VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

TÔ THỊ MAI

EFFECTIVENESS OF IMPLEMENTING THE GENRE

APPROACH ON NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’
WRITING PERFORMANCE AT UNIVERSITY OF
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

(HIỆU QUẢ ỨNG DỤNG ĐỊNH HƯỚNG DẠY VIẾT THEO THỂ LOẠI ĐỐI
VỚI KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KHOA HỌC XÃ HỘI VÀ NHÂN VĂN)

M.A. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Hanoi – 2015
 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

TÔ THỊ MAI

EFFECTIVENESS OF IMPLEMENTING THE GENRE

APPROACH ON NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’
WRITING PERFORMANCE AT UNIVERSITY OF
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
(HIỆU QUẢ ỨNG DỤNG ĐỊNH HƯỚNG DẠY VIẾT THEO THỂ LOẠI ĐỐI
VỚI KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KHOA HỌC XÃ HỘI VÀ NHÂN VĂN)

M.A. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Dr. Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi – 2015
 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the minor thesis entitled “Effectiveness of implementing the
genre approach on non-English major students’ writing performance at University of
Social Sciences and Humanities” is the result of my own work and effort in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-
Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies,
Vietnam National University. The material in this research has not been submitted
to any other university or institution wholly and partially.

Hanoi, 2015

Tô Thị Mai

i
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to many people without whose help my thesis could not have

been completed. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my

supervisor Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Van for his invaluable guidance, insightful comments

and endless support.

I wish to express my deep indebtedness to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lam Quang Dong,

Dean of the Faculty of English, University of Languages and International Studies

(ULIS) for his great encouragement to me. Also, my special thanks are due to Ms. Lai

Phuong Thao, Vice Dean of the Faculty of English University of Languages and

International Studies (ULIS) and Ms. Lam Thi Hoa Binh, Head of English Devision at

University of Social Sciences and Humanity (USSH) for their kind assistance and

valuable suggestions.

My thanks are also extended to all my student informants at USSH, my

colleagues at ULIS and USSH, and all the people who have assisted my research work.

To all mentioned, and to many more, my heart extends the warmest thanks.

ii
 ABSTRACT

The effectiveness of genre-based approaches to teaching writing has been

widely acknowledged in a large number of experimental and theoretical studies;
however, any detailed examination of this effectiveness on both students’ writing
performance and their attitudes towards writing in light of genre approaches is still
limited. This study is an attempt to provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of
the genre-based approach in enhancing both the writing performance and attitudes
towards writing of non-English majored students at University of Social Sciences and
Humanities, Hanoi. The study lasted 10 weeks, adopted the quasi-experimental design
with one control group and one experimental group and used the writing pre-test/post-
test and attitude pre-scale/post-scale instruments. The results show that the genre-based
approach helped students improve their writing performance in terms of content,
communicative achievement and organisation, while their command of language did
not show remarkable improvement. Furthermore, the findings also reveal more positive
attitudes of students towards learning writing when being taught in the genre-based
approach. Based on those findings, the thesis provides some implications for using the
genre-based approach in teaching writing to low level students at university.

iii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.............................................................................viii
ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS ............................................................... ix
PART A...........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
1. Rationale for the study ..............................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study .......................................................................................................3
3. Research questions ......................... ..........................................................................3
4. Scope of the study ......................................................................................................3
5. Methods of the study .................................................................................................4
5.1. Research method .............................................................................................. 4
5.2. Research instruments ........................................................................................ 4
5.3. Data collection .................................................................................................. 4
5.4. Data analyis .................................................................................................... 5
6. Design of the study.................................................................................................. 6
PART B ....................................................................................................................... 7
DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 1 ..................................................................................................................7
LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................7
1.1. Theoretical background.......................................................................................7
1.1.1. Different approaches to teaching writing .....................................................7
1.1.1.1. Product approach ................................................................................... 7
1.1.1.2.Process approach ..................................................................................... 8
1.1.1.3. Genre approach........................................................................................10
1.1.1.3.1. The concept of “genre” ................................................................. 10
1.1.1.3.2. Application of the genre approach .................................................. 12
1.1.1.3.3. Merits of the genre approach ............................................................18

iv
 1.1.1.3.4. Comparison among the product, process and genre approaches.......20
1.1.2. Theory of recount writing ......................................................................... 25
1.1.2.1. Definition of recount ..........................................................................25
1.1.2.2. Generic concepts of recount.................................................................26
1.1.2.3. Grammatical features of recount ....................................................... 26
1.1.2.4. Types of recount...................................................................................26
1.1.3. Corrective feedback and writing assessment................................................27
1.1.3.1. Corrective feedback .........................................................................27
1.1.3.1.1. Feedback in the Product Approach.................................................. 27
1.1.3.1.2. Feedback in the process approach ................................................... 28
1.1.3.1.3. Feedback in the genre approach ...................................................... 28
1.1.3.2. Writing Assessment ............................................................................ 29
1.1.4. Writing performance and writing attitude....................................................31
1.2. Related studies....................................................................................................32
1.2.1. Effectiveness of genre-based approaches ....................................................32
1.2.2. Limitations of previous studies ............................................................. .... 36
CHAPTER TWO ...................................................................................................... 38
METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................... 38
2.1. Research design .............................................................................................. 38
2.2. Setting and participants .................................................................................. 39
2.3. Instruments ..................................................................................................... 41
2.3.1. Genre-based approach syllabus of recount genre........................................41
2.3.2. Written English performance pre-test and post-test ................................. 41
2.3.3. Analytical scoring rubric ........................................................................... 42
2.3.4. Pre-scale and post-scale attitude questionnaires ....................................... 45
2.4. Lesson procedure ............................................................................................ 46
2.4.1. Lesson procedure in the genre-based approach ..........................................46
2.4.1.1. Building up the field knowledge.............................................................46
2.4.1.2. Modelling the text...................................................................................47
2.4.1.3. Joint construction of a new text..............................................................48

v
 2.4.1.4. Independent construction of a new text..................................................48
2.4.2. Lesson procedure in the process approach .................................................46
2.4.1.1. Lesson 1..................................................................................................46
2.4.2.2. Lesson 2 .................................................................................................47
2.4.1.3. Lesson 3..................................................................................................47
2.4.2.4. Lesson 5 .................................................................................................47
2.4.1.5. Lesson 6..................................................................................................47
2.4.2.6. Lesson 7 .................................................................................................47
2.4.1.7. Lesson 7..................................................................................................47
2.4.2.8. Lesson 8 .................................................................................................48
2.5. Data collection ...................................................................................................51
2.6. Data analysis ................................................................................................... 52
2.6.1. Pre-test and post-test ................................................................................. 52
2.6.2. Pre-scale and post-scale attitude questionnaire ..........................................52
CHAPTER THREE.................................................................................................. 54
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ..................................................................................54
3.1. Equivalence of the control and experimental groups
before the experiment ........................................................................................... 54
3.2. Findings .............................................................................................................58
3.2.1. Research question 1 .....................................................................................58
3.2.1.1. Differences between experimental and control groups on the writing
performance ...................................................................................................... ..58
3.2.1.2. Differences in the experimental group on the writing performance pre-
and post-test............................................................................................................60
3.2.2. Research question 2............................................................................... ....63
3.3 Discussion ......................................................................................................65
3.3.1. Effectiveness of the genre-based approach in improving writing
performance.......................................................................................................65
3.3.2. Effectiveness of the genre-based approach
in promoting students’ attitudes........................................................................67

vi
PART C ...................................................................................................................... .69
CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 69
1. Recapitulation ....................................................................................................... 69
2. Implications of the study .........................................................................................70
3. Limitations of the study .........................................................................................71
4. Recommendations for further research ................................................................72
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................74
APPENDIXES ................................................................................................................I

vii
 ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

EFL English as a Foreign Language

USSH University of Social Sciences and Humanities

CEFR The Common European Framework of Reference for

Languages
ESOL English for Speakers of Other Languages

EFL English as a foreign language

& and

N number

α significance level (a term used in SPSS)

t t value (a term used in SPSS)

df degree of freedom (a term used in SPSS)

sig. significance (a term used in SPSS)

viii
 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure1: The model of process writing ................................................................................9

Figure 2: Genre processes…………………………………………………………………12
Figure 3: Teaching and learning cycle in genre approaches ...............................................13
Figure 4: Procedure for a genre-based lesson .....................................................................15
Figure 5: Comparison between the process and the genre approaches ...............................21
Table 1: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and experimental
groups in overall writing performance…………………………………………………….54
Table 2: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control
and experimental groups in Content……………………………………………………….55
Table 3: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and experimental
groups in Communicative Achievement ………………………………………………….55
Table 4: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and experimental
groups in Organisation…………………………………………………………………….56
Table 5: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and experimental
groups in Language ……………………………………………………………………….56
Table 6: T-test results of pre-scale attitude scores between the control and experimental
groups…………………………………………………………………………………….. 57
Table 7: The t-test results of the writing post-test for overall writing performance ……..58
Table 8: The t-test results of the writing post-test in components of writing erformance...59
Table 9: The t-test results of the writing pre-post-test in overall writing performance…..61
Table 10: T-test results of the writing pre-post-tests of the experimental group………….62
Table 11: The t-test results of the attitude post-scale comparing both control and
perimental groups …………………………………………………………………………63
Table 12: T-test results of the attitude pre-post-scale for the experimental group.......64

ix
 PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale for the study

There has been a well-established acknowledgement that writing is of
paramount importance in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). According to
Hoang Van Van (2010), writing helps learners to study better because while
writing, learners consolidate their grammatical knowledge and develop their use
of language, have opportunities to employ what they have studied, and pay
particular attention to express their ideas by frequently using their eyes, hands
and brains; as a result, the close relation between writing and cognitive
development makes writing an essential component of any English language
programs.
In assertion about the role of writing, there have been a range of dramatic
changes in writing pedagogy in the last two decades, leading to paradigm shifts
from product-based to process-based and then to genre-based approaches. This
calls for practitioners’ search for and implementation of a more coherent,
comprehensive approach to the teaching of writing.
However, writing is still perceived as the most difficult skill to practise
for both professional writers and language learners. For example, Raimes (1985)
observed the difficulties which her students experienced when performing a
writing assignment: they "chew their pencils, shuffle their feet, sigh, groan and
stretch." Therefore, a number of teachers of English believe that teaching writing
skill to EFL learners is more complex than teaching other communicative skills
(Mazdayasna & Tahririan, 2001) and EFL learners often feel stressful and
anxious when writing in a foreign language (Spratt & Leung, 2000).
In the case of Vietnam, writing classes in universities nowadays are still
predominantly language-based writing classes that focus on sentence writing for
sentence building tests, rather than focusing on creating compositions to serve
the purpose of plurality of real readers outside the classroom context. Also, the
negative attitude from both teachers and learners has been escalating, especially
in the situation of students’ low results of writing tests at University of Social

1
Sciences and Humanities (USSH) in 2012 and in 2013. In fact, there has been
insufficient time allocation for writing, accounting for only 12-14 class hours out
of 90 class hours in the syllabus. Under this time constraint, a majority of
teachers were observed to adopt the process approach to teaching writing, while
some of them chose the product approach, and the manipulation of the lexico-
grammatical information takes precedence over demonstration of writing skills.
On one hand, the process approach to writing neglects the “socio-cultural
context” of writing (Horowitz, 1986). On the other hand, the product approach
has been criticized for being pedagogically weak owing to the insufficient
attention it paid to the writing stages (Freedman, 1983). Moreover, it is argued
that when the student-writer manipulates the linguistic components of writing,
they do no more than “lock themselves into a semantic and rhetorical prison”
(Raimes, 1983). Thus, the effects of these writing instructions on students’
writing at USSH have not been remarkable.
Moreover, students at USSH have been studying writing skills based on
the coursebook “New English File, by Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-
Koenig, Oxford Univeristy Press, 2010 to be qualified for B1-level according to
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
However, the separated activities from the coursebook have been found
inadequate to foster the learners’ writing skill. Consequently, students
limitations on grammatical knowledge affect accuracy, and many of them show
hesitation on writing. These confronting problems urge the researcher to
investigate for a more practical instruction assisting and guiding students how to
write more effectively.
Meanwhile, the genre-based approach is confirmed to be effective in a
variety of studies by Henry and Roseberry (1998), Burns (2001), Hyland (2002),
Swale (2004), Kim and Kim (2005), Matsuo and Bevan (2006), Cheng (2007),
Chaisiri (2010), Lai and Tseng (2012), Elashri (2013), and Alidoost et al (2014)
. However, the body of research on the application of genre-based approach to
teaching writing in Vietnam in general is still limited with only few studies by
Luu Trong Tuan (2011) and Trinh Quoc Lap and Nguyen Thanh Truc (2014).

2
Studies that can be applicable to USSH situation are even harder to find. This
research “Effects of implementing a genre-based approach on non-English
majored students' writing performance at University of Social Sciences and
Humanities, Hanoi” was, therefore, conducted with the hope of examining the
impacts of adopting the genre-based approach on writing performance of
students at USSH.

2. Aims of the study

This study aims at providing empirical evidence of whether there is any
effectiveness of the genre-based approach in enhancing both the writing
performance and attitudes towards writing of students at USSH.

3. Research questions
This research is guided by two ensuing questions:
Research question 1:
What is the difference of using the genre-based approach in improving
non-English majored students’ writing performance at USSH?

Research question 2:
What is the difference of using the genre-based approach in promoting
students’ positive attitudes towards writing at USSH?

4. Scope of the study

Due to the time limit, the researcher only studied on a limited sample of
60 students at USSH. These students were in the second year at USSH and of
pre-intermediate English levels.
Furthermore, it was impossible to cover all genres in this writing course;
hence, the researcher only chose recount genre to carry out the genre instruction
in the experimental group.

3
5. Methods of the study
5.1 Research method
The study was designed as a quasi-experimental research through the use
of the control group and the experimental group. The independent variable was
genre-based instruction, and the dependent variable was students’ writing
achievement.

The measurements included a pre-test and a post-test in writing; a pre-

scale attitude questionnaire and a post-scale attitude questionnaire.

5.2 Research instruments

The following instruments were used for the study:
- A recount genre-based writing syllabus covering recount genre.
- Written English performance pre-test and post-test.
- An analytical scoring rubric covering four parameters: Content,
Communicative Achievement, Organisation and Language to assess students’
writing performance. The score range in each parameter was 1 up to 5, which
means the minimal score was 4 and the maximum score was 20.
- Pre-scale and post-scale attitude questionnaires before and after the treatment
to investigate any changes in students’ perceptions of writing.

5.3 Data collection

The data are collected mainly from two tests, the pre-test and post-test of
students’ writing performance and two scales, the pre-scale and post-scale
attitude questionnaires. Before the treatment of the genre-based writing
instruction to the experimental group and the process-based writing instruction
to control group, the pre-test was given to all participants.

The participants for this study were 60 students (58 females and 2 males)
who were randomly selected from over 100 volunteers to participate in the

4
experiment. However, in order to be qualified to take part in the course, they had
had to pass A2-level (CEFR) exams at USSH.
Participants took the pre-test to have scores of their writings. In the pre-
test, the participants wrote one simple writing in the form of a story based on
their prior knowledge. At the same time, they were given pre-attitude
questionnaires to scale their perceptions upon writing ability.

After that, they were randomly assigned into two classes; one of the class
(30 students) was randomly selected as the control group and the other class (30
students) as the experimental group.

Next, the experimental group were taught by using the genre-based

approach for ten meetings; meanwhile, the control group were taught in the
process-based approach. After the treatment, the post-test, with the same writing
question as that of the pre-test, was given to two groups, but the researcher asked
them to create new writing products using the knowledge they had learnt after
the course. Finally, the post-attitude questionnaires were delivered again to both
two groups to collect their perceptions of learning writing after the treatment.

5.4 Data analyis

In analyzing data, descriptive statistics test was used to calculate the
participants’ writing performance in the pre-test and the post-test of the two
groups. Then, the researcher applied the T-Test formula to compare the results of
the mean differences in the writing performance of participants in two groups
and in their attitudes about writing.

5
6. Design of the study
The study is composed of three parts.
Part A: Introduction
This part presents an overview of the study including rationale, aims,
research questions and hypothesis, scope of the study as well as the
methodology for the research.

Part B: Development
This is the main part which consists of three chapters:

Chapter one: Literature Review

This chapter provides the theoretical background for the research
as well as reviews related studies in the literature. This helps to establish a
framework of investigation in this study.

Chapter two: Methodology

This chapter presents the research method employed in the study in
detail with a hope of reasoning its relevance to the study and the
procedure of selecting the sample, conducting the experiment, and
collecting and analyzing data.

Chapter three: Results and Discussion

This chapter deals with the findings of the study in accordance
with two guiding research questions and four hypotheses. From the
results, the researcher discusses some consistency and inconsistency with
previous studies. It also puts forward some suggestions for the teaching of
English writing at university level.

Part C: Conclusion
The final part presents a recapitulation of the study, implication of the
study, limitations of the study, and recommendations for further research.

6
 PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Theoretical background

1.1.1. Different approaches to teaching writing
1.1.1.1. Product approach
During the audiolingualism era, the role of writing was downplayed as
only a supporting skill; hence, writing classes only focused on sentence
structures as a support for the grammar class. As stated by Silva (1990), the
product approach was used in order to highlight form and syntax and the
emphasis was on rhetorical drills.

Explicitly, Badger and White (2000:154) viewed writing as “mainly

concerned with the knowledge about the structure of language, and writing
development is mainly the result of the imitation of input, in the form of texts
provided by the teacher”. Generally the focus of such writing is on the written
product rather than on how the learner addresses the process of writing. This
approach, therefore, is teacher-centred, as the teacher becomes the arbiter of the
models used.

In this approach, learning to write has four stages: familiarization;

controlled writing; guided writing; and free writing. First, the
familiarization stage aims to make learners aware of certain features of a
particular text. Next, in the controlled and guided writing sections, the
learners practise the skills with increasing freedom until they are ready for
the free writing section.

Proponents of this product approach argue that it enhances students’

writing proficiency since it recognizes the need for learners to be given linguistic
knowledge about texts, and it understands that imitation is one way in which

7
people learn. Myles (2002) insisted, “If students are not exposed to native-like
models of written texts, their errors in writing are more likely to persist.”

Nonetheless, this approach is criticised for many weaknesses. According

to Prodromou (1995), the product approach devalues “the learners’ potential,
both linguistic and personal.” In this approach, the process skill such as planning
a text is given a relatively small role, and the knowledge and skills that learners
bring to the classroom are undervalued.

In short, product-based approaches see writing as mainly concerned with

knowledge about the structure of language, and writing development as mainly
the result of the imitation of input, in the form of texts provided by the teacher.
The weaknesses of this approach led to the re-assessment of writing nature and
the pedagogy in which it is taught, the shift to writing as process.

1.1.1.2. Process approach

To compensate for the product approach, process approach views writing
as predominantly doing with linguistic skills, such as planning and drafting, and
there is much less emphasis on linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge about
grammar and text structure. Tribble (1996) suggests that process approaches
stress writing activities which move learners from the generation of ideas and the
collection of data through to the publication of a finished text.

There are different views on the stages of producing a piece of writing,

but a typical model identifies a recursive procedure of four steps: prewriting;
composing/drafting; revising; and editing (Tribble, 1996). The following is a
diagram taken from Tribble (1996), illustrating the recursive and unpredictable
process of writing.

8
 Figure 1: The model of process writing
(Source: Tribble, 1996)

According to the process approach, in pre-writing, teachers would

introduce techniques that help students discover and engage a topic. Instead of
turning in a finished product right away, students are asked for multiple drafts of
a work. After discussion and feedback from readers, the students would revise
the drafts. Rewriting and revision are indispensable to writing, and editing is an
ongoing multilevel process. In this model, the primary elements are the writer,
the content and the purpose, and multiple drafts.

In process approaches, the teacher is primarily a facilitator in the learners’

writing, and providing input or stimulus is considered to be less important.

The main advantages of the process approach are it understands the

importance of the skills involved in writing, and recognizes that what learners
bring to the writing classroom contributes to the development of writing ability.

However, the process approach also has come under serious scrutiny
because it has a somewhat monolithic view of writing (Badger and White, 2000).
Regardless of the target audience and the content of the text, all writings are
produced by the same set of processes. In addition, it gives insufficient
importance to the kind of texts writers produce and why such texts are

9
produced; and that it offers learners insufficient input, particularly in terms
of linguistic knowledge, to write successfully.

Moreover, the process approach seems to narrowly focus on the skills and
processes of writing in the classroom itself; consequently, it fails to take into
account the social and cultural aspects that have an impact on different kinds of
writing (Atkinson, 2003).

1.1.1.3. Genre approach

1.1.1.3.1. The concept of “genre”
From the perspective of systemic-functional linguistics, people do not
merely write so as to express their own unique ideas born of nowhere. As social
members of a community, they create texts which conform to social norms
depending on a number of contextual factors such as targeted audience, writing
purpose, and discourse environment. It is these rules that determine appropriate
language and text organization in each occurrence. In this regard, the notion
of genre has become central to teaching and learning EFL writing.

Swales (1990:58) perceived a genre as “a class of communicative events,

the members of which share some set of communicative purposes”. This
definition offers the fundamental concept that there are certain conventions
which are generally involved with a writer’s communicative purpose. For
example, a personal letter tells about the writers’ private anecdotes, and a
personal letter starts with a cordial question in a friendly mood because its
purpose is to maintain good relationships with friends.

According to Hyland (2007:4), “genre is a term for grouping texts

together, representing how writers typically use language to respond to recurring
situations.” In line with this definition, Nunan (1999:308) also stated:

“Genre is a purposeful, socially constructed oral or written

communicative event, such as narrative, a casual conversation, a

10
 poem, a recipe, or a description. Different genres are characterized by
a particular structure or stages, and grammatical forms that reflect the
communicative purpose of the genre in question.”

The communicative purposes of the text determine the linguistic inputs of

the text, often in form of structural features as mentioned above. The structural
features that genres are constituted of comprise both standards of organization
structure and linguistic features. Standards of organizational structure refer to
how the text is sequenced. As regards linguistic features, their common sets can
make up a text type, a class of texts having similarities in linguistic forms
irrespective of the genre. Each text type, such as news report, letter, email,
interview, promotional leaflet, newspaper article, encodes the purposes and
meanings of the social institutions of a cultural milieu. Text types are
characterized by a relatively stable structural order (beginnings, middles and
ends), a consistent way of organizing information (in paragraphs, in bullet
points, sections), and lexicogrammatical features and structures that materially
articulate the social purpose of each text.

The language features of a text give shape to and are shaped by its course
of linguistic input. They are usefully organized into five basic generic processes
by Knapp and Watkins (2005) (see Figure 2). Each one of these processes
demands the use of different text organization and different lexicogrammar.

However, Gibbons (2002:53) simply refers to ‘genre’ as different forms

of writing and the term ‘genre’ encompasses a broad range of texts, from
transactional writing to narrative, descriptive, expository, procedural and
argumentative. Each genre has characteristics that distinguish it from other
genres. It has a specific purpose, overall structure and linguistic features that are
recognised by members of a specific culture.

11
 GENRES
SOCIAL PROCESSES THAT:

DESCRIBE EXPLAIN INSTRUCT ARGUE NARRATE

through the through the through thethrough the through the
process of process of process of process of process of
ordering things sequencing logically
expanding a sequencing
into phenomena in sequencing
proposition to people and
commonsense temporal and/or actions or persuade events in time
or technical causal behaviours. readers to and space.
frameworks of relationships. accept a point of
meaning. view
COMMONLY USED IN

Personal Explanations of Procedures Essays Personal

descriptions how Instructions Expositions recounts
Commonsense Explanations of Manuals Discussions Historical
descriptions why recounts
Recipes Debates
Technical Elaborations Stories
descriptions Directions Interpretations
Illustrations Fairy tales
Information Evaluations
Accounts Myths
reports
Explanation Fables
Scientific Essays
reports Narratives
Definitions
Figure 2: Genre processes
(Source: Knapp and Watkins, 2005:27)

Confronted with a variety of conception about “genre” above, the

researcher, in this study, opts to adopt the notions of “genre” by Hyland (2007:4)
and Nunan (1999:308) as presented above because their concepts reflect the
comprehensible theory to apply genre approaches to teaching and learning
writing in the research situation.

1.1.1.3.2. Application of the genre approach

The introduction of genre pedagogies is a response to the still widespread
emphasis on a planning-writing-reviewing framework which focuses learners on
strategies for writing rather than on the linguistic resources they need to express
themselves effectively.

12
 Martin (1992) defines the teaching of genres as a goal-orientated process
that is conducted through stages which are each characterised by purposeful
activities that ultimately allow learners to become engaging members of the
target discourse community.

Teaching and learning cycle in genre approaches

Hyland (2003:22) shows the teaching-learning cycle model in the genre
approach (see Figure 3). It includes three stages: modelling, joint construction
and independent construction of a text:

Figure 3: Teaching and learning cycle in genre approaches

(Source: Hyland, 2003:22)

Each of these stages seeks to achieve a different purpose, and as a result,

is associated with different types of classroom activities and different teacher-
learner roles (Hyland, 2004).

The cycle is one way of understanding the Five E’s concept long familiar
in science teaching, helping learners to engage, explore, explain, extend, and
evaluate (Trowbridge & Bybee, 1990). The cycle is intended to be used flexibly,

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allowing students to enter at any stage depending on their existing knowledge of
the genre and to enable teachers to return to earlier stages of the cycle for
revision purposes.

The key purpose of the cycle is to ensure repeated opportunities for

students to engage in activities which require them to reflect on and critique their
learning by developing understandings of texts, acting on these through writing
or speaking, reviewing their performance, and using feedback to improve their
work. The model, therefore, allows vocabulary to be recycled and the literacy
skills gained in previous cycles to be further developed by working through a
new cycle at a more advanced level of expression of the genre.

Later, Widodo (2006) proposed a procedure for the genre-based lesson

including two main teaching-learning cycles in standard genre-based writing
teaching: writing with the class and writing independently. Each of these cycles
has associated activities.
Writing with the class involves:
(1) building knowledge of the field,
(2) exploring the genre,
(3) joint text construction,

Writing independently includes:

(1) building knowledge of a similar field,
(2) drafting, revising, and conferencing,
(3) editing and publishing.

Each stage has different purposes in terms of the writing process. Such a
genre-based writing cycle can be illustrated in Figure 4 below:

14
 Figure 4: Procedure for a genre-based lesson
(Source: Widodo, 2006)

Writing-with-the-class stage
The writing-with-the-class stage has four main purposes:

1) activating students’ schema about a topic they are going to write on;
2) encouraging students to organize their ideas about the topic;
3) providing input about the nature of a composition that the students
need to write;
4) providing scaffolding to the students about the way to write a particular
composition (for example, an essay).

Building knowledge of field (genre)

The first purpose of the writing-with-the-class phase is implemented in a
stage of building knowledge of field. Activating students’ schema is essential for
students to know something about the topic so that they are able to develop it
easily into a complete essay. Activating the schema engages student writers in a
brainstorming activity that encourage them to think of what they already know
about the topic they are going to write on. To do this, a teacher might ask leading
questions or provide students with some information in the form of brochures,
newspapers or web-pages to read in order to help them get more information
about what they already know or even what they do not know yet.

15
 Importantly, schema activation encourages students to arrive at
determining a purpose, organization and readership (Paltridge, 2001). To
reinforce students’ schema activation, the teacher is required to get them to share
what they already know so that idea-sharing among them encourages their active
participation in the writing class.

Thus, the stage of building knowledge of genre is fundamentally intended

to activate the students’ schema about the topic that they will write on.

Exploring the genre

Exploring the genre elates to two main constructs: text types and text
forms (Derewianka, 1993 and Lin, 2003). The former refers to the purpose of the
writer, while the latter deals with the medium or the physical format that text
types are found in. Generally, text types may be grouped into:

- narratives: to tell stories to entertain readers;

- recounts: to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events in original
sequences or to tell what happened both personally and factually;
- instructions/procedures: to show how processes or events are achieved
or how something is done;
- explanations: to tell how or why something work;
- information reports: to present factual information about a class of
things and their characteristics; and
- arguments/expositions: to provide reasons for a state of affairs or a
judgment.

In the classroom, the teacher provides a sample text or displays it on the

screen. This activity aims at exploiting the text. To help students investigate the
text, the teacher provides a certain graphic organizer (for example, mind
mapping or outlining). Then the teacher asks such leading questions as:

- What text-type is used?

- What is the purpose of the text?
- Who is the reader of the text?

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 - How do you find such text?

The teacher further leads students to investigate the generic structures of

the text. This activity is indispensable for providing students with input about the
organization of a text that they are going to write. Afterwards, the teacher gets
students to look over grammatical features (tenses, modals, passive or active
voices, or types of clauses) employed in the text. Lastly, the teacher has the
students conduct peer- and teacher-student conferences about the investigation’s
findings in respect of the generic structures and grammatical features found in
the text. To sum up, at the stage of exploring genre, a teacher provides students
with input about the purpose, organization and audience of the text.

Exploring the genre cooperatively along with student-student and teacher-

student conferences: Exploring the genre cooperatively encourages students to
share ideas about what they already know of the features of a text such as text-
type, author’s purpose/tone, text readership, text-form, text organization and
grammatical items (for example, transitional signals which are commonly used
in a certain text-type – information reports with a certain organizational pattern –
comparison and contrast).
Joint text construction
In a stage of joint text construction, the teacher serves as a co-writer with
students. The teacher shows the students the way to write a text using a certain
text-type, like information reports, along with a particular organizational pattern.
The teacher reinforces the use of generic structures and grammatical features in
the meantime.

Independent writing stage

Building knowledge of a similar field
This stage is basically similar to that of building of genre at the writing-
with-the-class phase. In this case, students form the group, and brainstorm and
outline ideas.

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 Outline conferencing
Once each group has outlined their ideas for the essay assigned, students
have to present their outlines to the class. Basically, this activity is intended to
encourage students to share and review ideas with one another and to provide an
opportunity to rework their outlines before the outlines are developed into an
essay.
After this process is completed, the teacher can comment on each group’s
outline and help the students see how they can further develop their ideas into a
completed essay.

Drafting: Once students have reworked their outlines, they are required to
develop their own ideas into a complete essay consisting of an introductory
paragraph, body paragraph(s), and a concluding paragraph using a certain text-
type along with a particular development of an essay.

In this study, the researcher adopts the model by Widodo (2006) to apply
suitable stages and activities in teaching writing in light of genre-based
approaches.

1.1.1.3.3. Merits of the genre approach

The genre approach has several merits to teaching writing. First, students
generally appreciate the models or examples showing specifically what they
have to do linguistically. Thus, studying a given genre provides them with an
understanding of why a communication style is the way it is through a reflection
of its social context and its purpose. In this context, the genre approach is very
beneficial because it brings together formal and functional properties of a
language in writing instruction, and it acknowledges that there are strong
associations between them.

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 Genre pedagogies promise very real benefits for learners as they pull
together language, content, and contexts, while offering teachers a means of
presenting students with explicit and systematic explanations of the ways writing
works to communicate. Based on Hyland (2004), the main advantages of the
genre pedagogy are summarised below:

- explicit: makes clear what is to be learned to facilitate the acquisition of

writing skills
- systematic: provides a coherent framework for focusing on both
language and contexts
- needs-based: ensures that course objectives and content are derived
from students’ needs
- supportive: gives teacher a central role in scaffolding student learning
and creativity
- empowering: provides access to the patterns and possibilities of
variation in valued texts
- critical: provides the resources for students to understand and challenge
valued discourses
- consciousness raising: increases teacher awareness of texts and
confidently advise students on their writing

Perhaps the most important feature is that the genre-based writing

instruction offers students an explicit understanding of how target texts are
structured and why they are written in the ways they are. This explicitness gives
teachers and learners something to shoot for making writing outcomes clear
rather than relying on hit or miss inductive methods whereby learners are
expected to acquire the genres they need from repeated writing experiences or
the teacher’s notes in the margins of their essays (Hyland, 2003).

As Bhatia (1993, cited in Kim & Kim, 2005) recommended, it is

meaningful for writing instructors to tie the formal and functional properties of a
language together in order to facilitate students’ recognition of how and why
linguistic conventions are employed for particular rhetorical effects (p. 6). If the
rhetorical structure of content is analyzed by students in the genre approach,
some common patterns can be identified in each genre. Naturally, these patterns

19
will form a kind of background knowledge students can activate in the next
learning situation. Eventually, the prior knowledge will make it easier for
students to produce acceptable structures in their writing tasks. Therefore, an
assigned genre seems to serve as an influential tool for both the learning and
teaching of writing. Furthermore, the genre approach encourages students to
participate in the world around them, to comprehend writing as a tool that they
can utilize, and to realize how writers manage content to promote logical
organization. It also allows students to become more flexible in their thinking, to
realize how authors organize their writings, and to produce written work with
confidence.

Although this approach is criticised to undervalue the skills needed to

produce a text and neglect learners’ self-sufficiency (Byram, 2004), some
proponents have indicated that the genre approach is suitable for learners at
beginning or intermediate levels of proficiency in a second language rather than
those at advanced levels, in that it releases students from deep anxieties about
their writing tasks. When people learn something new, they commonly want to
find some cases that they can refer to or consider as samples. There is no doubt
that writing tasks can be more demanding than other language skills, so students
at low level of proficiency absolutely need something that they can rely on since
they have little exposure to English writing (Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998).

1.1.1.3.4. Comparison among the product, process and genre approaches

As noted by Badger and White (2000), there are similarities between the
product approach and the genre approach, which, in some ways, can be
considered an extension of the product approach. Like the product approach, the
genre approach views writing as predominantly linguistic. The genre approach,
however, places greater emphasis on the social context in which writing is
produced. At the heart of the approach, therefore, is the view that writing
pedagogies should “offer students explicit and systematic explanations of the
ways language functions in social contexts” (Hyland, 2003). In short, like the

20
product approach, the genre approach regards writing as pre-dominantly
linguistic but, unlike product approaches, they emphasize that writing varies
with the social context in which it is produced.

Regarding the similarities and differences between the process and genre
approach, Hyland (2003) proposes a table that illustrates the differences and
commonalities between the process approach and genre approach as follows:
(See Figure 5)

Attribute Process Genre

Main idea Writing is a thought process Writing is a social acitivity

Concerned with the writing Concerned with the final product
process

Teaching focus Emphasis is on learner’s Emphasis is on audience’s

individual expressions expectations and the end product

Advantages Explicitly teaches writing Focuses on teaching textual

processes conventions of writing
Contextualises writing for the
audience to meet a specific
purpose

Disadvantages Does not differentiate Can ignore the step-by-step

between specific writing processes of writing production
processes of various genres as focus is on end product.

Figure 5: Comparison between the process and the genre approaches

(Source: Hyland, 2003:24)

This comparison sets the basic framework for this study to carry out
procedures and activities in two different approaches to teaching writing
Differences between the process and genre approaches in a lesson procedure
Process-based writing lesson
Stage 1: Generating ideas
Teacher gives students the recount title: My favorite summer vacation and pieces
of scrap paper.

21
Students have 3 minutes to work alone, writing one idea on each piece of paper,
before comparing in groups. Each group can then present their three best ideas to
the class. It doesn't matter if the ideas aren't used in the final piece of writing, the
important thing is to break through the barrier of ' I can't think of anything to
write.'
Stage 2: Focusing ideas
This stage involves thinking about which of the many ideas generated are the
most important or relevant, and perhaps taking a particular point of view.
Students in groups put the ideas generated in the previous stage onto a 'mind
map'.
The teacher then draws a mind-map on the board, using ideas from the different
groups. At this stage he / she can also feed in some useful collocations - this
gives the learners the tools to better express their own ideas.
Learners then compare together what they have written, and use a dictionary, the
teacher or each other to find in English any words or phrases they wrote in their
first language.
Stage 3: Organising ideas
Teacher present a sample of recount writing and helps students understand how
the recount is developed. Once learners have seen how the ideas are organised in
this typical example, they can go about organising their own ideas in a similar
way.
Students in groups draft a plan of their work.

Stage 4: Drafting
Students write the first draft. This is done in class and frequently in pairs or
groups.

Stage 5: Revising and Editing

Drafts are exchanged, so that students become the readers of each other's work.
By responding as readers, students develop an awareness of the fact that a writer
is producing something to be read by someone else, and thus can improve their

22
own drafts. Drafts are returned and improvements are made based upon peer
feedback. The teacher can also respond at this stage by commenting on the
content and the organisation of ideas, without yet giving a grade or correcting
details of grammar and spelling.

Stage 6: Re-writing
Students write their final version. Students once again exchange and read each
other's work and perhaps even write a response or reply.

Genre-based writing lesson

Stage 1: Building knowledge of field - Introduction to the text
Teacher displays the sample recount of Our Trip to the Blue Mountain
(Appendix 4). Teacher tells the students that the text is a recount. This recount
tells us what happened on the trip of a girl and her mother to the Blue Mountain.
Teacher asks questions about when and where the events took place. Then
teacher talks about the purpose of a recount. Teacher asks them to recall the
events in the sequence in which they happened.
Stage 2: Exploring the genre - Text Deconstruction
Teacher tells the students that together they are going to look at each part of the
text. Explain that this will help them when they write their own recounts.
Teacher explicitly teaches students the structure of a recount: title, orientation,
sequence of events, reorientation or personal comment.
Copy the text onto four cards – title, orientation, sequence of events and personal
comment. Reinforce the students’ learning by asking them to order the cards as
they share their understanding of the structure of a recount.
Teacher directs students’ attention to the language features – nouns and
pronouns, past tense verbs, time and sequence words
Stage 3: Joint text construction
Teacher asks students to write a recount about their favorite summer vacation.
Teacher introduces and explains one Recount Graphic Organiser. Teacher
solicits student input and models writing information from the combined class

23
experience on the graphic organiser. Teacher models the writing of this
experience as a recount on a whiteboard.
Teacher reads the completed text with the students, encouraging their feedback.
Teacher draws students’ attention to the text structure of a recount and revisits
the language features that have been identified in previous stages.
Teacher, then, invites one of the students to recall the events that he/she
experienced in his favorite trip.
Teacher records the events as a recount on a whiteboard.
After that, teacher asks questions that reinforce their understanding of the text
structure and language features of a recount. As the writing proceeds, teacher
involves the students when refining their sentence structures.
Teacher reads the completed text with the students and evaluates the writing by
revisiting the text structure and language features of a recount.
Stage 4: Independent Writing- Building knowledge of a similar field
Teacher has students choose a topic for their own personal recount. Students
form the group, and brainstorm and outline ideas.
Teacher gives students the graphic organiser and asks them to fill in information
about events and details on their organiser.
Teacher invites students to share their topics. Students discuss events that they
could write about and people whom they could write to.
Stage 5: Drafting - Revising – Editing
Students are provided opportunities to write their recounts independently.
Teacher invites students to share their process for completing their first draft.
Then teacher asks them to tell how they used their graphic organiser as they
wrote, how they decided which ideas or details to include in their writing, and
whether they read and then rewrote as they were writing.
Teacher reviews what to check for writing with students and uses the revision
checklist to model how to revise the draft of the class personal recount.
Teacher invites students to share their writing of recount texts and does model
constructive feedback.
Teacher also introduces and explains the guide for editing students’ writing.

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Teacher reads the class personal recount aloud to students. While reading,
teacher uses the editing guide to model how to check for mistakes or errors.
After that, students use the editing guide to self-edit their personal recount draft.
After all, students are encouraged to write the final draft based on their revising
and editing work.
Stage 6: Sharing and Publishing
Teacher establishes an area in the room where students’ recounts can be
displayed.
Teacher has students copy their revised and edited papers into a presentation
format. Teacher encourages students to present their stories in such formats as a
paper, a podcast or a multimedia story.

To summarize: the genre-based approach sees writing as essentially

concerned with knowledge of language, and as being tied closely to a social
purpose, while the development of writing is largely viewed as the analysis and
imitation of input in the form of texts provided by the teacher. Apparently,
compared to the other writing approaches, the genre approach shows significant
benefits to EFL learners, especially those who are of low English levels and
struggle to write in English. The important advantages of the genre approach
lead the researcher to examine possible effects of this approach to teaching
writing in the researcher’s context where both the product and process
approaches were observed not to be effective enough to foster students’ writing
performance.

1.1.2. Theory of recount writing

1.1.2.1. Definition of recount
According to Hyland (2004:135), recount is a kind of genre that has social
function to retell event for the purpose of informing or entertaining.

In line with Hyland’s definition, Anderson (cited in Hidayah 2007:27)

also states, “Recount is a piece of text that retells past events, which are usually

25
told in order in which they happened”. Sharing with Anderson’s idea,
Derewianka (1990:14) states:

“In a recount we reconstruct past experience. A recount is the unfolding

of a sequence of events over time. We are using language to keep the
past alive and help us to interpret experience”.

The tense that used in recount texts is past tense. Social purpose of
recount is to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events in original
sequence. The samples of recount can be in personal letters, police report,
insurance claims, and incident reports.

1.1.2.2. Generic concepts of recount

Mukarto et al. (2007) states that the rhetorical features of a recount text
consist of three parts:
- Orientation: it gives reader background information of the story. As the
opening paragraph, it should answer the questions: who, what, where,
when, and how
- Record of series of events: it tells a series of events in a chronological
order and describes what happened
- Reorientation: it consists of a type of conclusion with a comment or a
summary and evaluation about the topic of the story.

1.1.2.3. Grammatical features of recount

As stated by Hyland (2004:135), the common grammatical features of
recount text are:
- Use of nouns and pronouns to identify people, animals, and things
involved
- Use of actions verbs to refer to events
- Use of past tense to locate events in relation to speaker’s or writer’s time
- Use of conjunctions and time connectives to sequence of events
- Use of adverb and adverbial phrase to indicate place and time
- Use of adjective to describe nouns

26
 1.1.2.4. Types of recount
There are three types of recount:
- Personal recount: retelling of an activity that the writer or speaker has
been personally involved in oral anecdote and diary entry.
- Factual recount: recording the particulars of an accident such as report
of a science experiment, police report, news report, and historical
account.
- Imaginative recount: taking on an imaginary role and giving details of
events such as a day in the life of a roman slave or how I invented
Example of recount:
Our Trip to the Blue Mountain
Orientation: On Friday we went to the Blue Mountains.
We stayed at David and Della’s house. It has a
big garden with lots of colorful flowers and a
tennis court.
Event 1: On Saturday we saw the Three Sisters and
went on the scenic railway. It was scary.
Then, Mummy and I went shopping with
Della. We went to some antique shops and I
tried on some old hats.
Event 2: On Sunday we went on the Scenic Skyway
and it rocked. We saw cockatoos having a
shower.
Reorientation: In the afternoon we went home.

1.1.3. Corrective feedback and writing assessment

1.1.3.1 Corrective feedback
1.1.3.1.1. Feedback in the Product Approach
In the product approach, the emphasis of feedback on students’ writing is
on structure and lexis, and is known as corrective feedback. Feedback can take

27
the form of written or oral comments. Ellis (1994) explains that the focus on
form is done by providing corrective feedback.

The grammar correction method pays attention to students’ structural

errors by either directly providing the correct form of a structure on students’
scripts or indirectly guiding students by underlining or circling the incorrect
forms and leaving it to students to look them up. Another method is using codes
such as ‘WO’ to indicate a word order error, ‘WW’ to indicate a wrong word
error or ‘T’ to indicate a tense error.

1.1.3.1.2. Feedback in the process approach

The focus of the process approach is to develop the students' planning,
writing, and reviewing. This is done through a number of feedback tools such as
one-to-one conferencing, peer feedback, audiotaped feedback and reformulation
(Hyland, 2003).

Revision is an essential element in the process approach (Wallace and

Hayes, 1991) because it helps students make changes to their writing. One of the
main revision methods followed is peer feedback. Students evaluate their peers'
writing and offer comments and suggestions. Paulus (1999) argues that peer
feedback (also referred to as peer revision) encourages students to revise and
improve their writing. Hyland (2003) claims feedback enhances students’ critical
thinking and evaluation. However, there are situations where students do not
trust their peers' feedback such as the situation at USSH where the level of their
English is low and they prefer the teacher’s feedback.
Teacher-student conference is another feedback method through which
the teacher meets with the students face-to-face individually or in groups to
discuss their writing problems and clarify issues related to their performance.
However, this method consumes time and might require the teacher to cancel
classes and schedule appointments with students.

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 1.1.3.1.3. Feedback in the genre approach
Feedback in the genre approach may not be so different from other
approaches, except in drawing students' attention to genre conventions. Since
genre knowledge and conventions associated with community are emphasized,
feedback is provided to make students aware of these two elements when they
write. Thus, teacher feedback focuses on all aspects of writing, from structure
and organization to content and presentation. However, it is not necessary to
tackle all these aspects in each draft. Group discussions can be used to give
broader attention to most of these aspects and this may benefit all students
because their writing involves the same terminology and text features (Hyland,
2004).
Genre-based feedback not only assigns a grade to students' writing, but
also justifies it and explains what needs to be done for improvement (Hyland,
2004).
One example of genre-based feedback is given by Feez (2002:131) where
a specifically designed checklist is used to provide feedback on students' writing.
The checklist includes a set of criteria to evaluate the fulfillment of different
aspects of the writing task. For example, it examines whether a number of
elements were accomplished in the writing, such as the purpose and staging, the
text unity (lexical sets, conjunction, reference), the clause grammar (noun
groups, verb groups, prepositional phrases, and so on) and other aspects.

1.1.3.2. Writing Assessment

Assessment is an integral aspect of the teaching-learning process and
central to students’ progress towards increasing control of learners’ writing.
Genre-based approaches bring several advantages to the assessment of writing,
and, in particular, they take more seriously than many other approaches the
following basic principles (Hyland, 2004, p. 163-166):

- Explicit: They provide explicit criteria for assessment and feedback.

- Integrative: They integrate teaching and assessment.
- Relevant: They are directly related to learners’ writing goals.

29
 - Competency: They specify student competencies and genre features.
- Preparedness: They ensure assessment occurs when students are best
prepared for it.

Current theories of language assessment emphasise the importance of

assessing student writing against clear and agreed upon performance criteria.
This assessment of writing performance employs scoring rubrics that commonly
include three main types: analytical rubrics, holistic rubrics, and primary trait
rubrics (Cumming, 1997).
Analytical scoring includes individual traits of written expression. An
analytical scoring rubric typically includes several writing components, such as
accuracy, cohesion, content, organization, register, and appropriateness of
language conventions (Weigle, 2002), with each component being scored
separately. Analytical scoring allows the raters to focus on various aspects of a
learner’s writing and score some traits higher than others. So this assessment
focuses attention on separate important traits of effective writing in that genre.
The student receives a separate score for each trait, which combine to create a
final score. For example, the list may include five traits, each worth 20% of the
final grade. Traits may include but are not limited to items such as ideas, voice,
elaboration, organization and language conventions. Today, the use of analytic
rubrics to score writing become prominent, as is evidenced by their use in the
International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The procedure utilises
the analytic approach based on the primary traits of the particular genre,
ensuring that key features of the texts are clearly specified, taught, and used to
describe a standard of performance.

Holistic scoring takes the entire written response into account to assign an
overall score for the performance. Instead of scoring writing components
individually, these components are integrated into one impressionistic score.
Holistic scoring generally places an emphasis on what is done well and not on
what is lacking or deficient (White, 1985). For several well-known language
tests, such as the Cambridge ESOL Exam and the Internet-based Test of English

30
as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT), holistic rubrics are used to score
examinees’ written responses.

The least common scoring type, primary-trait scoring, involves a decision

about a single aspect that is central to the success of a writing task. For this type
of scoring, the scoring rubric is developed in regards to a single feature of
writing that is determined to be essential to a particular writing task. For
example, a specific writing task might ask students to express their feelings from
a particular point of view. The primary trait being scored for this task could
include use of dialogue, point of view, or tense aspect, as these traits are
considered necessary for successful completion of this particular writing task
(Freedman, 1991). It is uncommon to see primary-trait scoring being used in
most testing situations. As Shaw and Weir (2007:149) indicate, due to “the lack
of generalizability and the requirement to produce detailed rating protocols for
each task, the primary trait approach is regarded as time-consuming and
expensive to implement”. As a result, primary-trait scoring is not commonly
used to assess writing performance of learners in practical context when
adopting genre approaches.

With the dominantly strong points of analytical scoring in comparison

with the other two scorings, the researcher employs the analytical assessment
tool in this study.

1.1.4. Writing performance and writing attitude

1.1.4.1. Writing performance
Students’ writing requires proficiency in the use of the language knowing writing
strategies, techniques and skills. According to Hedge (1998), effective writing
performance requires a number of things including “a high degree of development in
the organization of ideas, a high degree of accuracy so there is no ambiguity of
meaning, the use of complex grammatical devices for emphasis, and careful choice of
vocabulary, grammatical patterns, and sentence structures to create a style which is
appropriate to the subject matter and the eventual readers” (p. 5). Adequate vocabulary

31
and motivation besides the time allocated to the classroom writing activities are among
the other factors contributing to the English writing skill.
Writing achievement can be defined as expressing one’s ideas in written form in a
second or foreign language, and doing so with reasonable accuracy and coherence
(Celce-Mercia, 1991)

1.1.4.2. Writing Attitude

The relationship between attitude and writing achievement has received rather
little attention in TEFL literature (Graham & Fan, 2007). Writing attitude is
defined by Graham et al (2007) as "an affective disposition involving how the
act of writing makes the author feel, ranging from happy to unhappy." (p.518)
In other words, the more positive attitude students have towards writing, the
more energy they spend on the task.

1.2. Related studies

1.2.1. Effectiveness of genre-based approaches
There has been an increasing body of research that verifies the
effectiveness of genre-based approach to EFL writing and indicates learners’
positive attitudes to this adoption.
One of the first researchers conducted experiments about impacts of genre
approach to teaching and learning writing in EFL context is Henry and
Roseberry (1998). They did an experimental study using tourist information
texts in English classes. Participants were divided into two groups: the
experimental group receiving the genre-based instruction while the control group
not receiving the genre approach for the same writing tasks. The data revealed
that the experimental group produced more highly-structured writing in tourism
brochures than the control group, and that knowledge of the typical structure of
the content facilitated learners to arrange their ideas in achieving their
communicative goals and producing more well-organized writing. This research
suggested that the genre-based instructions enhanced learners’ understanding of
both the rhetorical structure and the linguistic features.

32
 Similarly, Burns (2001) supported the effectiveness of genre approach
after applying series of genre-oriented tasks in teaching students to write job
application letters. She proved that learners were able to produce job application
letters successfully when they had clear ideas of what language features should
be expressed and how the content should be organized in this kind of letters.
This finding is later confirmed in by Zareee (2008) when examining the effects
of genre-based instructions on qualitative and quantitative features of English
majored students' writing performance at two universities in Iran. Adopting the
quasi-experimental design, he compared the performance of the experimental
group (N=70) and the control group (N= 70) and then revealed highly significant
changes in the quality of writing as a result of genre-based instruction in the
experimental group, whereas the quantitative aspects were not considerably
improved.
Na (2009) also endorsed the genre approach to teaching of writing for
learners who wanted to use English in the professional setting, but this study
differs from the previous ones because the researcher highlighted the analysis of
moves in genre strategies and viewed the learners’ writing in terms of content,
structure and language. The moves of the adjustment letter, the allowable moves
order and the strategies used to realize the moves were presented to help learners
modify and blend their choices of words according to the contexts in which they
wrote. The control group (N=30) were taught through the usual teaching
approach while the experimental group (N=35) received the genre-based
approach. Following the multiple trait scoring for content, structure and
language, he got the results indicating that learners in the experimental group
wrote better than those in the control group in all three traits.
While the above studies focused on comparing the achievements of two
groups, Chiu (2004) focused on analysing the structure, the transitivity, the
mood and modality, the theme and rheme structure and the cohesion system, but
he similarly found that the genre-based approach was more effective than
traditional approaches.

33
 Choosing a quasi-experimental method, Luu Trong Tuan (2011),
however, conducted an experiment, with only one single group, to examine the
effect of genre-based approach on learners’ writing performance as well as
students’ attitudes towards the implementation of genre-based approach in
writing. Research findings revealed that most of the students gained the control
over the key features of the required recount genre in terms of social purposes,
language features and schematic structure.
Following this trend, many other latest researchers have the same
experimental results about positive impacts of genre approach on learners’
writing performance such as Amogne (2013), Elashri (2013), Wang (2013),
Alidoost et al. (2014), Trinh Quoc Lap and Nguyen Thanh Truc (2014).
According to Amogne (2013), EFL students who majored in English at
Bahir Dar University improved their argumentative essay writing skills as they
were taught with a genre based writing instruction. Through the paired-samples
t-test, students’ argumentative texts written during the post-intervention phase
showed significant improvements compared to the pre-intervention drafts. After
the exposure to genre based argumentative essay drafting, students, who had had
serious problems of rebutting opposing viewpoints, managed to have stronger
refutations. It was generally understood that given a learning passage through a
genre-based approach in writing, students could take control over the linguistic
features of text types with particular communicative purposes, and develop their
writing skills at ease.
Meanwhile, in the context of secondary schools, not universities Amogne
(2013), Elashri (2013) showed evidence of development in writing skills among
second year secondary students through using the genre based approach by
employing both the holistic scoring assessment and the analytic scoring
assessment.
Wang (2013) put the genre approach under examination for its
effectiveness in promoting EFL writers’ genre awareness and writing
competence in a 16-week semester in a state-run college in the east part of
China. Data not only come from pre- and post-test writings like previous

34
research but also from interviews and questionnaires. The study indicates that
the genre approach beats the traditional approach in sensitizing the writers’
genre awareness, improving holistic writing quality and enhancing lexical
density.
This finding is later also confirmed by Alidoost et al. (2014). This study
adopted a pre-test/post-test assessment of the learner's writing performance to
examine the effectiveness of a genre-based approach to teaching academic
writing. By comparing pre/post test results it was revealed that the differences
between scores was statistically significant (α <.05) and a genre-based pedagogy
is very useful for EFL learners in writing courses.
In the context of Vietnam, Trinh Quoc Lap and Nguyen Thanh Truc
(2014) also reported the results of an experimental study investigating the effects
of the genre-based approach on Vietnamese learners' ability in writing
argumentative essays. Twenty EFL students at a college in a Mekong Delta
province of Vietnam participated in the study. Participants were divided into two
groups, labeled as group 1 and group 2; each group was taught how to write
argumentative essays by using genre-based approach at two different points of
time. Participants’ ability in writing argumentative essays was measured by three
writing tests: pretest, progress test, and post-test. Results indicated that
participants from both groups significantly improved their writing performance
after the study.
Besides experimental studies in the related literature, many experts and
practitioners employed other methods such as case study and action research to
evaluate the effectiveness of genre approach on learners’ writing, but most of
them still support consistent findings with previous studies. For example,
Kongpetch (2006) studied using a genre-based approach to teach writing to Thai
students at the Department of Foreign Languages, Khon Kaen University, in the
northeast of Thailand in his case study. This study provided insight into the
impact of the genre-based approach on students’ writing. Additionally, Cheng
(2007) performed a case study of Chinese PhD features attract the attention of
graduate students analyzing discipline and specific exemplars, and whether those

35
features remain constant as students become more aware of genre analysis. The
subjects' performance improved greatly after receiving instruction on content,
organization and lexico-grammar. Meanwhile, Chaisiri (2010) confirmed the
consequences of implementing a genre-based approach in one writing classroom
in an action research to improve the teaching approach in the classroom.
Findings reveal that clear improvements in student writing and positive attitudes
by participants.
What is more, some studies have proposed conducting an integrated genre
approach in writing classrooms, informed by theoretical perspectives. For
example, Lin (2006) proposed adopting a Vygotskian approach to genre-based
approach, arguing for paying attention to the roles played by model texts and
teachers’ and students’ co-construction of skills and knowledge of context. His
report indicated the merits of genre approach and contended that model texts and
grammar were important in Japan to increase EFL learners’ confidence and
sureness in writing. Other instances in Korea such as Kim and Kim (2005),
China like Gao (2007) also propose eclectic genre-based approaches: balanced
or integrated with other approaches such as cooperative or process-genre
approaches. These blended proposals aim to compensate for the disadvantages of
genre-based approaches. Therefore, these authors emphasise the importance of
‘scaffolding’ language learning, allowing language use as creative self-
expression, and providing meaningful responses and diverse types of feedback.
In sum, the research studies cited highlight the effectiveness of genre-
based approaches and it seems that there are hardly any studies which reveal
contradictory findings about effectiveness of genre-based approaches in teaching
and learning writing.

1.2.2. Limitations of previous studies

Much of the existing literature about genre-based approach focuses on its
potential application for teaching writing for English-majored students or ESP
students in higher levels. Very few studies ever addressed the implementation of
genre approaches in lower-levelled students, especially students of non-English

36
majored areas at tertiary level. Furthermore, when conducting the experimental
study between the experiment group and the control group, many researchers did
not clarify the corrective feedback application for each group, and this might
lead to the obscureness in interpreting the results of students’ writing scores.
Additionally, the consideration of writing assessment criteria to measure
learners’ performance has not been adequately explained in the body of research.
In the meantime, informed by recent literature on assessment for learning, for
example, Crooks, (2011) and Wiliam (2011) different assessment criteria may
have certain effects on accurately evaluating the effectiveness of the instructions
and learning procedures.

While there are some gaps in the language level of participants and the
use of corrective feedback and different assessments to genre-approaches, the
researcher in this study proposes to study effects of the genre-based approach to
teaching and learning writing, specially recount writing, in non-English majored
students at low intermediate level at university with reference to the analytical
assessment to measure students’ enhancement in their writing performance as
well as writing attitude and closely follow the corrective schemes of genre-based
approach and the assumed traditional approach - the process approach in the
contemporary English classes.

37
 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1. Research design

This study employed a quasi-experimental independent design with one
control group and one experimental group. This is suitable for this study because
this design, with pretest and posttest measurement, has been described as “one of
the most commonly used quasi-experimental designs in educational research”
(Cohen et al. 2007:283). The experimental group received the treatment of
genre-based writing activities, but the control group received the process-based
writing activities.

The control group provides information to the researcher as to what

would occur in the absence of genre-based treatment. Also, the control group is
useful as it allows the researcher to measure the size of effectiveness of genre-
based approach on writing performance.

The study aims at investigating the effects of the use of genre-based

approach on learners’ performance in writing recount essays; therefore, the
independent variable is genre-based instruction and the dependent variable is
students’ writing achievement.

Furthermore, the researcher utilised a pair-matching technique when

assigning subjects into two groups in order to ensure that the control group and
the experimental group were as similar as possible at the start of the experiment.

The following table illustrates the design used for this study.

Pre-test Groups Intervention Post-test

Pre-writing Control Group Process-based Post-writing

performance approach performance test
test
Experimental Genre-based Post-writing
Group approach performance test

38
 Pre-writing Control Group Process-based Post-writing
attitude approach attitude
questionnaire questionnaire

Experimental Genre-based Post-writing

Group approach attitude
questionnaire

As indicated in this table, before the implementation of genre-based

writing instruction to experimental group and process-based writing instruction
to control group, a pre-test and an attitude questionnaire were given to all
participants. After the pre-test, participants were randomly assigned into control
group and exprimental group. Following that, the experimental group were
taught in the genre-based approach, whereas the control group were taught in the
process-based approach in the same condition of time and classroom and writing
themes. After the treatment, the post-test and the post-attitude questionnaires
were administered again to both two groups to evaluate their writing
performance and their perceptions towards writing.

2.2. Setting and participants

The research site was at University of Social Sciences and Humanities,
Hanoi, which has a mission of the leading center to pass on knowledge and
educate qualified human resource in social sciences and humanities in service of
national construction and development. Students at USSH are in a wide variety
of majors, but their English proficiency is necessary for their study and research.
That is why a number of students want to study English, especially to master
writing skills. However, due to time constraint at class as well as other limiting
factors from the syllabus or teaching activities, their writing performance is still
low, which is evidenced by writing scores of students in the latest English exams
in the first term of school year 2013-2014.

Participants of two groups studied in the same classroom set up at USSH

but in different time; the control group studied on Monday afternoon, while the

39
experimental group studied on Wednesday afternoon. This classroom was
facilitated with a computer, a projector and an air-conditioner, and two ceiling
fans.

Through the email lists of more than 20 English classes targeting to B1-
level (CEFR), the researcher emailed to students of those classes and offer 60
students a free writing course. The purpose of the course was explained clearly
and students were made clear that they joined this research voluntarily when
they were available in time. Then, 60 out of over 100 students responding to my
email were randomly selected as participants.

These 60 participants were from different faculties namely International

Studies, Journalism and Communication, Linguistics, Oriental Studies, Tourism
and Vietnamese studies and Language. Their ages ranged from 19 to 21,
consisting of 58 females and 2 males. They have finished A2-level (CEFR) and
were studying English to achieve B1 level.

Participants took the pre-test to get writing scores. Then, the participants
were allocated to control and experimental groups randomly, but the basis of the
allocation was that one member of the control group was matched to a member
of the experimental group based on their ranking of writing scores in the pre-test.
This was carried out when placing all the participants in rank order on the basis
of the scores of their pre-test. Then the first two subjects became one matched
pair, but which one was allocated to the control group and which to the
experimental group was done randomly by tossing a coin; the next two subjects
become the next pair, and so on until the sample of 30 students in each group
was drawn. In this way, matching technique, followed by random assignment to
control and experimental groups could strengthen the equivalence between
subjects of two groups.

40
2.3. Instruments
2.3.1. Genre-based approach syllabus of recount genre
Eight 90-minute writing lessons in light of genre-based approach together
with the corresponding eight 90-minute process-oriented writing lessons were
designed by the researcher to use in the study. The theoretical framework for
these recount genre lessons was adapted and compiled from Widodo’s (2006)
genre-based model. Classroom activities for each lesson plan were developed by
the researcher. The materials were adapted from two books. The first book was
Left to Write Too (2000) by Hood, Dunmore Press. The second one was Write
Ways: Modelling Writing Forms (2009) by Wing Jan, Oxford University Press.
During the course, both the control group and the experimental group finish the
same writing assignments and are both expected to revise according to the
feedback. Apart from the experimental materials which were specifically
highlighted to raise the learners’ awareness of the genre-based approach, most of
the essential features of the two groups remained identical. The only difference
lies in the teaching methods employed.

2.3.2. Written English performance pre-test and post-test

Pre-test and post-test were conducted with both the control group (N=30)
and the experimental group (N=30) in class respectively at the beginning and the
end of the writing course. All the participants in two classes participated in the
written research and no one quit in the process. Time was guaranteed at both
tests (40 minutes) and no subjects complained about lack of time.

Pre-test was taken at the first meeting prior to the assignment of two
groups and prior to the class instruction and the writings gathered were regarded
to reflect the students’ prior writing competence.
To ensure the comparability of the pre- and post-test writings, the
complexity of the two writings is set approximately constant and the writing
question remained the same in pre- and post-tests.

41
 These tests required participants of both two groups to write a story in
about 100 words for their teacher − the audience to read later. However, instead
of restricting the topic, the question let participants be free to choose an open
topic as long as the story had to begin with “I felt nervous when the phone rang”.
This sentence served to set the initial setting of the story that students had to
develop further in their writings.

It could be proposed that students might remember what they had done in
the pre-test and this could lead them to transfer, to some extent, what they had
studied from the pre-test to the answer in the post-test. However, to avoid this
threat, the researcher did not inform them about the post-test at the beginning
and she collected all materials including draft paper that students used in the pre-
test. Also, it was hard for participants to recall what they had written after two
months when the post-test was conducted.

Post-test, which was used to compare participants’ English writing

proficiency before and after the study, was administered to all participants after
the completion of eight writing lessons. Two groups took the tests on the same
time and date to ensure that the writing tests were taken in the same conditions.
Participants were not allowed to use dictionaries, textbooks or prepared notes
during the test time.

2.3.3. Analytical scoring rubric

In this study, in line with the current assessment of English proficiency at
USSH , CEFR from A1 to B2 for non-English majored students, the researcher
utilised the mark scheme developed and extensively used by Cambridge English
Language Assessment (2013). This mark scheme contains four scaling sub-
scales:
- Content

42
 This sub-scale focuses on how well the candidate has met the
requirements of the task, in other words, if they have done what was
asked of them.
Content
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3Band 4 Band 5
Irrelevances and Irrelevances and Minor Almost all All content is
misinterpretation misinterpretation irrelevances
content is fully relevant to
of task may be of task may be may be
relevant to the task.
present. present. present.
the task.
Target reader is
Target reader is Target reader is Target reader Target fuller informed
not informed minimally is on the reader is
informed whole adequately
informed. informed

- Communicative Achievement
This sub-scale focuses on how appropriate the writing is for the task.
Communicative Achievement
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5
The text The text The The The text uses
communicates communicates conventions of conventions of the conventions
simple ideas in simple ideas in the the of the
simple ways. simple ways. communicative communicative communicative
task are in task are in task to hold the
Reader find it Readers need generally generally target reader’s
hard to an effort appropriate appropriate attention and
understand; understand ways to ways to communicate
readers can not and enjoy communicate communicate straightforward
enjoy reading straightforward straightforward ideas.
ideas. ideas.
Readers find it Readers find it
quite easy to Readers totally easy and
understand generally find it enjoyable
mostly easy and
enjoyable

- Organisation
This sub-scale focuses on the way the candidate has put his answer
together.
Organisation
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5
There is a lack There is little Some lacks of Ideas are Text is highly
of organization or no attempts organization generaly well organized with

43
so severe that at – rereading organized. The clear progression
communication connectivity required links could of ideas.
is seriously though reader for occasionally be
impaired. deduces some clarification clearer but Text is coherent,
organization. ideas. communication using a variety of
The not impaired. linking words
Text is individual Text is and cohesive
connected using ideas may be connected Text is devices.
basic, high- clear but very and coherent, coherent, using
frequency difficult to using basic a variety of
linking words. deduce linking words linking words
connections and a limited and cohesive
between number of devices.
them. cohesive
devices.
Text is
connected
using basic,
high-
frequency
linking words.
- Language
This sub-scale focuses on the candidate’s use of appropriate vocabulary
and grammar.
Language
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5
Uses basic Uses basic Uses everyday Use a range of Use a range of
vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary everyday both everyday
reasonably appropriately. generally vocabulary vocabularies
appropriately. appropriately, appropriately, appropriately
while with occasional and
Uses simple Uses simple occasionally inappropriate use appropriate
grammatical grammatical overusing of less common use of some
forms with forms with a certain lexis. lexis. less common
some degree of fairly good lexis.
control. degree of Uses simple Use a range of
control. grammatical simple and some Use a range of
Errors may forms with a complex simple and
impede good degree of grammatical complex
meaning at While errors control. forms with a grammatical
times. are noticeable, good degree of forms with a
meaning can While errors control. good degree
still be are noticeable, of control.
determined meaning can Errors do not
still be impede Errors are
determined. communication. nearly free

44
A student’s writing was awarded a mark out of five in each of these sub-scales,
making a total of 20 marks for the whole writing answer.

2.3.4. Pre-scale and post-scale attitude questionnaires

Before and after the treatment, in order to investigate students’
perceptions towards writing and any change in their perception on writing, a pre-
and post- scale attitude questionnaires were administered to all participants. This
questionnaire contains identical items in pre- and post-scale so that the
researcher could make sure the equivalence of the pre-and post-sale as well as
make consistent evaluation about students’ attitude before and after the course.
The reasons are made clear to the students before the distribution of the
questionnaire. To ensure the reliability of the questionnaire, subjects are asked to
complete the questionnaire in class unanimously and independently. All the 60
questionnaires were collected and they are judged valid for the research. The
original questionnaire was printed in Vietnamese to ensure no
misunderstandings due to the language barrier.
As regards the content of the attitude scale, it combines multiple
responses to 38 statements about writing and writing performance in a Likert
form. This Likert attitude assesses participants’ attitudes toward writing and
their writing performance by presenting a set of statements about writing and
asking them to indicate for each whether they strongly agree, agree, undecided,
disagree, or strongly disagree. This Likert scale is constructed by assembling
statements expressing both favorable and unfavorable attitude toward writing.
The questions were devided into three groups: questions 1-10 about students’
feelings about studying writing; questions 11-26 about students’ responses about
writing activities; and questions 27-38 about students’ perception towards their
writing performance.

45
2.4. Lesson procedure
2.4.1 Lesson procedure in the genre-based approach
2.4.1.1. Building up the field knowledge
(Lessons 1-2)
This includes the first two lessons: The ultimate goal of this phase is to
get students to familiarise with recount genre and initially to be aware of its
purpose, its audience, content and linguistic features. In this phase, the core of
lessons was teaching structural organization of recount.

Specifically, there are five stages in this phase:

Stage 1 connected pre-class activities with the teaching of social
function/general uses of recount: to reconstruct and interpret experiences and
past events, and to keep the past alive or keep permanent records of things that
had happened.

Stages 2 and 3 were the core of the lesson, which focused on the generic
structure (three stages; orientation, events and re-orientation), and the
organization of events (temporal sequence).

At Stage 4, students were given an exercise to do so that they could be

more familiar with the generic structure.

At Stage 5, the teacher gave students a topic, and asked them to outline a
recount in groups. After all these teaching, students had their assignment aiming
at reinforcing what already have been done and preparing them for the teaching
of language features in the coming session.
During this phase, students and the teacher cooperatively built up a shared
knowledge of the field by taking part in brainstorming, watching videos,
exploring meaning from pictures or group presentation. These activities made
students aware of the importance of searching ideas, setting up a shared

46
experience and cultural context before writing. This initial exploration helped
prepare students for the next stage, modeling of the text.

2.4.1.2. Modelling the text

(Lessons 3-4)
There are mainly four language features for recount: focusing on
individual or specific participants; using the past tense; focusing on temporal
sequence of time; using mainly material or action processes. Students re-read the
given samples and find out these language features.

Teaching sequence was again divided into several stages.

At stage 1, the teacher had the students report the pre-viewing part of
their assignment, asking the students to use examples from samples to support
their point of view. Then the teacher taught the language features one by one,
encouraging and praising students from time to time if their pre-viewing is
successfully done.

At stage 2, students were asked to revisit the samples and find out all the
uses of the features according to the teacher’s instruction.

At stage 3, there was a new sample for the students to read, discuss and
do the exercise given by the teacher in groups such as asking students to change
a recount written in first person, and retell as the narrator/3rd person.

At stage 4, the teacher summarized the major points covered in the lesson
and answered students’ questions if they had any, and gave them their
assignment.
During this phase, students could understand the nature of a recount text
and reconstruct it. Since the genre-based approach is concerned with studying a
particular text type, the selection of the text used plays an important role for the
success of the learning activity. Derewianka (1990) argued that for modeling

47
purposes, selected texts should clearly demonstrate the key features of the genre
and they should include factors as the level of the confidence and motivation of
students, prior knowledge of content, degree of linguistic knowledge and skill,
extent of cultural knowledge, and the degree of familiarity with the text type.

In this study, social activities, leisure, work and study were used as main
topics for the selection of input model texts. The reason for choosing these topics
was they were included in the CEFR framework on typical language abilities
that students could do to achieve B1 and B2 levels. Also, these topics might be
of interests to students because they were familiar and relevant to their life.

2.4.1.3. Joint construction of a new text

(Lessons 5-6)
The teacher and students jointly built up the introductory paragraph or
orientation, clearly establishing a context for the events which follow. The
remaining paragraphs develop the temporal sequence of events, ending with a re-
orientation.
The teacher guided learners how to complete the recount scaffold with
ideas they were going to use in their writing and produced the first draft. The
learners then read and evaluated their own essay by using the recount checklist.
Before re-drafting the essay, the students were asked to join in peer review in
order to read and evaluate their peers’ writing. The peer review activity could be
helpful to students since they had a chance to go over their friends’ essays, to
correct and avoid the mistakes that their friends made, and more importantly
they could learn ideas, writing styles from their peers.

2.4.1.4. Independent construction of a new text

(Lessons 7-8)
After the joint construction stage, the teacher and students jointly chose a
new topic, and students wrote a recount independently on this topic. If they were

48
not ready for independent work, they were organized into small groups or pairs
to discuss for a while.
This stage aimed to provide students with opportunities to reflect on what
they had learned, put all ideas into written form, and thus produced a well-
structured essay. After getting comments from the teacher, students were given a
list of error correction symbols, and asked to work in groups to discuss and edit
the essays. In this case, students had another chance to become readers and
evaluators of their peers’ essays.
Finally teacher helped the students to apply this genre to other fields.

2.4.2. Lesson procedure in the process approach

In each of the first eight lessons, the strategy needed for that stage of the
process of writing was taught. One method was used at each stage to facilitate
the mastery of the strategy taught at that stage:
- Brainstorming: A spider web was used to help students brainstorm and
generate ideas.
- Organizing ideas: A story planner was designed to help students
organize ideas and put them into different parts of the structure of a story.
- Revising: A revising checklist was used to help students revise the
content and organization of their drafts.
- Editing: An editing checklist was used to help students edit the language
of their stories.

2.4.2.1. Lesson 1
The teacher stimulated students’ creativity, to get them thinking how to
approach a recount text. In this lesson, the most important thing is the flow of
ideas, so the teacher divided students into groups and asked them to produce
words or ideas about a recount text given as a task. The teacher demonstrated
how to use the spider web to brainstorm ideas on the first writing topic.

Each member made a plan of the recount and then shared and discussed their
ideas in groups. Next, each group presented their best ideas to the class; a lot of

49
questions were generated about the topic. During their discussion, the teacher
helped students develop their ideas in a positive and encouraging way.

2.4.2.2. Lesson 2
The students were asked to practise using the spider web to brainstorm
ideas on the second writing topic in groups. Then the teacher demonstrated how
to use the story planner to organize the ideas that the students had brainstormed
and fit them into the structure of a story.
2.4.2.3. Lesson 3
The students had to use the spider web to brainstorm ideas individually on
the third writing topic and use the story planner to organize the ideas into a story
in groups. Later, the teacher demonstrated how to write a draft based on the
ideas put onto the story planner.
2.4.2.4. Lesson 4
The students had to use the spider web to brainstorm ideas on the fourth
writing topic individually, use the story planner to organize the ideas
individually and write the draft in groups. The teacher then demonstrated how to
use the revision checklist to revise the content and organization of a draft.
2.4.2.5. Lesson 5
The students had to use the spider web to brainstorm ideas on the fifth
and sixth writing topics individually, use the story planner to organize the ideas
individually, write the draft individually and use the revision checklist to revise
the draft in groups, after which the teacher demonstrated how to use the editing
checklist to edit the language of a draft.
2.4.2.6. Lesson 6
The content was similar to lesson 5.
2.4.2.7. Lesson 7
The students had to use the spider web to brainstorm ideas on the seventh
writing topic individually, use the story planner to organize the ideas
individually, write the draft individually, use the revision checklist to revise the
draft individually and use the editing checklist to edit the draft in groups.
2.4.2.8. Lesson 8

50
 The students had to write a story on the eighth topic independently and
individually using all the strategies that they had learned at each stage of the
process of writing.
At each stage, the teacher’s help was given first and then replaced by peer
help; then the teacher’s help was gradually withdrawn to allow the students to
work independently.

2.5. Data collection

The data were collected mainly from two tests - pre-test and post-test of
students’ writing performance and the pre-scale and post-scale attitude
questionnaires.
Before the treatment of the genre-based writing instruction to the
experimental group and process-based writing instruction to the control group,
pre-test was given to all participants.
For the pre-test, the participants wrote one simple writing in the form of a
story based on their prior knowledge. At the same time, they were given pre-
attitude questionnaires to scale their perceptions upon writing.
After randomly assigning participants into the control group and the
exprimental group, the experimental group was taught by using genre-based
approach for ten meetings; meanwhile, the control group was taught in the
process-based approach in the same time.
After the treatment, the post-test, with the same writing questions as that
of the pre-test, was given to two groups, but the researcher recommended them
to create new writing products using the knowledge they had learnt during the
10-week course.
Finally, the post-attitude questionnaires were delivered again to both two
groups to collect their perceptions towards the writing activities during the
treatment and their writing enhancement if any.

51
2.6. Data analysis
2.6.1 Pre-test and post-test
One experienced college teacher was invited to participate in the research
as the independent rater for the pre-test and the post-test. She has been well-
trained in the area of language assessment and explained about the researcher’s
assessment design. Any questions about marking students’ recount texts were
made clear before the actual marking.

The results gained from the two writing tests were subjected to SPSS 16.0
to evaluate participants’ writing ability. Descriptive statistics tests were
calculated to observe the frequency mean scores, and standard deviations of the
two tests.

Subsequently, independent samples T-tests were computed to compare

the mean scores gained by participants for the two tests between the two groups.

Finally, paired samples T-tests were performed to compare the mean

scores on the two tests as well as on the four writing features – Content,
Communicative Achievement, Organisation and Language, before and after the
study.

2.6.2. Pre-scale and post-scale attitude questionnaires

To score the attitude scale, the response categories were weighted: for
favorable stated items, strongly agree was scored 5, agree was scored 4,
undecided was scored 3, disagree was scored 2, and strongly disagree was
scored 1. For unfavorable stated items, the weighting was reverse because
disagreement with unfavorable statement is equivalent to agreement with a
favorable statement. Thus, for unfavorable statements, strongly agree received a
score of 1 and strongly disagree a score of 5. The sum of the total scores of all
items (190) was divided by the number of items (38) to arrive at a mean attitude

52
score. The higher was the mean score, the more positive attitude toward writing
the participants had.

The students’ attitudes development between the pre-scale and post-scale

was then compared by accounting the difference between the mean scores of the
pre-scale and post-scale. The independent T-test was used again to test whether
there were any significant differences between the pre-scale and post-scale
concerning the attitudes toward learning writing and writing enhancement
between the experimental and control groups.

In addition, paired samples T-tests were used to compare the mean scores
on the two scales by students in the same group and to examine any significant
difference in their perceptions on learning writing within the group.

53
 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Equivalence of the control and experimental groups before the
experiment
To control variables before implementing the genre-based approach, the
results of the writing pre-test were subjected to statistical treatment to find
whether there were statistically significant differences between the two groups
(the control and the experimental) in terms of the overall writing performance.
Accordingly, T-test for independent homogenous groups was used to compare
the mean scores of the two groups, as shown in Table 1.

N Mean Standard Standard T-test for Equality of Means

Deviation Error t df Sig.(2-tailed)
Group Mean
Pre- Control 30 9.67 1.398 .255 -.748 58 .457
test Experimental 30 9.93 1.363 .249

Table 1: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and
experimental groups in overall writing performance

As Table 1 displays p-value, it is 0.457. The p- value is more than 0.05

(selected critical level α = 0.05). Therefore, the difference is statistically non-
significant. Therefore, there were no statistically significant differences between
the mean scores of the control and experimental groups on the writing pre-test in
overall writing performance and the experimental group and the control group
were homogenous. It shows that two groups were at the same level and there
was no main difference between two groups.

In order to control variables before implementing the genre-based

approach, the results of the writing pre-test were subjected to statistical treatment
to find whether there were statistically significant differences between the two
groups (control and experimental) in terms of four components of writing
performance: Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation and

54
Language. Consequently, the t-test for independent homogenous groups was
used to compare the mean scores of the two groups in each writing parameter, as
shown in tables 2, 3, 4, 5 below:

N Mean Standard Standard T-test for Equality of

Deviation Error Means

Group Mean t df Sig.(2-tailed)

Pre-test Control 30 2.40 .498 .091 .258 58 .798

Content Experimental 30 2.43 .504 .092

Table 2: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and
experimental groups in Content

According to the data shown in Table 2, there were no statistically

significant differences between the mean scores of the control and experimental
groups on the writing pre-test in Content because the p-value is (0.798) for
Content is more than 0.05 at the significance level.

N Mean Standard Standard T-test for Equality

Deviation Error of Means
Mean t df Sig.(2-
Group tailed)
Pre-test Control 30 2.47 .507 .093 .255 58 .799
Communicative Experimental 30 2.43 .504 .092
Achievement

Table 3: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and
experimental groups in Communicative Achievement

According to the data shown in Table 3, there were no statistically

significant differences between the mean scores of the control and experimental
groups on the writing pre-test in Communicative Achievement because the p-
value is (0.799) for Communicative Achievement is more than 0.05 at the
significance level.

55
 N Mean Standard Standard T-test for Equality of
Deviation Error Means
Mean t df Sig.(2-
Group tailed)
Pre-test Control 30 2.23 .430 .079 1.921 58 .060
Organisation Experimental 30 2.47 .507 .093

Table 4: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and
experimental groups in Organisation

According to the data shown in Table 4, there were no statistically

significant differences between the mean scores of the control and experimental
groups on the writing pre-test in Organisation because the p-value is (0.06) >
0.05 (the significance level)

N Mean Standard Standard T-test for Equality of

Deviation Error Means
Mean t df Sig.(2-
Group tailed)
Pre-test Control 30 2.57 .504 .092 .258 58 .798
Language Experimental 30 2.60 .498 .091

Table 5: T-test results of the writing pre-test comparing both control and
experimental groups in Language

According to the data shown in Table 5, there were no statistically

significant differences between the mean scores of the control and experimental
groups on the writing pre-test in Language because the p-value is (0.798) > 0.05
(the significance level).
In short, before the experiment, participants’ writing ability in the control
and the experimental groups regarding the four components of writing
performance – Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation, and

56
Language were relatively equal. Hence, it was evidenced that the two groups
were almost homogenous at the beginning of the experiment

Pre-scale attitudes scores between two groups

Besides the equality of mean scores of writing performance among
participants in two groups, the researcher also tested the equality of attitude
mean scores among them in order to avoid the minimal differences between two
groups before the treatment.

The results of the attitude pre-scale were used to statistical treatment to

find whether there were statistically significant differences between the control
and experimental groups in terms of their attitudes towards writing before any
treatment. Then the t-test for independent homogenous groups was used to
compare the two groups, as shown in table 6.

N Mean Standard Standard T-test for Equality of

Deviation Error Means
Mean t df Sig.(2-
Group tailed)
Pre-scale Control 30 130.53 4.637 .847 .202 58 .840
Attitude Experimental 30 130.30 4.284 .782

Table 6: T-test results of pre-scale attitude scores between the control and
experimental groups

As the figures show in table 6, the t-value for attitude pre-scale mean
scores is (0.202). The significance (2-tailed) p – value is (0.840); this p-value is
more than 0.05. So, the given t-value is not statistically significant at the
significance level (α ≤ .05). This means there were no statistically significant
differences between the mean scores of the control and the experimental groups
on the attitudes towards writing.

57
 To summarise, the two groups were nearly at the same level of writing
performance and attitudes towards writing and they belonged to the same society
they were taken from at the beginning of the experiment.
3.2. Findings
3.2.1. Research question 1
What is the difference of using the genre-based approach in
improving non-English majored students’ writing performance at USSH?
3.2.1.1. Differences between experimental and control groups on the
writing performance
3.2.1.1.1. Overall writing performance
The independent t-test was used to compare the mean scores of the two
groups on the writing post-test according to the overall achievement. Results of
the t-test are shown in table 7.

T-test for Equality of

Standard
Standard Means
N Mean Error
Deviation Sig.(2-
Mean t df
Group tailed)
Control 30 12.43 1.165 .213
Post-test 4.032 58 .000
Experimental 30 13.57 1.006 .184

Table 7: The t-test results of the writing post-test for overall writing performance

As shown in table 7, the estimated t value for overall writing scores is

(4.032). At the significance level (α ≤.05), this t-value is statistically significant
compared to the critical t-value because p-value = 0.000 < 0.05. Therefore, this
result indicates that there were statistically significant differences between the
experimental group and the control group on the overall post-test writing
performance in favour of the experimental group. This result can be ascribed to
subjecting the experimental group to the genre-based approach.

58
 3.2.1.1.2. Writing performance in each writing component
The t-test for independent groups was used to compare the mean scores of
two groups on each writing component of the post-test achievement. The results
of t-test are shown in table 8.

T-test for Equality

Standard
Standard of Means
N Mean Error
Deviation Sig.(2-
Mean t df
Group tailed)
Control 30 3.00 .455 .083
Post-test 2.626 58 .011
Content Experimental 30 3.37 .615 .112
Post-test Control 30 2.87 .507 .093
Communicative 2.875 58 .006
Experimental 30 3.30 .651 .119
Achievement
Post-test Control 30 3.17 .461 .084
Organisation 2.238 58 .029
Experimental 30 3.47 .571 .101
Post-test Control 30 3.40 .498 .091
Language .258 58 .798
Experimental 30 3.43 .504 .092

Table 8: The t-test results of the writing post-test in components of writing

performance

Firstly, as regards the writing performance in Content, the estimated t

value is 2.626. In comparison to the critical T-value in the T-table at the
significance level (2-tailed) 0.05, this estimated t-value is statistically significant
at (α ≤ .05) level because p-value (.011) is less than the critical level (.05). In
other words, there were statistically significant differences between the
experimental group and the control group on the writing post-test scores in
Content.

Secondly, as for writing achievement in Communicative Achievement

attribute, the t-value is 2.875, which is found to be statistically significant at α ≤
.05) level compared to the T-critical value at the significance level (0.05)
because the p-value (.06) is less than the critical level (.05). This means that

59
there were statistically significant differences between the experimental group
and the control group on the writing post-test scores in Communicative
Achievement.

Thirdly, when Organisation is concerned as one criterion to compare the

mean scores of students’ writings in the post-test between two groups, the t-
value (2.238) for this writing component is statistically significant at (α ≤ .05)
level because p-value (.029) is less than the critical level (.05). Thus, it is clear
that there were statistically significant differences between the experimental
group and the control group on the writing post-test in the component of
Organisation.

Meanwhile, regarding Language performance, the t value (0.258) was not

statistically significant at (α ≤ .05) level because p-value (.798) is more than the
critical level (.05). This means there was no significant difference in the mean
scores of the experimental and control group in terms of Language use in the
writing post-test.

To summarize, the results shown that there were statistically significant

differences between the experimental group and the control group on the writing
post-test in Content, Communicative Achievement and Organisation. However,
there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental group
and the control group on Language.

3.2.1.2. Differences in the experimental group on the writing

performance pre-and post-test

To specify the degree of differences resulted from using the genre-based

approach between the writing pre-test and the writing post-test of the
experimental group, the paired sample t-test was employed.

60
 3.2.1.2.1. Overall writing performance
The t-test for paired samples aims at comparing the mean scores of the
experimental group on the writing pre- and post-tests in overall writing
performance. Results of the t-test are shown in table 9.

Standa Paired Differences

Standard rd Sig.(2-
N Mean Standard t value df
Deviation Error Mea Standard tailed)
Mean Error
n Deviation
Test Mean
Pre-test 30 12.43 1.165 .213 3.63
1.829 .334 10.883 29 .000
3
Post-test 30 13.57 1.006 .184

Table 9: The t-test results of the writing pre-post-test in overall writing performance

As it can be seen from table 9, the t-value (10.883) is statistically

significant at (α ≤ .05) level because p-value (.000) is less than the critical level
(.05). Therefore, there were statistically significant differences between the mean
scores of students in the experimental group in the pre-test and those in the post-
test in favour of the post-test.

3.2.1.2.2. Writing performance in each writing component

The t-test for paired samples was used to compare the mean scores of
students in the experimental group on the writing pre-post-test in the
components of writing performance - Content, Communicative Achievement,
Organisation, and Language. Results of t-test are shown in table 10.

Table 10 shows that the t-value (7.393) for Content, t-value (5.517) for
Communicative Achievement, t-value (6.021) for Organisation, and t-value
(5.473) for Language are all statistically significant at (α ≤ .05) level when all
p=value (.000) is less than the critical level (.05). This proves that there were
statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the experimental
group on the writing pre-post-test in all four components of writing performance
Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation, and Language.

61
 Paired Differences
Stand- Stand
Writing Mea- ard ard Standa- Sig.(2-
Test N Standar t value df
component n Deviat- Error Mea rd tailed)
-d Error
ion Mean n Deviati-
Mean
on
Pre
30 2.43 .504 .092
-test
Content Pos .933 .691 .126 7.393 29 .000
t- 30 3.37 .615 .112
test
Pre
Communic- 30 2.43 .504 .092
-test
ative
Pos .867 .860 .157 5.517 29 .000
Achieveme-
nt t- 30 3.30 .651 .119
test
Pre
30 2.47 .507 .093
-test
Organisati- 1.00
Pos .910 .166 6.021 29 .000
on 0
t- 30 3.47 .571 .104
test
Pre
30 2.60 .498 .091
-test
Language Pos .833 .834 .152 5.473 29 .000
t- 30 3.43 .504 .092
test

Table 10: T-test results of the writing pre-post-tests of the experimental group

Furthermore, the results of the means of students’ writing scores on the

writing performance post-test indicate that those who were in the experimental
group achieved best results in Organisation.

Answer to research question 1

With clear data shown above, the researcher verified the effectiveness of
using the genre-based approach in improving non-English majored students’
writing performance at USSH.
This effectiveness was checked by the significant differences in the mean
scores of students in the experimental group compared to those in the control
group who were not taught in the genre-based approach. The noticeable change
in students’ writing performance was seen from the higher overall scores of
students in the experimental group in comparison with students in the control
group. Those who had received the genre-based instruction wrote better in

62
almost attributes than those who had not. They showed improvements in
Content, Communicative Achievement and Organisation. Particularly, being
taught in the genre-based instruction, students improved their Organisation the
most effectively. Nonetheless, the use of the genre-based approach did not show
more effectiveness in developing students’ use of Language than the traditional
approach.

3.2.2. Research question 2

What is the difference of using the genre-based approach in
promoting students’ positive attitudes towards writing at USSH?

3.2.2.1. Differences between the mean scores of the experimental group

and that of the control group on the attitude post-scale
In order to test this hypothesis, the t-test for independent groups was used
to compare the mean scores of the control and experimental groups on the
attitude post-scale. Results of the t-test are displayed in table 11.

T-test for Equality of

Standard
Standard Means
N Mean Error
Deviation Sig.(2-
Mean t df
Group tailed)
Attitude Control 30 133.57 4.994 .912
Post- Experimental 30 138.30 6.681 1.220 3.108 58 .003
scale

Table 11: The t-test results of the attitude post-scale comparing both control and
experimental groups

As it is shown from table 11, the t-value (3.108) is statistically significant

at (α ≤ .05) level because the p-value (.003) is less than the critical level (.05).
This means there were statistically significant differences between the mean
scores of the control and experimental groups on the student writing attitude
post-scale.

63
 This finding favors the experimental post results to the control post ones
on the student writing attitude post-scale. These significant differences between
the experimental post results and the control post ones were attributed to the
outcome of training the experimental group in the genre-based approach.

3.2.2.2. Differences between the mean scores of the experimental group

on the attitude pre-scale and post-scale
In order to find out attitude changes resulting from using the genre-based
approach from the attitude pre-scale to the attitude post-scale for the
experimental group, the t-test for paired samples was used.
This paired samples t-test compares the mean scores of the experimental
group on the attitude pre-scale and the attitude post-scale. Results of t-test are
illustrated in table 12.

Paired Differences
Standard Standa-
Attitu- t Sig.(2-
N Mean Deviati- rd Error Standard Standard df
de value tailed)
on Mean Mean Deviatio Error
n Mean
Pre-
30 130.30 4.284 .782
scale
8.000 6.908 1.261 6.343 29 .000
Post-
30 138.30 6.681 1.220
scale

Table 12: T-test results of the attitude pre-post-scale for the experimental group

Table 12 shows that the t-value (6.343) is statistically significant at (α ≤

.05) level because the p-value (.000) is less than the critical level (.05). Hence,
there were statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the
experimental group on the attitude pre-post-scale in favour of the post-attitudes.

Answer to research question 2

From the data analysis, it is apparent that there was certain effectiveness of using
the genre-based approach in promoting students’ positive attitudes towards
writing at USSH. Participants in the experimental group revealed higher attitude

64
scores in the post-scale than those in the control group. Also, members of the
experimental group showed more positive attitudes towards writing after they
were taught in the genre-based approach. This finding confirms the effectiveness
of adopting the genre-based approach in enhancing students’ perceptions of
writing.

3.3. Discussion
3.3.1. Effectiveness of the genre-based approach in improving writing
performance
The results from this study indicated that the genre-based approach
helped participants enhance their ability in writing recount essays. This finding
is consistent with the studies by Kongpetch (2003), Udomyamokkul (2004),
Ferreira (2007), and Promwinai (2010). The consistency is shown because
students gained better control over the organization and development of content
to catch attention from the audience in their recount essays.

The results from the post-test revealed the participants’ awareness in

incorporating recount features into their essays helped them to gain better
impression from the reader or the audience. The reasons for the awareness of
deep features could be explained by the implementation of the stages and
techniques embedded in the genre-based approach. This is in line with the
assertion by Hammond et al. (1992). Each of the four stages in the teaching and
learning cycle has its own functions in supporting learners in their writing. The
stages and the techniques applied could create opportunities for the participants
to develop their own writing through self-exploration and discussion with friends
and the instructor. This is also well reflected in Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of
proximal development, which proposed that knowledge is best constructed when
students take part and negotiate with peers and teacher in meaningful activities.

According to Dudley-Evans (2006) genre analysis is particularly useful

for students with relatively little experience of writing. This seems to be the case

65
for the learners in this study as they only had two class meetings each week to
study English. They found learning the genre-based approach to be very useful
as it gave them a sense of knowledge as what to write and how to go about it.

With an awareness of genre conventions of recount texts, the students had

less difficulty in the ordering and reordering of the text. This led to better
organisation, and they achieved best results in Organisation parameter. Getting
students to analyse many recount models for their organizational features
seemed to have enhanced their understanding of how to organize their own
writing. Students knew exactly components of a recount text, and this perhaps
gave them a better development of the organizational elements. This is explained
by Martin (1999) that as students are exposed to genres, they are exposed to the
structure, purpose and norms of the language used in a particular discipline. It
could be that the sample texts in the module and genre instruction have enabled
participants in this study to notice the generic structure or organization of
reports, thus enabled them to write reports with better organisation.

Furthermore, the results suggest that genre-based approach is more effective in

enhancing the content development. This finding is consistent with the research
conducted by Chow (2007) who discovered that process-genre approach could
help students improve their communication of ideas and develop more relevant
ideas to support their writing tasks.

It was a surprise that the genre-based approach in this study did not
considerably help students to better control of their language. Based on the
findings of this study, the explicit teaching of generic features of recount
texts helped students to write texts of better quality, but it did not necessarily
increase their command of language in their writings. This could be explained by
the fact that mechanics of writing, namely grammar, spelling and punctuation ,
and broadening vocabulary were not emphasised, whereas the contemporary
control of grammar and vocabulary of participants was assumed to be very weak

66
and immature. Therefore, after the course, there was not much enhancement in
their use of language. In order to increase the effectiveness of this approach to
teaching writing, grammar need to be explicitly taught to students and targeted
activities to improve grammar sentence and structures should be utilised to cater
students’ lack of grammar control and vocabulary range.

The previous findings show that the traditional way of learning writing
resulted in some improvement but not significant in the control group students'
writing. This study reflected a similar finding. The control group concentrated
mostly on generating ideas, recalling structures, and planning the whole text. As
a result, the control group post results were better than the pre ones.

3.3.2. Effectiveness of the genre-based approach in promoting students’

attitudes
The results from this study reveal that the participants in the experimental
group predominantly developed more positive perceptions towards writing
thanks to the implementation of the genre-based approach and the contribution
of stages in the teaching and learning cycle to their writing. Their positive
perceptions could be explained by the progress they made in their writing
performance. The implementation of the genre-based approach assisted them in
understanding the purpose and the organization of the target genre they are about
to write, thereby resulting in an increase in their confidence and belief in their
own writing ability.

This finding is well supported by Flowerdew (2000), Kongpetch (2003),

and Swami (2008). These studies had indicated that the genre-based approach
helps students take control over the generic structures by providing them with
opportunities to use the language in real writing situations and improve their
confidence in writing, helping them have positive look on their learning to how
to write.

67
 The result also conforms to the findings of Chaisiri (2010), who reported
writing developments and positive attitudes of students, having experienced
genre based writing lessons.

To sum up, it was concluded that, using the genre-based approach in

teaching students how to write in classroom settings at USSH was beneficial, but
maintaining a close process-based approach to teaching writing still has it value
in helping students overcome difficulties of ideas. The idea of combining these
two approaches into the writing syllabus should be taken into consideration.

68
 PART C: CONCLUSION

1. Recapitulation
Confronted with the practical need of an alternative approach to teaching writing
to low-level students at USSH in the context of time and syllabus constraints and
in light of the advantages of the genre approach informed in the literature, we
conducted this study to examine any possible effectiveness of adopting the
genre-based approach to teaching writing on students’ writing performance
(research question 1) and attitudes (research question 2).

In order to investigate the effects of this approach on students’ writing

performance, the researcher employed a quasi-experimental design with one
control group (30 students) taught in the tradition approach and one
experimental group (30 students) taught in the genre-based approach in 10
weeks. Then, the researcher measured the writing performance of students
through a pre-test and a post-test and their attitudes towards writing through an
attitude pre-scale and an attitude post-scale. Results of these tests and scales
were compared using T-test formula to test any effectiveness of this approach.

The study has briefly presented two major findings. First, there is effectiveness
of using the genre-based approach in improving non-English majored students’
writing performance at USSH. Students who were taught in the genre-based
approach had better writing quality and especially met the requirements of
Content, Communicative Achievement and Organisation. Students also
benefited the most from this approach in their organisational patterns, and
benefited the least from this approach in their command of Language. Second,
there is effectiveness of using the genre-based approach in promoting students’
positive attitudes towards writing at USSH. This approach helped to develop
more positive attitudes towards writing among students who were trained in the
genre-based approach. They became more confident in their writing, more
interested in writing and less hesitant to writing activities.

69
2. Implications of the study
This experimental study confirms the effectiveness of the genre-based
instruction in developing not only students’ writing performance but also their
positive attitudes toward writing. From these findings, it is apparent that students
need to be explicitly taught the structures for different genres. If rhetorical
patterns are taught with caution and flexibility, EFL students can benefit a lot
and learn faster for the reason that the approach eases a burden by breaking a
text down into functional units.

Although the focus of the genre-based approach is on social purposes and

generic structures of texts, students still need adequate support in using
grammatical structures and vocabulary. They need to practice and revise their
writings and the need for extensive feedback cannot be underestimated.

Teaching genres is very important in preparing learners for the world at

large, as it allows them to understand different social discourses and gains them
access into communities using these discourses. The roles of teaching materials
are significant in raising students’ interests and get them to connect what they
write with their own life. The models should be, therefore, suitable to students’
levels and interests.

For practical and economical reasons, holistic (one item evaluation)

assessment can be used, but to avoid risky idiosyncratic ratings, analytic
assessment (with several evaluation items) is strongly recommended. The
decision of employing only the holistic scoring in evaluating students’ writing
performance might not be sensible when there existed clear evidence of
distinctions in scores of the same student’s writing.

This study suggests that it is very risky for one classroom teacher to judge
students using a holistic rating system. The more ratings a person receives, the
higher the rating precision, though one obvious condition is that construct and

70
content validity must come before statistical reliability. Otherwise, we do not
know what the test is measuring.

An integrated approach to teaching and learning writing, like the

combination of both process and genre approaches may be effective and should
be incorporated into other aspects of learning at university. As it is shown in the
finding of this study, both the control and the experimental groups showed
improvement in their writing performance although the targeted approach was
genre-based approach applied to only the experimental group. There should not
be only one dominant approach to teaching and learning writing. Instead, there
had better be integrations of various approaches to magnify effectiveness of each
approach and enhance students’ writing ability at most.

3. Limitations of the study

With regard to the experimental research on studying effects of genre
instruction on learner’s writing performance in larger samples group sizes may
have enabled greater certainty with regard to conclusions drawn, as well as
leading to additional conclusions.

Also, the fact that model texts were selected and ordered by the researcher
may also be seen as a weakness; however, it is considered that the compilation
of such models by the researcher was a necessity within the teaching context,
and that even if there were perceived to be flaws in the model texts, this would
not undermine the fundamental conclusions drawn.

Because this study has a nature of an experiment, the limited control of

extraneous factors like age, students’ background knowledge, student
motivation, and so on could lead to distorted results. Therefore, it is necessary to
be cautious to apply the findings into practice contexts because the nature of
classrooms is more complicated than that of a “laboratory”- condition.

71
 This study has never assumed a conclusive role, nor does it put pressure
on practitioners because the need for further exploration still remains the crucial
question.

4. Recommendations for further research

Firstly, further studies should investigate the effectiveness of using genre-
based approaches on learners’ writing performance by employing other research
methods which might involve in longer time and qualitative data or both
quantitative and qualitative data to reach more comprehensible outcomes. Also,
the other factors that might affect students’ writing development under the
application of genre-based approaches such as age, gender, learning styles,
motivation, or washback effect should be examined to find out any causal
relationship between these factors and their writing development.

Secondly, perhaps this study should be extended to include other

interesting aspects of genre approach to teaching and learning other types of
genre as I have mentioned earlier. The other types of genre, rather than recount,
should be taught and evaluated for their effectiveness on learners’ writing
improvement. By this way, a more radical conclusion could be drawn about the
extent of effectiveness of genre approaches.

Thirdly, the other studies employing the same research method should be
done on a much larger scale to obtain more general findings. Also, perhaps
various methods of teaching should be explored, in comparison to this approach,
to discover whether it is more effective to teach recount essays from another
angle.

Perhaps possible research questions of the other research should be:

• To what extent are learners able to write a recount effectively as

measured by different writing parameters?

72
 • What are effective methods to teach learners to write personal recount,
historical recount and imaginative recount?

• What is the effectiveness of using the process-genre based approach to

teaching recounts to students at university?

73
 REFERENCES
In English

1. Alidoost Y. et al (2014). A genre-based teaching approach to academic

writing: Describing visually presented information in graphs and charts,
International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics
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2. Atkinson, D. (2003). Writing and culture in the post-process era. Journal

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80
 APPENDIX 1
PRE-TEST/ POST-TEST
Time allotted: 40 minutes

Student’s name: ………………………....

Date : …………………………

Your English teacher has asked you to write a story in about 120-150 words.

You story must begin with this sentence:

I felt nervous when the phone rang.

Write a story in the space below.

..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................
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..........................................................................................................................................
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..........................................................................................................................................

I
 APPENDIX 2
ANALYTICAL SCORING ASSESSMENT
(Adapted from Cambridge English Preliminary Handbook, 2013)
Content
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5
Irrelevances and Irrelevances and Minor Almost all All content is
misinterpretation misinterpretation irrelevances may content is fully relevant to
of task may be of task may be be present. relevant to the the task.
present. present. task.
Target reader is Target reader is
Target reader is Target reader is on the whole Target reader is fuller informed
not informed minimally informed. adequately
informed informed
Communicative Achievement
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5
The text The text The conventions The The text uses the
communicates communicates of the conventions of conventions of
simple ideas in simple ideas in communicative the the
simple ways. simple ways. task are in communicative communicative
generally task are in task to hold the
Reader find it Readers need an appropriate ways generally target reader’s
hard to effort understand to communicate appropriate attention and
understand; and enjoy straightforward ways to communicate
readers can not ideas. communicate straightforward
enjoy reading Readers find it straightforward ideas.
quite easy to ideas.
understand Readers find it
mostly Readers totally easy and
generally find it enjoyable
easy and
enjoyable
Organisation
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5
There is a lack of There is little or Some lacks of Ideas are Text is highly
organization so no attempts at organization- generally well organized with
severe that connectivity rereading organized. The clear
communication though reader required for links could progression of
is seriously deduces some clarification occasionally be ideas.
impaired. organization. The ideas. clearer but
individual ideas communication Text is coherent,
may be clear but Text is not impaired. using a variety
Text is very difficult to connected and of linking words
connected using deduce coherent, using Text is and cohesive
basic, high- connections basic linking coherent, using devices.
frequency between them. words and a a variety of

II
 linking words. limited number linking words
Text is connected of cohesive and cohesive
using basic, high- devices. devices.
frequency linking
words.
Language
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5
Uses basic Uses basic Uses everyday Use a range of Use a range of
vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary everyday both everyday
reasonably appropriately. generally vocabulary vocabularies
appropriately. appropriately, appropriately, appropriately
while with occasional and appropriate
Uses simple Uses simple occasionally inappropriate use of some less
grammatical grammatical overusing certain use of less common lexis.
forms with some forms with a lexis. common lexis.
degree of fairly good degree Use a range of
control. of control. Uses simple Use a range of simple and
grammatical simple and complex
Errors may forms with a some complex grammatical
impede meaning While errors are good degree of grammatical forms with a
at times. noticeable, control. forms with a good degree of
meaning can still good degree of control.
be determined While errors are control.
noticeable, Errors are nearly
meaning can still Errors do not free
be determined. impede
communication.

III
 APPENDIX 3
STUDENT’S WRITING ATTITUDE PRE-SCALE/ POST-SCALE

Student’s name: Class: Date:

In this scale, you find statements about writing. The scale aims at finding out your attitude
towards writing.
Please check () the statements that best fit your opinion.
There is no right or wrong answer. Please answer as candidly as possible.

Strongly Strongly
Statements Agree Undecided Disagree
agree disagree

1. I like writing.
2. I hate writing.
3. Writing is fun.
4. Writing is boring.
5. I think writing is easy.
6. I think writing is difficult.
7. I like talking about writing with my friends.
8. Writing is important to my future career
9. I wish I had more time to write at college.
10. I want to write better.
11. I look forward to writing down my own ideas.
12. Writing is a very important way for me to
express my feelings.
13. Learning the process of writing is complex.
14. When I have something to express, I'd rather
write it than say it.
15. When the teacher says it is writing time, I feel
nervous.
16. Working with writing activities makes me feel
important.
17. I feel happy when I present my writing before
my classmates.
18. I don't like my writing to be evaluated.
19. I have no fear of my writing being scored and
commented on.
20. Using a model in writing is a waste of time.
21. I reread and rewrite what I have written
willingly.
22. Using process writing wastes a lot of time.
23. I consider the purpose and the audience for my
piece of writing.
24. I like to participate in class activities about
writing.
25. Expressing my ideas through writing seems to
be a waste of time.

IV
26. Awareness of relationship between readers and
writers is important because it helps us use
appropriate language.
27. I cannot think of ideas rapidly when given a
topic to write.
28. I tend to repeat the same words over and over
again.
29. I am not confident to use a range of vocabulary
in my writing.
30. I can use transition words and connectors to
make my writing better.
31. I can write an interesting and appropriate
response to a given topic.
32. I can make long and complex sentences.
33. I can use an appropriate style to every writing
task.
34. I can edit my writing for mistakes such as
punctuation and spelling.
35. I can produce error free structures
36. I can finish my writing within the time limit.
37. Readers like what I write.
38. I think I am a good writer.

Thank you very much!

V
 PHIẾU ĐÁNH GIÁ THÁI ĐỘ HỌC VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN

Họ tên: Lớp: Ngày:

Trong thang đánh giá này, các bạn thấy những quan điểm về việc học viết. Mục đích của thang
đánh giá này nhằm tìm hiểu thái độ của bạn về việc học viết. Hãy tích () quan điểm phù hợp
nhất với thái độ của bạn. Không có câu trả lời đúng hay sai. Bạn hãy trả lời càng chân thực
càng tốt.

Hoàn
Hoàn
Không Không toàn
Quan điểm toàn Đồng ý
chắc chắn đồng ý không
đồng ý
đồng ý
1. Tôi thích viết.
2. Tôi ghét viết.
3. Viết thật là thú vị.
4. Viết thật buồn chán.
5. Tôi nghĩ viết thì dễ..
6. Tôi nghĩ viết thì khó.
7. Tôi thích nói chuyện về hoạt đông viết với bạn bè.
8. Viết thì quan trọng đối với sự nghiệp của tôi trong
tương lai.
9. Tôi ước có nhiều thời gian viết hơn ở trường đại
học.
10. Tôi muốn viết tốt hơn.
11. Tôi mong viết ra những ý kiến của mình.
12. Viết là một cách rất quan trọng để thể hiện cảm
xúc.
13. Học viết theo quá trình thật phức tạp.
14. Khi tôi muốn diễn đạt điều gì đó, tôi thích viết nó
ra hơn là nói nó ra.
15. Khi giáo viên nói đến giờ viết, tôi cảm thấy lo
lắng.
16. Làm việc với các hoạt động viết khiến tôi thấy
mình quan trọng.
17. Tôi thấy vui khi trình bày bài viết của mình trước
lớp.
18. Tôi không muốn bài viết của tôi bị đánh giá.
19. Tôi không sợ bài viết của mình bị chấm điểm và
nhận xét.
20. Sử dụng bài mẫu trong học viết thật là lãng phí
thời gian.
21. Tôi sẵn sàng đọc lại và viết lại những gì đã viết.
22. Sử dụng cách viết theo quá trình lãng phí nhiều
thời gian.
23. Tôi cân nhắc mục đích bài viết và người đọc bài
viết của tôi
24. Tôi thích tham gia các hoạt động viết ở lớp.

VI
25. Thể hiện ý tưởng thông qua viết dường như lãng
phí thời gian.
26. Nhận thức về mối quan hệ giữa người đọc và
người viết là quan trọng vì nó giúp chúng ta sử
dụng ngôn ngữ phù hợp.
27. Tôi không thể nghĩ ra ý tưởng nhanh chóng khi
được giao một đề viết.
28. Tôi có xu hướng nhắc lại từ nhiều lần trong bài
viết.
29. Tôi không tự tin sử dụng từ vựng đa dạng trong
bài viết.
30. Tôi có thể sử dụng từ chuyển tiếp và từ nối để
làm cho bài viết tốt hơn.
31. Tôi có thể viết phản hồi phù hợp và thú vị cho
chủ đề được đưa ra.
32. Tôi có thể viết câu dài và phức.
33. Tôi có thể sử dụng phong cách viết phù hợp với
mọi nhiệm vụ viết.
34. Tôi có thể tự sửa lỗi sai như lỗi dấu câu và lỗi
chính tả trong bài viết.
35. Tôi có thể viết những cấu trúc không hề có lỗi.
36. Tôi có thể hoàn thành bài viết trong giới hạn thời
gian.
37. Người đọc thích những gì tôi viết.
38. Tôi nghĩ tôi là một người viết tốt.

Xin cảm ơn các bạn!

VII
 APPENDIX 4
STUDENT SELF-ASSESSMENT FOR RECOUNT WRITING

Please tick () what you have done in your recount writing.
Purpose:
❏ My writing tells the reader about an event.
Structure:
❏ I have written an orientation that gives information about who, when and where.
❏ I have described the events in order.
❏ I have written a personal evaluation about the events throughout the recount.
❏ I have reoriented or rounded off the sequence of events.
Grammar:
❏ I have used adjectives or describing words to build noun groups to explain details.
❏ I have used time connectives to put the steps in order.
❏ I have used the past tense.
❏ I have used pronouns to refer to people and places.
❏ I have used evaluative language.
Writing Features:
❏ I have planned my writing.
❏ I have used paragraphs correctly.
❏ I have used correct sentences.
❏ The subjects and verbs agree.
❏ I have used plurals and articles correctly.
❏ I have used capital letters, full stops and other punctuation markers correctly.
❏ I have checked my spelling and corrected any mistakes.
❏ I have re-read my work to edit it carefully.

VIII
 BẢN TỰ ĐÁNH GIÁ BÀI VIẾT TƯỜNG THUẬT – KỂ CHUYỆN

Hãy tích () vào những mục bạn đã làm được trong bài viết.
Mục đích:
❏ Bài viết của tôi kể cho người đọc về 1 sự kiện.
Cấu trúc:
❏ Tôi đã viết phần định hướng – phần mở đầu cho biết thông tin về ai, khi nào, ở đâu.
❏ Tôi đã miêu tả các sự kiện theo trình tự.
❏ Tôi đã viết đánh giá cá nhân về sự kiện xuyên suốt bài viết.
❏ Tôi đã kết thúc câu chuyện hoặc làm cho các sự kiện vừa với câu chuyện.
Ngữ pháp:
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng tính từ hoặc cụm danh từ để miêu tả chi tiết.
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng từ nối chỉ thời gian để sắp xếp các sự kiện theo trình tự.
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng thì quá khứ.
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng đại từ để đề cập đến người và nơi chốn.
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng ngôn ngữ đánh giá.
Đặc điểm bài viết:
❏ Tôi đã lên kế hoạch bài viết.
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng đoạn văn đúng.
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng đúng cấu trúc câu.
❏ Chủ ngữ tương hòa với động từ.
❏ Tôi đã sử dụng đúng danh từ số nhiều và mạo từ
❏ Tôi đã viết hoa, sử dụng dấu chấm câu và các dấu câu khác đúng đắn.
❏ Tôi đã kiểm tra chính tả và sửa lỗi.
❏ Tôi đã đọc lại bài viết để sửa lại bài cẩn thận.

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 APPENDIX 5
SAMPLE GENRE-BASED LESSON
Source: Write Ways: Modelling Writing Forms (Wing Jan, 2001, pp. 99–101)
TEXT MODEL
A visit to our grandparents
On the weekend, my family visited my grandparents who live on a large farm about 200
kilometres from our place in the city. We visited them because they cannot leave the farm
very often to come to the city to see us.
When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, Grandfather made us a cup of Ovaltine and
Grandmother gave us a dessert she had just made. It was really delicious. While Mum and
Dad sat on the porch and drank their coffee and talked to my grandparents, my brother and
I unpacked our bags and spent some time exploring the farm and the rice field.
Just before sunset, Grandfather rounded up the cows and let us feed them a bunch of grass.
We watched them swallow their food. They did not eat much of the grass we gave them.
Grandfather told us that they all were full since they had eaten a lot of grass in the foothills
during the daytime. Then we helped Grandfather get the cows into their pen and watched
them take a rest.
After dinner, our grandparents told us about what they used to do when they were our age.
They showed us photos of Mum when she was little and before we went to bed, they told
us bedtime stories which they used to tell when Mum was a child. We loved the way they
told those stories. Our grandparents were really funny when they told the stories.
On Sunday morning we got up early and helped with feeding the cows. After doing that,
we helped our grandparents do housework and prepare breakfast. We really enjoyed doing
these things because we always help our parents with housework when we are home. Our
grandparents were happy with our help.
We left the farm at about 2.30 in the afternoon after we had eaten lunch and helped with
the dishes. Before we left, we promised to visit our grandparents during the next school
holidays. We promised to stay longer.
During the drive back home, my brother fell asleep in the car because he had done so much
on the farm. I told Mum and Dad about all the other things I had done on the farm. Firstly I
told them about feeding the calves and then I told them about helping Grandfather to fix
the cows’ pen. It was worth experiencing and I had never done that before.

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On arrival at our house, we woke up my brother. Then we all carried our bags inside and
rang our grandparents to let them know that we had arrived home safely. I really enjoyed
the trip to the farm. It was a great weekend.

Procedure
PHASE 1: Building Knowledge of Field
1. Teacher asks students about what they did last week. Have students talk in pairs about
their past experiences to their partners. Ask some students to report to the class on what
their partners have done during the past week.
2. Teacher elicits students’ ideas about where they can find a person’s story or recount,
and what form of writing it is (personal letter, email, autobiography, diary, personal essay)
3. Teacher concludes that each form of writing is called a “genre,” and the type of text
talking about a person’s story is called “Recount.” The class discusses the purpose of
recount.
4. Teacher hands out the model text and a blank piece of paper. Ask students to read the
text and then draw a flowchart describing important settings and the sequence of events in
the text.
5. Teacher asks the class to check their flowcharts and discuss the story together.
6. Teacher provides the class with exercises dealing with grammar points such as past
tense, connectives, active and passive voice, conjunctions and reported speech
PHASE 2: Modeling the text
7. Teacher presents other model texts to students.
8. Teacher ask students to compare the texts and figure out the common structure of the
texts.
9. Teacher asks students what language features can be drawn from those texts.
10. Teacher concludes with the whole class on the generic structure and language features
of Recount texts.
11. Teacher gives a new model text, and students analyse the text together by trying to
answer the following questions:
-What is the text about?
-Who is the speaker of the text?
-Why did the writer write the text?
-How did the writer feel?
-Who is the audience?

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-How many paragraphs does the text have?
-What is the main idea of the first paragraph?
-What is the similarity of the first paragraph to the last paragraph?
-What is the main idea in each of the remaining paragraphs?
-What is the first paragraph called?
-What is the last paragraph called?
-What are the rest of the paragraphs called?
-What tense is mostly used in the whole text?
-What other language features can be found in this kind of text?
-What is the overall structure of the text?
12. Teacher provides a few more model texts and encourage students to analyse them.
Teacher has students work in pairs or groups to try to answer the questions from the
previous activity; then has them present the findings to the whole class.
PHASE 3: Joint Construction
13. Teacher jointly composes a piece of Recount together with the class. Teacher elicits
ideas from students about imaginary events and the purpose of the writing. Start to write,
acting as a scribe or facilitator. Teacher asks students to contribute to the text.
14. While constructing the text, Teacher gives advice about the generic structure and
language features to which students should pay much attention. Teacher explicitly raises
grammar points and vocabulary during this class activity.
PHASE 4: Independent Construction
15. Teacher asks students to think about what they are going to write on their own.
Teacher has students start planning and writing independently. Students should start with
outlining what they are going to write about according to the generic structure of Recount;
that is, orientation, events and re-orientation. Teacher reminds students to use various types
of the language features of Recount.
16. In the meantime, Teacher pays attention to students in case they have any difficulties or
questions about their writing. Teacher consults with students individually about their
writing.
18. Teacher asks students to revise and edit their first drafts of writing with use of the
recount writing self-assessment. Teacher lets students share their writing with their peers
and re-edit before writing the second draft.
19. Teacher has a conference with students for them to share problems or concerns; give
comments on student writing.
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20. Teacher asks students to hand in their work individually and then gives feedback
based on the Assessment of recount writing
21. Teacher has students improve their writing by using the teacher comments and submit
the final draft.

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 APPENDIX 6
SAMPLE PRE-TEST WRITINGS
Sample 1:

Mark: 11/20
Content: 3
Organisation: 2
Communicative Achievement: 3
Language: 3

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 SAMPLE PRE-TEST WRITINGS
Sample 2:

Mark: 09/20
Content: 2
Organisation: 2
Communicative Achievement: 3
Language: 2

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 SAMPLE POST-TEST WRITINGS
Sample 1 (Experimental group)

Mark: 15/20
Content: 4
Organisation: 4
Communicative Achievement: 4
Language: 3

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 SAMPLE POST-TEST WRITINGS
Sample 2 (control group)

Mark: 12/20
Content: 3
Organisation: 3
Communicative Achievement: 3
Language: 3

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