Integrating Process-Genre-Based Approach Into College English Teaching

This paper is an empirical study in EFL writing instruction, combining the long held process-based approach and the newly- appeared genre-based approach to integrate the innovated the process-genre-based approach into College intensive reading teaching for non-English-major freshmen in Xinjiang University.In this empirical study, to testify that the innovated approach is more effective than the traditional approach in college English teaching, a pre-test at the beginning of the semester and a post-test in the end of the semester are held to test the discourse proficiency level of the students. The results in the language test demonstrate that the discourse proficiency level of both classes remains to be the roughly same at the beginning of the semester while the discourse proficiency level in the experiment class is superior to that in the controlled class in the end of the semester. Furthermore, the process-genre-based approach is more effective for students of high English proficiency than for students of low English proficiency level.The essays composed by the students of both classes in the post-test are divided into three levels according to the rubric of expository writing: the high-level, intermediate level and low-level by means of quantitative method. From the rubrics of the high-level, intermediate level and low-level essays, students in the experiment class improve their discourse proficiency level in terms of generic structure as well as linguistic exponents of the intended genres.To prove what characterizes the high-level and intermediate level essays, four sample essays, numbered text A, text B, text C and text D, representing high-level and intermediate level essays in both classes, are analyzed in light of Hallidayan SFG.First, generic structure in text A is similar to that in text B, both employing thesis supportive paragraphs and summing up. However, theme patterns in text A...