Improving Students' Communicative Commpentence Under Genre-Gased Teaching Approach

New insights into genre promise to revitalize its role in the learning and teaching of writing. Rather than rules to be followed or models to be imitated, genres are now being thought of as cognitive, social and cultural resources on which writers draw in the process of writing for particular purposes and in specific social situations. Students learning to write in L2 need to be aware of text genres: not simply of generic conventions, but of genre in the wider sense of communicative events or acts. This paper offers a detailed survey of 'genre', 'genre analysis' and 'genre-based teaching approach'. It attempts to answer such question as "to what extent, and how successfully can genre-based teaching approach be implemented in classroom situations?" and "What are the impacts on classroom teachers?" Followed mostly from social and systemic and functional school of linguistics and constructivist point of view, new conception of genre and genre-based teaching approach are addressed. It also introduces current practice of genre-based teaching approach in L2 settings. Both positive and concerns of genre-based teaching approach has been discussed in order to find new ways in further pedagogical research.However, this paper mainly serves as an introductory remark on genre and genre-based teaching approach. It intends to give some new insights on our current teaching practice in L2 writing classes and attempts to explain the theoretical framework of genre-based teaching approach and its pedagogical implications. For both teachers and student writers it is important to realize that imparting certain genre knowledge is part of a short-cut method of raising students' proficiency in L2 writing. However, genre-based teaching approach is still in controversy and further improvement need be made in future research.