Genre-based Writing Instruction: Implications in ESP Classroom

M. Mojibur Rahman

Associate Professor

Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences

Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad-826004

ABSTRACT

In the ESP tradition, genre is often defined as “structured communicative events engaged in by specific discourse communities whose members share broad communicative purposes.” ESP genre research has generated numerous descriptions and explanations of discipline-specific genre exemplars and has produced various pedagogical proposals. However, what learners learn from these genre descriptions and the resulting pedagogical proposals and how they develop as learners and writers of genres in ESP genre-based writing pedagogy is still a less-developed area of research.

This paper calls for more learner-focused research that examines learners’ learning of genre and their development of generic/rhetorical consciousness. It calls for more principled investigations into not only the process of learning in which learners develop strategies and cultural tools that enable them to develop generic awareness and discipline-specific writing, but also the contexts of learning in ESP genre-oriented writing pedagogy.

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