Genre-Based Approach and the 2004 English Curriculum**)Helena I. R. Agustien

Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES)

Introduction

The 2004 English curriculum is designed based on the government regulation stating that the level of achievement in every curriculum is stated in terms of competence (Chapter III, Article 8, Point 1); that the learning process is carried out by developing reading and writing culture; and that (Chapter III, Article 21, Point 2); that the competence for language subjects should emphasise the ability to read and write (Chapter III, Article 25, Point 3) suitable for the levels of education; and that the standards of competence for high schools are aimed at increasing / improving the learners’ intelligence, knowledge, personality, integrity, and life skills in order to live independently and to pursue further education (Chapter III, Article 26, point 2).

Explicit in the regulation is the government commitment to improve the nation’s literacy level because literacy is the key to learning any other subjects, and language education is supposed to deliver the big expectations. Implicit in the regulations is the expectation that language education, including English education, is expected to develop communicative competence or the ability to communicate in spoken or written language so that learners will possess the so called social skills.

Competence in the 2004 English Curriculum

The 2004 English curriculum is designed according to the government regulation in the sense that the curriculum has to be competence-based and that at the end of the day learners are expected to be able to communicate in English as one of their life skills and that they are expected to be able to handle written texts not only for pursuing further studies, but also for learning independently in order to be independent members of community. To translate these ideas into an English curriculum, we need to have a clear idea about what language competence is. The definition of language competence needs to be defined by examining the relevant theories.

The term “competence” has arrived in the international literature since Chomsky coined it in 1965. Since then, this notion has been used by different authors, some with the original sense as meant by Chomsky, and some others use the term in different sense according to their research or writing purposes. That is probably why Taylor (1988) says that the word “competence” has been widely used and abused. Therefore, when people use the term at all, it is important that the definition be provided so that the readers know exactly whether it is competence in Chomskyan sense (psycholinguistic tradition) or competence in pedagogical sense (socio-cultural). Taylor (1988) also suggests that Chomsky is mainly concerned with tacit knowledge, or “ready state”, or “attained state” and not with how that state is attained. Since pedagogy is about how to attain a particular state of language ability, a model of competence which is pedagogically motivated is used as the basis of developing the 2004 curriculum. That model is the one developed by Celce-Murcia et al. (1995).

Drawing on previous communicative competence models developed for language learning purposes, Clece-Murcia et al.’s model arrived with highly explicit and specific details covering what language learners need to attain if they want to develop communicative competence. Celce-Murcia et al.’s model suggests that the ultimate competence is communicative competence (CC) or discourse competence.

* A plenary paper presented at UPI national seminar, 27 February 2006.

To attain this competence, learners need the supporting competence including linguistic competence, actional competence, socio-cultural competence, and strategic competence. The details presented on the lists of “micro” competencies really help the users see what they need to develop when they want to develop learners” communicative competence. However, the most important, and probably the most challenging part, is how all those details contribute to the development of communicative competence or discourse competence.

Bringing discourse into the picture, teachers need to come to term with discourse. Discourse is something abstract that comes into being through texts. For example, we have been involved, in one way or another, in a discourse called Tsunami. How did the discourse emerge? How has it been sustained? Is it dying out? When the December tsunami attacked, people in the world talked and wrote about it. People tried to communicate to obtain news, to express condolences, to offer help and so on. These acts of communication are communicative events; the events that occurred with purposes; the events that happened in contexts.

These communicative events are realised in texts: spoken and written. Thousands of texts were produced, including ours, at the aftermath and these texts created a huge discourse. Thus, people participated in the tsunami discourse to solve problems and without the ability to create discourse, without communication, without texts, nothing can be done. It can be concluded that the ultimate goal of language education is to communicate, to participate in discourse, to develop life skills, to create texts. In other words, language education is responsible for creating a literate community where the members are able to participate in the day-to-day activities or social practices in modern societies (Hammond et al. 1992). This is the overarching concept or the philosophical level of language education.

At the “bottom” or practical level, language education is responsible for creating learners’ ability to create texts. A text is a semantic unit, a unit of language that makes sense. A conversation, talk or a piece of writing can be called a text only when it makes sense. When it does not make sense, it is not a text; it is not communication. Communication happens only when we make sensible texts. Therefore, if our main goal is to develop communicative competence or the ability to communicate, we need to develop a curriculum or a syllabus that is text-based. This kind of curriculum states explicitly what kinds of texts are targeted by certain level of schooling based on the learners’ communication needs. In this way, texts are not sporadically addressed; in this way we know which targets to “shoot out”; and in this way we create short-cuts necessary for adjusting the curriculum targets with the time allotment.

The types of text (genres) developed in the 2004 English curriculum include transactional conversations (to get something done), interpersonal conversations (to establish and maintain social relations), short functional texts (announcements, greeting cards etc.), monologues and essays of certain genres. In other words, these are the communicative competence to be developed. Along with the competence, the literacy levels are also determined based on the government regulation that senior high school graduates are supposed to be ready for handling the kinds of text they face at university level. In other words, they are supposed to be able to access accumulated knowledge typically obtained at higher learning institutions. For this reason, the text types determined for senior high school levels include: descriptive, report, news item, narrative, discussion, explanation, exposition, and review. The genres for junior high school level include: procedure, descriptive, recount, narrative, and report. Based on Well’s taxonomy (1987), the junior high school literacy level is the functional level, a level where the graduates are expected to use English junior high school survival purposes such as carrying out transactional exchanges, reading for fun, reading popular science or teenagers’ encyclopaedia, etc. Senior high school graduates are expected to achieve the informational level where they can carry out

Zone of Proximal Development

Independent Learning Zone

more extended and interpersonal conversations, and deal with texts to access knowledge at university level and self study.

Thus far, our discussion has clarified several issues: why the 2004 English curriculum is competence-based, what language / communicative competence is, why text is central in the curriculum, and what literacy levels are set for junior and senior high school levels. In the following section we are looking at how a text-based curriculum is implemented through a genre approach.

Text-Based Curriculum and Genre Approach

Feeze and Joyce (2002) indicate that “Approaching language learning from the perspective of texts requires an accompanying methodology which can enable the students the knowledge and skills to deal with spoken and written texts in social contexts” (Feeze and Joyce 2002:24). They also suggest that genre approach is the most effective methodology for implementing a text-based curriculum. There are three assumptions underlying this method. In Feeze and Joyce’s words:

First, learning language is a social activity, and is the outcome of collaboration between the teacher and the student and between the student and the other students in the group. Halliday (1992:19) describes language learning as “learning how to mean and to expand one’s meaning potential”. He proposes a language learning model with three outcomes: students learn language…, students learn through language…, language students learn about language. … this model of language learning shows that social interaction enables language students to develop: a resource for making meaning, a tool for interpreting and organising reality, knowledge about language.

Second, learning occurs more effectively if teachers are explicit about what is expected of students. … Many educators are proposing more principled approaches to teaching and learning based on a “visible pedagogy” (Bernstein 1990:73) which clearly identifies what is to be learned and what is to be assessed. … The genre approach is concerned with providing students with explicit knowledge about language.

Third, the process of learning is a series of scaffolded development developmental steps which address different aspects of language. The methodology applied within the genre approach is based on the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1934/1978) and the American educational psychologist Bruner (1986). … Vygotsky proposed that … each learner has two levels of development: a level of independent performance, and a level of potential performance. … The gap between these two levels Vygotsky called “the zone of proximal development” (ZPD) (Feeze and Joyce 2002: 25-26).

Vygotsky”s ZPD can be represented as in the following diagram.

Teacher Peer Intervention Intervention

Interactive Discourse

Diagram 1: Independent and potential learning zones (Corden 2000:9)

Obviously, Vygostsky suggests that the presence of more capable others in a child’s learning environments enables a child to be involved in cultural events at social level that eventually develop the child’s individual cultural identity. In the process, when children do tasks involving speech and hands, they combine language and thought that lead to their cognitive development. Vygotsky also provides us with a model of learning “which emphasizes the role of talk and places social discourse at the centre” (Corden 2000). Thus, while individual potential is acknowledged, this potential can only develop to its maximum capacity when a child undergo learning processes involving more knowledgeable others that create social interaction, negotiation, and shared learning. In classroom context, Corden (2000:8) suggests that “classroom learning can best be seen as an interaction between teacher’s meanings and those of the pupils, so what they take away is partly shared and partly unique to each of them”. This implies that classroom activities need to be carefully organised in order to provide learning experiences that trigger a child’s development as an individual and social being.

The three underlying assumptions regarding what language learning is and how learning languages can best take place materialise in the learning cycles and stages recommended by the 2004 English curriculum in which joint construction and scaffolding talk play important roles.

Hayland (2004) elaborates the advantages of genre based writing instruction that can be summarised as follows.

Genre teaching is:Explicit. Makes clear what is to be learned to facilitate the acquisition of writing skillsSystematic. Provides a coherent framework for focusing on both language and contextsNeeds-based. Ensures that course objectives and content are derived from students needsSupportive. Gives teacher a central role in scaffolding student learning and creativityEmpowering. Provides access to the patterns and possibilities of variation in valued textsCritical. Provides the resources for students to understand and challenge valued discoursesConsciousness raising. Increases teacher awareness of texts and confidently advise

students on their writing (Hayland 2004: 10-11)

Hayland’s appraisals towards genre-based approach can be understood when one examines the two cycles and four stages suggested by the 2004 English curriculum.

Two Cycles and Four Stages

To implement the 2004 English curriculum the two cycles and four stages recommended are represented in the following diagram:

Diagram 2: Cycles and Stages of Learning (Hammond et al. 1992:17)

In planning the lessons in foreign language education context, teachers need to go around the cycle twice. In the first cycle, they start from the first stage called Building Knowledge of the Field (BKOF) where teachers and students build cultural context, share experiences, discuss vocabulary, grammatical patterns and so on. All of these are geared around the types of spoken texts and topics they are going to deal with at the second stage.

The second stage is called Modelling of Text (MOT) where students listen to statements of short functional texts, conversations, and monologues that are geared around a certain communicative purpose. For example, if students are expected to produce procedural texts, then, the short functional texts, conversations, and the monologues are developed with one main communicative purpose, that is, giving instruction or direction. In short, at the second stage, students listen and respond to various texts with similar communicative purposes.

After listening, students enter the third stage called Joint Construction of Text (JCT). At this stage they try to develop spoken texts with their peers and with the help from the teachers. They can create different announcements, conversations on showing how to do things, monologues on how to make something and so on. They need to demonstrate their speaking ability and to show confidence to speak.

After having the experience of collaborating with friends, they enter stage four called Independent Construction of Text (ICT). At this stage, students are expected to be able to speak spontaneously or to carry our monologues that are aimed at giving directions or showing ways to do things such as how to make a kite, how to make a paper cap, and so on. Thus, the first cycle integrates the development of speaking and listening skills.

The second cycle is aimed at developing the ability to use written language. The teachers and students go through all the four stages, but in MOT students are exposed to written texts. Here students develop reading skills, followed by joint construction in writing texts, and finally they write texts independently. Like the strategies employed in the first cycle, activities in this cycle are also geared around the same communicative purpose. Students read short functional texts and procedural texts, and then they write texts similar to what they have read. In this way, the integration of the four skills is created by the communicative purpose(s) of texts. Students speak what they have heard, read what they have talked about, and write what they have read.

Feeze and Joyce (2002) also suggests a fifth stage that can be applied in foreign language contexts especially if there are bright students in the class or those who are “born writers” who are able to link related texts together. The pulling together different genres or texts to create a new larger text relates us to the concept of intertextuality which refers to “the web of texts against which each new text is placed or places itself, explicitly or implicitly” (Bazerman 1994:20). Knowledge on intertextuality can help students understand how genres change, developed and are transformed for new contexts and purposes (Hayland 2004:81). Citing Crowston and Williams, Hayland presents some facts that among “48 different internet genres, classifies by their purposes, from a random sample of 1,000 web pages,… 60 percent were directly reproduced from familiar paper formats and another 30 percent simply added technical changes. Therefore we can say that genre evolution does happen, but it happens slowly. This is the reason why this fifth stage is optional in foreign language and high school contexts. If the situation does permit, the learning stages can be extended to cover the fifth stage.

To carry out activities at all stages, teachers need to use various teaching techniques they have already learned, known and used. Those techniques are still needed and relevant to this approach. What needs to be remembered when teachers prepare their lessons is that every activity they design has to be aimed at providing learning experiences to use language and, thus, to achieve communicative competence. There are some literacy principles offered by the New London Group (Kern 2000) that can be used by in planning language classes. They are: interpretation, collaboration, convention, cultural knowledge, problem solving, reflection and self reflection, and language use (Kern 2000:16). Kern suggests that “These principles, although they are framed in terms of reading and writing, are not unique to literacy, but can be applied broadly to human communication in general” (Kern 2000:17). The implication is that when a teacher plans an activity, s/he needs to keep in mind that the activity needs to engage students in activities that involve as many of these principles as possible.

Teaching and Learning Model

A model designed to develop students’ competence in creating a ‘review’ text for senior high school is attached. This model integrates different elements discussed in this paper into a set of learning experiences organised in two cycles and four stages. Please see the attachment.

Good Luck!

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