This document discusses the genre-based approach to teaching English as a foreign language using course books and materials. It addresses how exposing students to various genres helps them develop genre knowledge, including genre recognition, structure, context, and production. The document also examines how textbooks and images in course books function as classroom genres for teaching language topics, and the importance of developing students' multimodal communicative competence to understand both words and visual representations of meaning.

1. HEMAIS, Barbara. Genres in English language course books: teaching words and images. GONÇALVE, G. R; et alii
(orgs). New Challenges in Language and Literature. Belo Horizonte: Faculdade de Letras da UFMG, 2009.p 67-79.
GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO EFL TEACHING
 Exposure to genres through teaching materials
 Acquire genre knowledge
 Genre recognition
 Understanding of genre structure and
linguistic code
 Awareness of genre context
 Genre production for professional,
academic or social purpose
 Genre purposes
 Audience expectations
 Discursive practices preferred in
discourse communities
KAY, S & JONES, V. New American Inside Out.
Thailand: Macmillan. p.26

2. THE TEXTBOOK- A CLASSROOM GENRE
 It functions communicatively as a source of
instruction and information about how people
do things in society (Davies).
 It assures that learning actually happens in
school. (Soares)
 It is a tool for teaching the knowledge that is
understood to be necessary for learner
participation in society.
http://spiderdiaries.richmond.edu/margaret14/2012/01/09/textbooks-for-sale/

3. The ELT COURSE BOOK
 what needs to be learned about language is
organized and sequenced in the book in language
topics or grammar points. It is arranged and
illustrated in a series of sub-genres.
 It contains a number of genres or sub-genres
(letters, advertisements, postcards, forms, news
articles, etc.).
 Some of the genres are in written form and some
are images.
 Some genres have graphic features (font type, size,
page layout, etc.).
 Genres are used as a support for teaching and
learning (topics for discussion).
 Genres are used in a direct relation to a language
topic (language items practice).
http://www.vivaonlinelearning.com/BookDetail
.aspx
?Book=Real%20English%20CCE%20Edition&
Type=ENGLISH
What is the difference between genre
and subgenre?
?

4. CLASSROOM GENRES
 They are not just ways of communicating
but also objects of teaching and learning.
 They carry out activities in the genre
system of the university (formal schooling,
grades and diploma).
 They are not to help learners perform in
professional capacities. Instead, they
should help learners become involved in
the language learning system or in
recognized language learning practices
used in a discourse community of teacher
•http://gcd.ie/gil-programmes/
and learner (Russel).
I don’t agree with Russel.
I think classroom genres
must help learners
perform in real social
communication.

5. CLASSROOM GENRES X GENRES
USED IN ORIGINAL SOCIAL OR
PROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS
 Format and linguistic conventions may
be adapted.
 Genres may be presented in an
incomplete form.
 Learners will not understand the
structure, purpose or linguistic features
of the genre.
 Classroom activities can be unrelated to
“real life”.
I don’t agree. I think
teachers should work
with genres as close as
possible to “real life”.
KAY, S & JONES, V. New American Inside Out. Thailand: Macmillan.
p.64

6. MULTIMODAL AWARENESS
 “Learners need to develop a multimodal
communicative competence in order to be
enabled to deal with the demands they
encounter in the use of English”. (Terry Royce).
 Books seem to depend on the visual appeal. They
reflect the post-modern image-laden society.
 The perspective of multimodality
 Observe the characteristics that formatting,
photos, graphics, colors, drawings and layout all
have for making meanings.
 Understand the intentions that inform visual
representations and meanings in course book
images.
 Words and images can make different
meanings.
•KAY, S & JONES, V. New American Inside Out.
Thailand: Macmillan. p.36  Image realizes the same systems of
meanings as words do, but the images do so
“by means of its own specific forms, and
independently”. (Kress and van Leeuwen)

7. PEDAGOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF THE
IMAGES
 What meanings are offered in the images on
the pages of the books?
 Are meanings explored in the activities of the
book?
 How are the images related to the meanings
in verbal texts in the books?
 What do the images actually contribute to the
learning process?
 Use of images in course books
 Images sometimes seem to merely
complement the verbal text.
 Activity with a tourist guide book genre-
Visual features of images are excluded.
Chances for learning about the meaning of
an image are unexplored. KAY, S & JONES, V. New American Inside Out. Thailand: Macmillan. p.14

8. LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE
LEARNING PROCESS
 A course book task may guide the learner
toward a particular language point or it may
present a reduced version of a genre.
 Learners may understand that the language
learning experience is more controlled than
they imagined and is about tasks rather than
about genres.
http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/how-do-you-communicate-with-your-e-learners/
 The challenging for teaching English language
would seem to be to identify the teacher’s role
in the transfer of pedagogical genre knowledge
to social and professional knowledge of genres.