Developing Genre Pedagogy to Enhance Chinese Students' Writing Ability in Liberal Studies

Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims at developing effective pedagogy to enhance students' writing ability in the subject of Liberal Studies (LS) which is one of the four compulsory subjects in the New Senior Secondary (NSS) Curriculum in Hong Kong since 2009. Method: Based on Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1994) and Genre theory (Martin, 1999), a research team led by the presenter previously identified major genres in the subject and their characteristic linguistic features that students are expected to master. Based on these research findings, the research team designed and conducted genre teaching in three schools to enhance Chinese students' writing skills in Liberal Studies. Results: This paper reports the strategies of the genre pedagogy and the outcomes of the genre based teaching through class observation, interview and students' text analysis. For teachers, genre teaching derived from genre analysis of the subject helps to make their teaching more explicit. For students, genre teaching provides opportunities to discuss in the class effective ways of expressing their subject knowledge. Conclusions: The finding confirmed that genre approach can enhance students' mastery of the patterns of discourse and their competence in expressing concepts in Liberal Studies. This finding throws light on issues related to teacher training and students' higher order thinking skills, which are essential components of the current education reform.