Application of genre pedagogy in Chinese second language teaching and learning of practical writing

Abstract

Practical text or practical writing is the genre which carries messages to exchange information between sender and receiver. It's important to learn how to interpret various information received in daily life and to respond appropriately for the social interaction purpose. And second language learners not only need to understand the concept of different genre, but also need to possess the knowledge about context and linguistic features of various texts to communicate well with others. Therefore this paper analyzes the practical writing of 20 CSL (Chinese as a second language) students and concludes their performance is generally weak especially in terms of stages, tenor, mode, ideation, appraisal, conjunction, and reference. Based on the analysis of CSL students' authentic materials, this paper further applies the 「Reading to Learn, Learning to Write」pedagogy to design the teaching of practical writing with the concepts of genre, context, and language. Developed from the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistic, Reading to Learn pedagogy has been recognized as one of the most effective and well-designed genre study from theoretical and pedagogical aspects. The significance of this paper is to understand the performance and learning needs of CSL students, and to develop effective teaching design which can help to enhance the teaching and learning of Chinese practical writing.

在常用文類的教學中，二語學生需要學習如何理解並回應各種溝通管道的信息，以滿足生活中的社交需求，達到語言的溝通目標。實用文是一種常用的交換信息文類，因此是二語教學的重要文類。二語學習者除了掌握文類結構的概念，更需要對於不同情境下適用的內容及語言形式有所了解，以便準確、恰當地溝通或分享信息，而這些學習需求與交際目的及語境等因素是息息相關的。因此本文從系統功能語言學（Halliday 1994）的角度分析20 位中文第二語言學習者所寫的建議書，發現其中表現較弱的部分包括文步、語旨、語式、詞彙、情態、連接、指稱等等。此外也進一步通過「閱讀促進寫作」（Reading to Learn, Learning to Write）文類教學法進行教學設計，以針對中文二語的實用文寫作弱項，提出具體的建議與改善方法。「閱讀促進寫作」教學法結合系統功能語言學與支架教學的概念，形成從閱讀到寫作的完整教學設計。一方面，系統功能語言學提供了關於語言、文類、語境的系統性知識，有助於學習者掌握不同文類的結構與語言特點並應用於寫作；另一方面，此教學法在近年來經過不斷的實踐與完善，已證實能有效地提升學生的語文能力。相較於一般常見從內容、結構、語言等層面的寫作分析，本研究從系統功能語言學的角度，進一步細化寫作評量的標準與層面，從學習者寫作的真實語料分析其弱項，並採取具體的教學策略，使教學設計能有針對性地符合學生的學習需求。