On the Need to Know Students\u27 Prior Experiences with Genre in the ESL Writing Classroom

It is common for writing instructors to have their students fill out needs-analysis surveys at the beginning of each school term. Many would argue that this has become a required method of good teaching practice (Hyland, 2003). Before we begin teaching our students, instructors must uncover what kind of writing their students are familiar with and where they hope their English study may take them. In April 2004,1 gave my students such a survey in order to determine their previous writing experience. While collating this data, two issues that challenge the assumptions that many second-language writing instructors make about the universality of their students\u27 experience with genre and writing instruction across languages and cultures became apparent. Both issues require careful consideration as they play a crucial role in determining how much success students will find in the second language-writing classroom. The first problem concerns students\u27 previous writing experience. I discovered that my students had wide-ranging levels of experience at writing in English, and an even wider range of experience in writing instruction and practice in their first languages. This range of experience plays a role in determining how well students may be able to transfer their firstlanguage writing skills to their studies in the ESL classroom. The second issue focuses on assumptions that are often made about the universality of genre structures across language and culture. This problem became apparent when my students and I took part in a presurvey discussion of genre terms in order to reach a common understanding of their definition. In the process of collating the survey findings, I came to realize how carefully one must proceed when assessing students\u27 experiences and abilities; genres and their labels vary greatly between the languages and cultures represented by my students. Not only can a misunderstanding of genre definitions make survey results meaningless-when the teaching begins, instructors\u27 incorrect assumptions about their students\u27 experience with and their abilities to use a particular genre may hinder their success in the classroom