English Language Teaching in its Social Context

GENRE-BASED APPROACHES TO WRITING 201drawn on this work as well as on work done by the Sydncy Metropolitan East DisadvantagedSchools Program (Callaghan and Rothery 1988).The NCELTR Literacy Project: a genre-based approachAs one of the teachers involved in the Project, I was particularly interested in investigatinghow gcnre-based approaches could be applicd to adult second-language learners at the earlystages of learning. Typically in beginning ESL classes, reading and writing are consigned tosecond place and the focus is on the development of speaking and listening. In addition,assumptions are frequently made that bcginning learners are unable or not rcady to copewith the development of reading and writing in English, even though there is a frequentreliance on written materials to support spoken language development.Teachei-s sometimesmaintain that learners do not have well-developed skills in first-language literacy andthcrefore it will be difficult to provide instruction in a second language where oral skills arealmost non-existent also. This may be true, but many beginning learners do have welldevelopedlitcracy skills in first language and those who do not will generally wish to acquirethem in English.I would argue that these beliefs prevent learners from gaining access to opportunitiesto develop their literacy skills in second language and from understanding and respondingto the written texts which will be of value to them in furthering their learning and inextending their ability to cope with a range of tasks common in the wider community, manyof which depend on the ability to read and writc.In the schools context the range of genres dealt with in the classroom is fairly rcstrictcd,as they will be those which are pedagogical in their purpose and powerful withn the contextof the school curriculum. In the adult context the choice is more open-ended, as texts willbe drawn from a larger number of social, vocational and work-related genres. At present,teachers working with beginning adult ESL learners have few guidelines to direct them toappropriate texts. This has meant that teachers involved in the NCELTR Literacy Projecthave, to a certain extent, become classroom researchers trying out a variety of genres basedon needs expressed by their learners, to discover which are appropriate and relevant atdifferent stages of learning.Beginning learners and a genre-based approachWithin the group of Literacy Project participants was one teacher who was workmg on aclass for beginning learners. Because part of the participants’ involvement in the projectwas the recording of classroom interaction and the documenting of any written texts used,she agreed that I would work collaboratively with her, collecting and recording the classroomdata as she taught thc class. The 19 lcarncrs were all within their first year of settlement aspermanent immigrants to Australia and had all been rated as less than 1 .O on a seven-pointoral rating scalc (AMES, Speaking Proficiency Descriptions, Brindlcy 1979) .Twelve of themhad completed high school and, of these, six had some post-high school education. Of theothers, two had primary school education only, while six had received varying levels of highschool education. They came from a wide variety of first-language backgrounds, some ofwhich used non-Roman script.One of the genres identified as important by the learners, in consultation with theteacher, was job applications, and the writing of a lettcr of application was used by the