A genre-based approach to teaching writing: report writing for English for Science and Technology (EST) / Lily Anak Dripin

The research documents an initiative in introducing a genre-based approach to writing English for Science and Technology (EST) reports in the Malaysian secondary school context for Form 5. The genre-based approach to writing was adapted from the English for Specific Purpose (ESP), the Australian genre-based educational linguistics and the North American New Rhethorical Studies. The approach was distinctive as it sought to use the genre-based pedagogy with English as a second language (ESL) students who take up EST as a subject in school. The aim of this research is to illustrate how and why such as approach may be applied to English as a second language (ESL) teaching in Malaysian schools. The study employed a qualitative research design and the data were obtained from several sources, namely a writing programme over a period of six weeks; collection of samples of students’ pre-test and post-tests texts which were analysed using Swales’ Move as developed by Swales (1990), and pre-test and post-test scores. The findings revealed that despite some limitations, the genre-based approach to writing made a significant positive impact on students’ report writing performance. The students achieved control of the target report genre with improved use of technical and scientific explanations and examples to support content points as provided in the examination paper. Based on these findings, it is recommended that the genre-based approach to writing EST reports be further exploited by the EST teacher when teaching students how to write EST reports. With the positive impact which this approach provides, the Malaysian government is more confident of producing human capital that is able to write technical and scientific reports that adhere to universal writing conventions. It is greatly hoped that Malaysia’s Vision 2020 of producing a technologically literate and critically thinking workforce can be achieved.