Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Practical Significance of the Study
In the former research and study, a lot of attention has been paid to ESP teaching insteadof EGAP (English for General Academic Purpose). As one aspect of EAP，EGAP aims atstudying the common features of English in all kinds of academic communication，includingacademic writing, listening and note taking, academic speech and so forth.It is very necessary to cany out EGAP teaching. First of all, the necessity comes fromsocial needs. With the development of culture and economy，English plays a more and moreimportant role in communication between countries. There appears a diversified andprofessional trend as to the needs of society for English ability. And EGAP teaching just cansatisfy this kind of needs. Secondly, learning needs of students call for EGAP teaching whichalso attributes to the necessity. Currently, many students have trouble in obtainingprofessional knowledge in English, such as paper writing, note taking and so on. Underemployment pressure, students have realized the importance of pragmatic function of English.The facts that the status of English in society has ever been rising and that there are more andmore foreign companies that require meetings, telephone calls, and e-mail communication tobe carried out in English. However, traditional English teaching methodology mainly focuseson lexis and grammar, which cannot satisfy contemporary needs. In addition, academicEnglish is the basic language communication skill required for the students in academic studyand professional learning.
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1.2 Organization of the Thesis
In the first chapter，the author introduces the practical significance of this research and the framework of the whole thesis.In the second Chapter，the author gives a review of the related literature research onEGAP, the concept of genre, genre awareness, genre theory and genre-based approach. Itdiscusses the necessity and feasibility to apply to English for General Academic Purpose inChinese College English class and introduces the main views of two schools of genre theory,the theoretical foundation and genre-based approaches of three main schools of genre studyand practice. And also，their characteristics are compared and the adaptability in ChineseCollege EGAP class is analyzed.In the third chapter, three genres which have been involved in this research are discussedand explained.In the fourth chapter, Rothery's teaching/learning model of Genre approach is presentedso as to show the essence of this approach from the perspective of Australian school. Theauthor then analyzes its theoretical basis and gives a demonstration of a modified approachfor teachers to follow.The fifth and sixth parts together constitute the research design and data analysis so as toexplain the research questions raised by this thesis.In the conclusion, the major findings of this research and pedagogical implications ofGenre-based approach have been made. The limitations of the study and the suggestions forfuture research are also mentioned in this part to give help to further study in this field.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 An Introduction of ESP, EAP and EGAP
ESP (English for Specific Purpose) can be traced back to late 1960s; however，it is acomparatively new thing in China. ESP is considered as a branch of ELT (English LanguageTeaching) and also a hot topic in the field of pragmatic linguistics. EAP，together with EOP(English for Occupational Purpose), belongs to ESP (English for Specific Purpose). EAP in ageneral sense can be classified into two branches: EGAP (English for General AcademicPurpose) and ESAP (English for Specific Academic Purpose)⑶.In general, the aim of EAPis to develop the writing ability of students in their answering questions and writingcompositions related to their major, the ability to cite others' opinion in order to illustratetheir view，the ability to use the structure and vocabulary right for academic writing.Specifically speaking, EGAP teaches courses about how to listen to academic lectures, totake notes，to participate in academic discussion，to make academic presentation，to doacademic reading and writing and so on; while ESAP focuses on text and academiccommunicative ability in professional fields [4]. Many countries, first in England and then other countries like Australia, New Zealandand Thailand have established EAP teaching programs and courses. It can be easily seen thatwith the development of world culture and economy, the need for EAP has been increasingworldwide. In China, EAP has been introduced to English Teaching in colleges anduniversities since early 1980s. As an option and on a par with other academic subjects withinthe degree structure, EAP is one of the courses of the English Language Studies programoffered to the normative-speaking students in some universities. Actually，most universitiesadopt EGAP teaching method for non-English major students .
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2,2 The Concept of Genre and Genre Awareness
Generally speaking, there have emerged two schools of genre study and genre analysis:Swalesian School is represented by Swales and Bhatia and Australian School is representedby Martin.According to Swales[7]，A genre is a class of communicative events, and the principalcriteria feature that turns a collection of communicative events into a genre is some shared setof communicative purpose which is recognized by the expert members of the parentdiscourse community and thereby constitution the rationale for the genre. Vijay K. Bhatia holds that genre is a structure characterized and conventional communicative event; inconstructing texts, there are norms and rules to be followed; despite the norms and constrains,the author still has his freedom to express his intention and achieve the communicativepurpose. While Paltridge puts that the way people use language depends on the intentionand context of the genre and the people who write for or speak to.
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Chapter Three A Glance of Genres Involved in the Research....... 13
3.1 How to Compose the Introduction....... 13
3.2 The Overall Structure .......14
3.3 How to write the Conclusion....... 18
3.4 Five Common Ways of Writing....... 18
Chapter Four Genre-based Approach in EGAP Class....... 21
4.1 Theoretical Basis of the Approach .......21
4.2 The Modified Genre-based Approach....... 21
4.3 A Demonstration of the Approach .......25
Chapter Five Research Design....... 31
5.1 Research Questions....... 31
5.2 Subjects .......31
5.3 Research Procedure....... 32
5.4 Instruments and Data Collection .......34
Chapter Six Data Analysis and Discussion
6.1 Data Analysis and Discussion for Two Questionnaires and Interview
Both of the two questionnaires are assigned to the experimental class in order toinvestigate what are their attitudes and writing habits and whether the concepts of theirwriting method have been changed after the experiment.The first questionnaire is designed to get a clearer understanding of students' attitudesand situation in EFL writing study before the treatment. This questionnaire contains fivequestions. The collected results of the questionnaire are shown in the following tables andfigures. And since the first question is different from the other four in that it contains threeitems for choosing while the other four contain five, so they will be shown and discussedseparately. Firstly, let's look at the collected result of Question 1 as shown in the pie chartbelow:
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Conclusion
Genre awareness is embedded in learners and their repertoire of genre knowledge isenriched in Genre-based writing class，and gained mainly by means of explicit instruction.And explicit teaching advocated in Genre-based approach can shortcut the whole process thatthe L2 learners need to understand how the text is constructed under the interaction ofcommunicative purpose, social context and audience. In this research, the analysis ofquantitative and qualitative data shows the evidence that the formal and theoretical genreknowledge and practice contribute to the noticeable growth in genre awareness.This kind of awareness gained from these genres will have a positive-transfer effect inlearning those genres. That is to say，when the students have harbored the awareness of acertain genre，they are liable to leam other types of genre，even before taught. Becauseteachers' explanation about a certain genre has interfered with students' mode of thinking,therefore when it comes to another genre which is unfamiliar to students，they will still try tothink and consider its communicative purpose，structural framework and so on. For studentsfrom different majors，they are required to write various papers or compositions in differentfields, which is a teaching goal to be achieved in EGAP class. And with genre awareness, itbecomes quite natural for them to write a good composition with clear theme, logicalstructure and professional language.
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Reference (omitted)
