Enhancing students writing skills through the genre approach

Abstract

In Ethiopia, the role English language plays in education and industries is indubitable although the language is considered largely as a foreign language. Paradoxically, studies indicate that the English language proficiency of Ethiopian students is plummeting. This article reports on a study conducted to examine the extent to which EFL students who majored in English at Bahir Dar University improved their argumentative essay writing skills as they were exposed to a genre based writing practice with their writing teacher. The results revealed out that throughout their learning, even after their exposure to genre based argumentative essay drafting, students had serious problems of critiquing or rebutting opposition views and coming up with stronger refutations. However, they were able to show progress in terms of identifying the lexico-grammatical features and overall rhetorical (genre) structure of argumentative essays. The participants’ reaction toward the approach was positive. The paired- samples t-test also indicated that the students’ argumentative texts written during the post-intervention phase showed significant improvements compared to the pre-intervention drafts. It was generally understood that given a learning passage through a genre based approach in writing, students could take control over the linguistic features of text types with particular communicative purposes, and develop their writing skills at ease. The article suggests implications for teaching of writing in EFL contexts. It has also called for the employment of the genre approach in EFL writing classroom contexts. Key words: Genre, genre-based writing, essay, rhetoric, argumentation, EFL (English as a Foreign Language).

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