Genre-based writing pedagogies place particularly high demands on teachers, requiring explicit knowledge and the flexibility to learn new genres for teaching purposes. This study examines the effect of a project in which EAP teachers analyzed, wrote, and designed materials to teach an unfamiliar genre on their developing knowledge.
One reason for the growth of genre-based approaches to writing instruction in the past 25 years is the empowerment such approaches offer EAP writing teachers (Hyland, 2003). However, genre-based approaches also place uniquely high demands on EAP teachers by requiring them to develop explicit knowledge of a wide range of genres from a variety of academic disciplines (Campion, 2016; Cheng, 2018). Additionally, since academic genres and change over time, all teachers, not just novices “need to be developing, revising, and adding to their knowledge of the academic world and its practices on an ongoing basis” (Bruce, 2011. p. 105). Given these demands, research is needed which examines how EAP writing teachers develop and apply such genre knowledge and how various forms of teacher education and development can support them in this life-long process of genre learning (Tardy, 2016). This study addresses this need by examining the impact of a project used as part of a teacher education course – the unfamiliar genre project (adapted from Bentley, 2013). For this project, twelve pre- and in-service EAP writing teachers analyzed a previously unfamiliar genre, wrote their own version of the genre, and designed materials to teach their chosen genre. Data collected included all drafts of each participant’s project, a final reflective essay, and semi-structured follow up interviews. Additionally, as an extension of the original study, I followed one teacher as he attempted to apply genre-based instruction in his first semester as an EAP writing teacher. Data for this extended case study included video-recordings of classroom interactions and stimulated recalls with the teacher. By examining changes in the participants’ genre knowledge and pedagogical practice over time, this study seeks to determine if and how the project contributed to these teachers’ knowledge of genres and how to teach them.
