| dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines how educators teach writing and their awareness and perception of Genre
Pedagogy (GP) in Norwegian secondary schools. Writing is an essential skill for effective
communication, highlighted as one of the basic skills in the English subject curriculum
(Ministry of Education and Research, 2019). Teachers must prepare pupils to communicate
through text for different purposes, contexts, and audiences. Previous research has shown that
a more extensive focus needs to be placed on writing instruction (Horverak, 2016a; Drew, 2019;
Lund, 2014).
The present study examines writing instruction in light of a genre-based perspective on
writing pedagogy. Genre Pedagogy is a teaching method based on Halliday’s Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL), Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, and Bernstein’s ideas of
learning. In the GP approach, the teaching and learning cycle (TLC) has been developed to aid
teachers in developing pupils’ reading and writing abilities.
The first objective of this study was to explore how teachers conducted writing
instruction in secondary schools in the English foreign language (EFL) classroom. The second
aim was to explore teachers’ familiarity, perception and use of Genre Pedagogy as an approach
to writing instruction. A mixed-methods approach was applied to reach these goals, consisting
of a survey with 69 participants and seven semi-structured individual interviews.
The study’s findings showed that teachers supported the writing process by providing
writing frames, feedback, and pre-writing activities such as discussing content and genre and
reading model texts. The findings also indicated that many teachers’ writing instruction aligned
with key components of a GP approach, although the term might not be widely familiar.
Motivation emerged as a crucial factor in developing writing skills and calls for more attention.
Thus, the present thesis contributes to research on writing instruction in the EFL classroom in
secondary schools in Norway.
Keywords: Writing instruction, L2 English writing, Genre Pedagogy, secondary school
education | |
