Genre-based Approach in an Iranian Language Institute

Understanding and getting access to the wealth of language rhetorical features and conventions is a major challenge for many EFL writers in order to produce a successful text-type. This tangible need has led many language teachers around the world towards the explicit teaching of genre. In this study, the genre of information report as one of the important English genres in academic writing was introduced to twenty six participants of four classes of Iranzamin language institute in Zanjan, Iran. The Teaching process was enacted through a teaching-learning cycle including setting the context, deconstruction, joint construction, independent construction, and comparing. Finally, among all the participants texts, results of six participants pre-test and post-test texts demonstrated that the participants have taken a significant leap towards controlling macro structures as they have developed some important language features specific to related written discourse. Inappropriate structures were also faded away after the implementation of the pedagogy. Accordingly, through macro feature analysis, micro feature analysis, and students feedback accompanied by an expert feedback, the implementation of the Genre-based approach was seen successful for these Iranian groups of participants in its context.