Building Knowledge of the field Modelling of the Text

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6. Stages in Genre-based Approach

Hyland 2003: 21 mentions that the learning cycle in genre-based approach includes five stages. They are building knowledge of the field, modelling of the text, joint construction of the text, independent construction of text and linking related text. Teacher may enter from any stage. If the text being learned is new for students it will be appropriate to start from building knowledge of the field. However, when the students are already familiar to the text, the teacher may start from modelling of the text. It is also possible to go back to the previous stage if it is necessary. Feez and Joyce 1998: 28-31 describe each stage as follow.

a. Building Knowledge of the field

The first stage is building knowledge of the field. The main idea of this stage is to equip the students with knowledge and vocabulary related to the topic being taught. These can be done by asking some leading questions or by engaging students in a brainstorming activity which activate their background knowledge. Both activities encourage the students to think about what they have already know and help them to discover new information related to the field. In activating students’ background knowledge, the teacher should reinforce the students to share something about the topic so that the students can actively participate in writing classroom. 18

b. Modelling of the Text

This stage focuses on introducing particular genre through a model of text which the field has been explored in the previous stage. At this stage, the teacher encourages the students to analyze the text type, the text structure and the language features. Butt et al. 2006: 9 and Hyland 2003: 20 say that, generally, text types can be categorized into: Genre Social Function Recount To tell what happened, to document a sequence of events and evaluate their significance in some ways. Procedure To tell how to do something Description To give an account of imagined or factual events and phenomena Report To present information about something Explanation To tell how and why things occurs. Those text types can be found in letters, articles, magazines, newspapers, novels, songs, advertisements, menus, manuals, etc. In the classroom, the teacher provides a sample text. To help the students investigate the text, the teacher gives certain outlining and explanations. Then, the teacher asks some questions like, what is the text about? What is the purpose of the text? Where can you find such a text? After that, the teacher asks the students to investigate the generic structure of the text. This activity aims to inform the students with the text organization. They should be introduced to the organization of the text because they are going to write. Then, the teacher asks the students to look over the language features. The language features can be tenses, conjunctions and grammar. Finally, the students, together with the teacher, discuss the result of their investigation on the text. This discussion is to share what the students know about 19 text structure and the language features of the text. In the discussion, the teacher explains about the text features. In brief, this stage gives the students input on the purpose, the organization and the grammar of the text.

c. Joint Construction of the Text