The Application Of Process Genre Approach In Teaching English Business Letter Writing

There are three popular approaches of teaching writing: the product approach, the process approach, and the genre approach, which are not without their limitations. Under such circumstances, Badger and White (2000) put forward a new approach, the process genre approach, which is considered to be a synthesis integrating the advantages of the above three approaches together and thus, eliminating their disadvantages. As one of the basic and primary means of business communication, writing business letters in English has been widely used. Based on reviewing the related methodologies and business letter writing, an empirical study is made to explore the feasibility of process genre approach in the teaching of English business letter writing.This study adopted two well-designed questionnaires, compared the achievements of students in the experimental class instructed by process genre approach with those of students in the control class instructed by traditional product approach in two tests, and interviewed five subjects chosen randomly from the experimental class. The results are as follows:â‘ Process genre approach is more effective than product approach in helping students arrange the content, use the language and organize the whole composition appropriately in their business letter writing.â‘¡Students have changed their attitude toward business letter writing positively after about one-term systematic practice under process-genre-based writing instruction.â‘¢Students take the process-genre-based teaching guidance as a useful way under which they can improve their business letter writing ability, and they are willing to learn writing under this kind of teaching instruction in the coming semesters.In the light of the major findings, pedagogical suggestions are made: students' genre awareness and audience awareness should be cultivated; students need training to use feedback effectively, especially those with a lower level of foreign language proficiency; teachers need to help students balance form and function; teachers in the process-genre-based classrooms are supposed to be equipped with comprehensive knowledge; product approach cannot be totally denied since recitation is one of the useful ways to provide students sufficient language input.It is a hope that the current study provides a new way for enhancing Chinese students' writing ability and proves a meaningful exploration for teaching business letter writing.