Genre-Based Instruction Technique for Teaching English Writing Skill

Since the implementation of 2004 up to nowadays curriculum, the pedagogy of English as a foreign language in Indonesia has been undertaken on the main basis of teaching reading and writing skill. It does not achieve up to 30 percent of teaching and learning materials which are oriented towards listening and speaking skill. What generates this curriculum design accounts for the primary source in the form of government regulation which accentuates that the language education including English pedagogy must be running on the route of maintaining reading and writing culture (Chapter III, Article 21, Point 2). The paradigm underlying this regulation leads to the material design of English language pedagogy in Indonesia dominated by mostly reading and writing materials. Those materials range into the extent of a variety of genres. As a consequence, the students need to cope with various kinds of English genres, and the teacher’s pedagogical competence in teaching English genres is expected to be sufficient. Concerning with this issue, the so-called genre-based instruction (hereafter as GBI) technique gains its popularity to be applied. This technique seems relevant to teaching reading and writing skill. This essay highlights the ideal application of GBI in teaching writing skill. According to Derewinka (1990), there are four phases of teaching writing through applying GBI technique. They encompass context exploration, text exploration, joint construction, and individual application.

Context exploration is the act of teaching where the teacher establishes an interaction with students vis-a-vis the context of genre which is learned. In this regard, the teacher asks students some questions to trigger their reasoning ability to detect any essential elements of the context. The interaction built up here really resembles one commonly stimulated in the pre-teaching of communicative language teaching (hereafter as CTL). The interaction is developed as naturally as possible to help students understand the function of the genre, when the learned genre is used, and other related factors or the components of context as required in comprehending the genre. To put it simply, the basic function of context exploration is to engage students in the process of comprehending general information pertinent to the context of a particular learned genre.

Concerning with text exploration, the teacher lets students learn the whole needed elements of text as relevant to the genre being learned. This activity implies the notion proposed by Vygotsky (1978) corresponding to the zone of proximal development (ZPD) specifically for the idea of object-regulation. Here, the text which is explored becomes the natural manifestation that students use to learn. The teacher also helps students with giving some required guides so that they can easily catch the learned points. In this sense, when the teacher makes an effort to provide students with some guidance, it implicitly depicts the act of others-regulation as postulated by Vygotsky (1978). The elements which are explored in the text cover both text organization and linguistic features with respect to the context of the learned genre. In this phase, the interaction which is established is different from CLT at which CLT promotes the stimulus of a natural language use in a real communication, but GBI develops interaction where students can cooperatively solve problems for the sake of being capable of producing a functional text conforming to the ideal social purposes. For the element of linguistic features, the classroom activities commonly vary in order to be more creative and meaningful. The activities can extend to doing grammatical exercises, filling the given gaps of a complete text, and other relevant activities which are essential.

In respect of joint construction, this activity is focused on cooperative learning which incorporates all students into creating a text on the basis of the learned genre along with the teacher’s help. This phase really works according to Vygotsky's (1978) notion regarding others-regulation. The interaction plays a blended role amid the students as well as between the teacher and students. Here, the learning activities may vary in which the teacher can sometimes guide students in front of the class, or at some point, the teacher can manage students to work in groups to write a text. While students are working in groups, the teacher can walk around the class to control alongside to give a hand in case some students face a number of obstacles. Cooperative learning and teacher’s control become the key essence of this phase.

The last, in individual application, the teacher instructs students to individually write a text based on the learned genre. This activity really fits the notion about self-regulation as theorized by Vygotsky (1978). In this activity, the learning process can be made as creative as possible to enrich students’ interest and motivation to capably work independently. The teacher can ask them to interview some people around their residence and then write a recount text (for instance) if the learned genre is oriented towards a recount text. Occasionally, the teacher can ask students to observe some public places and then individually write the description of those places if the material that is learned is a descriptive text. That the students are successful in producing a written text individually is the main expectation of GBI.

Anchored in the four stages of GBI technique as presented above, the application of GBI technique in teaching English writing skill is really beneficial to students. The four stages of GBI technique lead students to learn English writing skill based on the exact social and communicative purposes; GBI technique engages students in an authentic learning process of writing skill; and GBI technique promotes students to acquire critical thinking skill. This essay really encourages English teachers in Indonesia to apply GBI technique in their classroom especially for teaching writing skill.