Teaching Chinese College ESL Writing: A Genre-based Approach

Abstract

College students’ English writing plays a vital role in their language learning and further education. However, the current college English teaching falls far behind to resolve this issue, which includes insufficient writing ability compared with that of listening and speaking, inadequate teacher instruction and students exercise, negative transfer of cultural differences, and defect teaching materials and methods. To solve these problems, this paper attempts to introduce Sydney school’s genre-based pedagogy to be used in some areas, such as guiding textbook organization, classroom teaching, and teaching concepts. The study shows that genre-based approach has many advantages, such as integrating language learning and cultural knowledge, taking writing both as the process and as results, emphasizing learning interaction, and leading to a mutual promotion between reading and writing.