Genre-based tasks in foreign language writing: Developing writers’ genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence

• Published in: Journal of second language writing Vol. 20; no. 2; pp. 111 - 133
• Main Author: Yasuda, Sachiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.06.2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Course Descriptions; Electronic Mail; Foreign Countries; Foreign language writing; Genre awareness; Genre-based tasks; Interviews; Japan; Language Acquisition; Language Styles; Language Usage; Linguistics; Literary Genres; Meaning-making ability; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Statistical Analysis; Student Attitudes; Surveys; Teaching Methods; Undergraduate Students; Writing (Composition); Writing and language development; Writing Instruction; Writing Skills; Japan; Genre-based tasks; Writing and language development; Meaning-making ability; Foreign language writing; Genre awareness
• ISSN: 1060-3743; 1873-1422
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jslw.2011.03.001

► This study examines how college-level FL writers developed linguistic knowledge and writing competence in the development of genre awareness. ► Enhanced awareness of the external context, involving the needs of the audience and the purpose of writing, enabled writers to develop a range of linguistic choices to make when performing a certain social action. ► The study concludes that writing development is not due to a decontextualized mechanical process of learning a new lexical item but an expansion in linguistic resources to make meaning in a specific social context. This study examines how novice foreign language (FL) writers develop their genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence in a genre-based writing course that incorporates email-writing tasks. To define genre, the study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) that sees language as a resource for making meaning in a particular context of use rather than as a set of fixed rules and structures ( Halliday, 1994). To design genre-based syllabi that can promote both language and writing development, the study also attempts to link genre to task ( Norris, 2009). In the fifteen-week writing course, Japanese undergraduate students ( n = 70) engaged in carefully designed genre-based tasks, where they learned the ways in which different genres are shaped by different linguistic resources to achieve their goals through sequenced task phases. Three sets of qualitative and quantitative data were collected to examine students’ changes as a FL writer: survey, interviews, and the emails written at the beginning and the end of the semester. The results showed that the students made progress in their genre awareness and perceptions, and that changes in their awareness were apparent in their actual written products. The study discusses that a combination of genre and task can create a crucial pedagogical link between socially situated writing performance and choices of language use, which is expected to serve as a springboard to create interfaces between writing and language development in FL contexts.