Genre-Based Approach and the 2004 English Curriculum*1)

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

1
A plenary paper presented at UPI national seminar, 27 February 2006.
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. 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 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.

 Zone of Proximal
Development

Independen
t
Teacher Learning Peer
Zone 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 skills
Systematic. Provides a coherent framework for focusing on both
language and contexts
Needs-based. Ensures that course objectives and content are
derived from students needs
Supportive. Gives teacher a central role in scaffolding student
learning and creativity
Empowering. Provides access to the patterns and possibilities of
variation in valued texts
Critical. Provides the resources for students to understand and
challenge valued discourses
Consciousness 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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