#2890

College and University Educators College and University Education Practice-Oriented Short Workshop

The genre and discovery learning approach to teaching and assessing writing

Sat, Jul 9, 13:30-13:55 Asia/Tokyo

Location: E22

The process approach (Taylor, 1981; Zamel, 1982; Raimes, 1983) is the most commonly used approach to teaching writing. Since the approach covers from brainstorming to composing, it allows teachers to participate and give feedback in the writing process as a reader, before switching back to their role as a grader. However, it is debatable how much it benefits students, as it lacks focus on a particular skill (content, organization and coherence, language, or writing style). This is notably valid with upper-intermediate or higher proficiency English learners, who tend to be weaker in just one or two aspects, but not all. This workshop will focus on applying the genre approach (Hyland, 2002) with application of the discovery learning method and collaborative writing, to the existing process approach. By minimizing lecturing (where students discover the conventions and linguistic features with the teacher’s guidance) and maximizing peer learning (with more scaffolding than the process approach), students write as a group, receive instant feedback in a class, and eventually work individually. It is an approach addressing all skills step-by-step when teaching half/ one term with blended learning. Lesson plans and sample teaching materials will be provided as examples.

  • Louisa Poon

    Louisa has been teaching EAP and academic writing in several universities and colleges in Hong Kong and Tokyo. She has come to Japan in 2019 and is currently teaching in an international high school. Her research interest includes: English Language Teaching, Semantics and Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, Systemic Functional Grammar and World Englishes.