts, they became more critical about all details related 
to the interpersonal, ideational, and textual aspects of the texts. As they accumulated more and more 
understanding of the linguistic features through the lectures, and more experience of applying those 
linguistic contents through genre analysis activities, the amount of modification they made and the level of 
complexity of the modification gradually increased. 
 Theme 3: Genre-based assignments enablestudents to be more sensitive to the mismatch between 
language and the writing purposes, to self-assess and thus enhance their own writings. 
 In the mid-term assignment, groups of students were required to analyze 3 to 5 sample academic 
compositions in one academic genre in terms of their mood, transitivity, and theme system. In the final 
assignment, individual students were required to choose one of their own writing of the identical genres 
that they analyzed in the mid-term assignment to analyze and revised. Students also had to reflect on the 
problems of the original writing and how much the revision changed their own writings. 
The analysis of the assignment disclosed a remarkable improvement in students’ writings in all three 
aspects: interpersonal, ideational, and textual. More than 90% of the rewritten texts (19 out of 21) were 
much improved in cohesion, communicative effectiveness, and tone. There seemed to be a detailed analysis 
of all the factors of audience, purpose, and genre features of the writings so that the revision could resolve 
most of the conflicts between the language and those factors in the original writings. 
The modifications that students made to their own writing mostly enhanced the communicative 
effectiveness, the tone, and the cohesion of the texts; and students were happy about what they did to 
improve their own writings. 
Figure 6. Samples of students’ reflection 
Such reflections as shown in Figure 6 above demonstratethat students were able to self-assess their 
writing, point out the problems, and make meaningful improvement. Although two out of 21 students did 
not achieve good improvement in their revised version, the constructive impactof genre-based activities on 
their writing skill development was visible. 
4.2. Discussion 
From the findings above, it isevident that after being aware of the reciprocal relation between 
language choices and communicative purposes in the genre analysis activities, students were able to link 
the genre features and contextual features with the language choices - making language choices appropriate 
to the purposes in their writings and to the genre goals. The follow-up activities of genre analysis were the 
chances for students to apply their understanding of the features of different genres in text evaluating - 
spotting out the mismatch between the language choices and the communicative purposes and seeking 
better way to enhance the concordance between them. In other words, genre-based assignments provided 
students chances to reflect on the overall quality of their own writing, so the constructive impacts of genre-
based activities on students writing skill development were observed. This finding echoes the reports by 
Cheng (2015) that genre analysis activities could facilitate learners’ noticing and learning genre-specific 
features and the underpinning purposes of those features. 
As seen through students’ task completion during the tutorials, the mid-term and end-term 
assignments, the complexity level of students’ linguistic features analyses and their text modification 
suggestions increased. What could beinferred from this observation is: genre-based activities were a good 
preparation for students in revising the existing texts and producing good texts of their own. This finding 
also supports Yasuda’s (2011)conclusion that genre-based tasks in foreign language classrooms could result 
in clear gains in some aspect of their writing performance, as well as their genre knowledge development. 
In addition, the analysis of students’ assignment papers demonstrated a quite remarkable 
improvement in students’ writings in different aspects of texts, which entailed that: once students’ genre 
awareness was emphasized, students’ ability to identify the writing problems related to communicative 
purpose achievement was improved, their ability to self-assess and better their own writings could be 
enhanced. 
5. Conclusion 
The genre-based activities were used in a linguistic class of third-year English-major studentsto 
explore the influence of linguistic knowledge and skills and genre awareness on students’ writing skills 
development. After the lectures and tutorials in which genre analysis activities, followed by writing 
evaluation and revision activities as follow-up activities, were employed, students were found to gradually 
build up their capability of applying their linguistic understanding of different genres in evaluating and 
revising texts. There was evidence that student’s ability to self-assess their writingswas improved, and the 
enhancement of their writing skills followed. In conclusion, genre-based activities could have good impact 
on students’ writing skills. As this study was conducted with English-major students at a Vietnamese 
university, the results of it could somehow be applicable to similar Vietnamese contexts. The researcher 
suggests genre-based approach be an appropriate choice for teaching and learning foreign language writing 
in Vietnamese foreign language specializing tertiary institutions. 
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ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA HOẠT ĐỘNG KHAI THÁC THỂ LOẠI NGÔN BẢN 
TRONG PHÁT TRIỂN KỸ NĂNG VIẾT 
NGOẠI NGỮ CHO SINH VIÊN VIỆT NAM 
Tóm tắt: Kết quả của một số nghiên cứu về đặc điểm thể loại ngôn bản và các vấn đề liên quan đến thể 
loại ngôn bản cho thấy rằng khi người học có hiểu biết tốt về thể loại, họ không chỉ cải thiện kiến thức 
ngôn ngữ học mà còn cải thiện cả kỹ năng sử dụng ngôn ngữ cho bản thân (Cheng 2006; Johns, 2015). 
Nếu người học có hiểu biết về các thể loại ngôn bản đa dạng, họ có khả năng ứng dụng những hiểu biết 
này để sản sinh các ngôn bản với đặc điểm tương tự trong môi trường công việc trong tương lai. Trong 
nghiên cứu này, chúng tôi sử dụng hoạt động phân tích thể loại ngôn bản và tiếp nối là các hoạt động 
đánh giá, điều chỉnh ngôn bản trong một lớp học phần Ngôn ngữ Anh. Trong bài giữa kỳ và cuối kỳ của 
học phần - đều dưới dạng sản sinh ngôn bản viết - sinh viên được yêu cầu viết các ngôn bản thuộc cùng 
một thể loại. Qua việc so sánh chất lượng các ngôn bản trong bài viết của sinh viên, quan sát quá trình 
phân tích, đánh giá ngôn bản và trao đổi với sinh viên, chúng tôi phát hiện những thay đổi trong kỹ năng 
viết của sinh viên và thảo luận những thay đổi này trong mối quan hệ với hoạt động khai thác thể loại 
ngôn bản đã được sử dụng. 
Từ khóa: Thể loại ngôn bản, phân tích thể loại, hoạt động khai thác thể loại, giảng dạy ngôn ngữ, kỹ 
năng viết 
APPENDIX: Samples of students’ reflection