English Language Teaching in its Social Context

GENRE-BASED APPROACHES TO WRITING 203Putting theory into practiceThe rest of this paper describes part of a lesson which focuses on the stage where the teachergave a presentation of a model and the learners followed up with joint construction of asimilar text. At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher and learners again discussed a modeljob-application letter which had been presented to them the previous day:Text 1: Model job application letter11 Cotten AvenueKensingtonNSW 20337th December 1989The Personnel OfficerElfex LtdHigh StreetNorth KydeNSW 2113Dear Sir or MadamHe: Receptionist’s JobI am writing for the job of receptionist advertised in The Sydney Morning Heraldtoday.I have worked as a receptionist for three years in a dentist’s consultancy and I amvery experienced in answering the telephone, writing letters and preparing accounts.I am 20 years old and I have my Higher School Certificate. I speak and write fluentEnglish and Greek and consider myself a most suitable candidate for the job.I have enclosed a reference from my last job. Please contact me a t home on 3702915 any time in the evening.Yours sincerely(5 ig natu re)The teacher’s aim was to help the learners develop a metalanguage to describc theschematic structure of this text, which would assist them during the joint constructionactivity which was to follow.The following extract from the classroom illustrates how thiswas done:Classroom transcript 1T: All right, have a look at thc letter we wrote together yesterday. In fact I’m going toread it to you so that we can recall what we did. At the top right hand corner we putthe. . .?LL: Address . . . address. . . date.T: Address . . . OK and date.Then on the left underneath we put . . .?L: Who. . . and address.