ENGLISH FOR

SPECIFIC
English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89 PURPOSES
www.elsevier.com/locate/esp

Understanding learners and learning in ESP

genre-based writing instruction
An Cheng *

Department of English, Oklahoma State University, 205 Morrill, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA

Abstract

ESP genre research has generated numerous descriptions and explanations of discipline-specific
genre exemplars and has produced various pedagogical proposals. However, what learners learn
from these genre descriptions and the resulting pedagogical proposals and how they develop as learn-
ers and writers of genres in ESP genre-based writing pedagogy is still a less-developed area of
research. In this paper, I first examine previous studies and theoretical debates to argue for the
importance of closely examining learners and learning in the ESP genre-based writing classroom.
I then uncover two deeper issues that may be holding back this area of research: the need for more
attention to the full intricacies of being a learner in ESP genre-oriented classroom and the lack of
theories of learning that are sensitive to the unique conceptual framework and pedagogical realities
of ESP genre-based writing classroom. I explore, with examples, how these two deeper issues can
potentially transmit changes to the current ESP genre-based research agenda.
Ó 2005 The American University. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Written language instruction; Learner characteristics; ESP; Learning theories; Genre theories

1. Learners and learning as underdeveloped areas of research in ESP genre-based writing

instruction

Recently, genre-based approaches to writing instruction have become ‘‘the main insti-
tutionalized alternative to process pedagogy currently on offer’’ (Atkinson, 2003, p. 11;
Hyland, 2002a, 2002c, 2003a, 2003b, 2004; Hyon, 1996; Johns, 2002, 2003; Paltridge,

*
Tel.: +1 405 744 9474; fax: +1 405 744 6326.
E-mail address: an.cheng@okstate.edu.

0889-4906/$30.00 Ó 2005 The American University. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.esp.2005.07.002
 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89 77

2001; Ramanathan & Kaplan, 2000). As both a cognitive and a cultural concept, genre is
often defined as the abstract, goal-oriented, staged, and socially recognized ways of using
language delimited by communicative purposes, performed social (inter)actions within
rhetorical contexts, and formal properties (structure, style, and content) (Bahktin, 1986;
Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Bhatia, 1993; Halliday, 1994; Miller, 1984; Swales, 1990,
2004). Many writing teachers, especially those working in the domains of English for Spe-
cific Purposes (ESP) and/or English for Academic Purposes (EAP), believe that explicit
attention to genre in teaching provides learners a concrete opportunity to acquire concep-
tual and cultural frameworks to undertake writing tasks beyond the courses in which such
teaching occurs (e.g., Johns, 2003).
Among the various schools of interrelated but distinct genre theories and their peda-
gogical proposals (for detailed analyses of these schools, see Belcher, 2004; Hyland,
2004; Hyon, 1996; Johns, 2002, 2003; Paltridge, 2001), the ESP School, which is the focus
of this paper, is arguably the most influential in the teaching of the specialist varieties of
English to L2 users and the most familiar one to ESP researchers and practitioners (Bha-
tia, 1993, 1999; Flowerdew, 1993, 2002; Hyland, 2003a; Johns, 2003; Swales, 1990, 2004;
Swales & Feak, 2000, 2004). Indeed, to many English language teachers and researchers,
ESP genre studies are often identified with ESP itself (Belcher, 2004; Hyland, 2003b).
In the ESP tradition, genre is often defined as ‘‘structured communicative events engaged
in by specific discourse communities whose members share broad communicative purposes’’
(Swales, 1990, pp. 45–47; 2004). The most famous ESP genre analytic framework has been
established by Swales (1990, 2004). SwalesÕs original framework is characterized by the anal-
ysis of ‘‘moves’’, or the ‘‘defined and bounded communicative act that is designed to achieve
one main communicative objective’’ (Swales & Feak, 2000, p. 35). The framework is later
enriched by socially informed theories of language and has generated numerous descrip-
tions of the ‘‘regularities of purposes, forms, and situated social actions’’ (Hyland, 2003a,
p. 27) of various discipline-specific genres, part genres, and the rich features (Barton,
2002) in them (see, for example, the numerous genre-analysis articles in this journal, English
for Specific Purposes). ESP genre-based researchers and teachers have also been consistently
attempting to translate the analyses of discipline-based genre exemplars into various peda-
gogical proposals as well as tasks for generating genre-based teaching materials (e.g., Bha-
tia, 1993; Flowerdew, 1993, 2002; Jacoby, Leech, & Holten, 1995; Johns, 1997, 1999, 2002;
Parkinson, 2000; Swales, 1981, 1990, 2004; Swales & Feak, 2004; Swales, Barks, Ostermann,
& Simpson, 2001; Weissberg & Buker, 1990; among others).
Surprisingly, however, few of the detailed and, often corpus-based, descriptions of
genre exemplars or the resulting pedagogical proposals cited above contain substantial dis-
cussions of how these genre descriptions and pedagogical proposals have actually inter-
acted with learners in classroom settings. Studies that reported on, for example, the
effects these genre descriptions or pedagogical proposals have on learnersÕ development
of generic awareness are few and far between and are often constrained by various limita-
tions which will be discussed in detail below. It seems that the ESP genre-based approach
to writing instruction, as some genre-based theorists have noted (e.g., Johns, 2002), still
remains an approach which privileges the analysis of learnerÕs target genre needs and
the preparation of teaching materials but has relatively little to say about the actual learn-
ing by the learners who are consigned to learn in such an approach.
This paper, therefore, calls for more learner-focused research that examines learnersÕ
learning of genre and their development of generic/rhetorical consciousness. It calls for
78 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89

more principled investigations into not only the process of learning in which learners de-
velop strategies and cultural tools that enable them to develop generic awareness and dis-
cipline-specific writing, but also the contexts of learning in ESP genre-oriented writing
pedagogy. The overall argument is that learner-focused, context-sensitive research needs
to be pursued with equal, if not more, intensity as target-genre-focused analyses are cur-
rently being pursued so that the ESP genre approach to writing can better measure up to
its appeal as one of the effective approaches to the teaching of the specialist varieties of
English to L2 users.
In the next section, I examine previous studies and theoretical debates to argue for the
importance of more learner-focused, context-sensitive ESP genre-oriented research.

2. The urgency of examining learners and learning in the genre-based literacy classroom

The importance of documenting learning in any language and/or writing pedagogical

approach, including the ESP genre approach, is almost axiomatically evident because
everything that transpires in a pedagogical context has to be filtered through the learners
who ultimately define the end goals of the instruction (Allwright, 2005; Richards & Rog-
ers, 2001; Roebuck, 1998).
In the context of ESP genre-based writing instruction, examining learners and learning
becomes especially consequential given the many direct and indirect criticisms against such
an approach from writing researchers from various theoretical and pedagogical back-
grounds. For example, as many ESP genre-based researchers have noted (Swales et al.,
2001; Swales & Luebs, 2002; Swales & Lindemann, 2002), there have been criticisms
against explicit discoursal explorations – the hallmark of ESP genre-based writing instruc-
tion – in writing classrooms. Sociologists of writing such as Beaufort (1999), Berkenkotter
and Huckin (1995), Casanave (2002), Casanave and Hubbard (1992), and Prior (1995,
1998) have questioned the theoretical defensibility of viewing disciplinary acculturation
as the acquisition of increasingly complex genres. Such a view, according to these critics,
is overly hierarchical, too static, and too much of a strong text approach. These criticisms
have been supported by researchers who, unlike the critics above who are interested in the
sociology of writing in general, are more concerned with (L2) writing pedagogical issues in
particular (Freedman, 1994; Leki, 1995; Spack, 1988). These researchers, though often
working from outside the ESP genre-based approach, have alerted practitioners to the re-
stricted values and even the possible detrimental effects of teaching genre explicitly (Freed-
man, 1994) and the questionable feasibility of the explicit teaching of discipline-specific
writing by L2 writing teachers (Leki, 1995; Spack, 1988).
The above-cited criticisms, I believe, should be read with their limitations in mind. For
example, Freedman (1994) anchors most of her arguments on KrashenÕs dichotomy of
acquisition and learning and the resulting resistance to explicit language teaching (Kra-
shen, 1982, 1993). Since KrashenÕs conceptualizations of SLA have been seriously chal-
lenged in the applied linguistics literature (e.g., Dunn & Lantolf, 1998; Gregg, 1984;
Lightbown & Pienemann, 1993; McLaughlin, 1987), the validity of FreedmanÕs argu-
ments, which are predicated heavily on KrashenÕs arguments, is obviously debatable.
SpackÕs influential and often-cited paper (1988) calls for L2 writing teachers to focus on
the ‘‘general principles of inquiry and rhetoric, with emphasis on writing from sources’’
(p. 29). Such a proposal, as one genre-based theorist (Hyland, 2002b) aptly points out,
shows obvious insensitivity to L2 learnersÕ urgent, real-life needs to learn to produce
 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89 79

discipline-specific discourses. In fact, in a later article, Spack challenges her own previous
assumptions about the importance of teaching ‘‘general inquiry strategies, rhetorical prin-
ciples, and tasks that can transfer to other course work’’ (Spack, 1997, pp. 40–41) and
acknowledges academic work as socially situated. Such a move, as noted by one of the
anonymous reviewers of this article, might have brought her closer to the genre-based view
of writing than she would like to admit. Other works that focus on the sociology of writ-
ing, such as those by Beaufort (1999), Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995), Casanave (2002),
and Prior (1995, 1998), provide invaluable naturalistic accounts of how writers, including
L2 writers, write or learn to write. However, their limited attention to writing instruction
(again, including L2 instruction) in classroom settings, which are the primary pedagogical
and research sites of the ESP genre-based approach to writing instruction, should be duly
noted. Despite their various limitations, the direct or indirect challenges by the above-cited
researchers add a degree of urgency to examining learners and learning in the ESP genre-
based literacy classroom. Apart from current theoretical engagement with these critics by
genre-oriented researchers (e.g., Hyland, 2002b; Johns, 1995a, 1995b), other productive
ways to clarify these controversies and to advance our understanding of L2 writing ped-
agogies in general and ESP genre-based writing pedagogies in particular would entail doc-
umenting what learners learn and how they learn it in the ESP genre-based framework of
teaching and learning academic literacy.
Apart from the theoretical debates originated by researchers working from outside of
the ESP genre-based approach to writing instruction, existing studies that specifically ad-
dress ESP genre-based literacy instruction, though few and far between, have also high-
lighted various limitations of the approach. These limitations, all uncovered and
described by the researchers cited below in their articles, include, among others, learnersÕ
inadequate improvement in move accuracy (Henry & Roseberry, 1998); learnersÕ limited
attention to unpacking many of the concepts or vocabulary items in genre exemplars
(Hyon, 2002); learnersÕ persistent problems with organization, headings, quotations, and
plagiarism as well as their failure to follow the basic conventions and macrostructures
of the genre exemplars they studied (Mustafa, 1995); learnersÕ overgeneralization and mis-
application of prototypical genre qualities (Hyon, 2001); teachersÕ concerns with potential
prescriptiveness and the possible disempowering effects of genre teaching (Kay & Dudley-
Evans, 1998); and the need for cultural adaptability in ESP genre-based material develop-
ment (Yakhontova, 2001).
It is also noteworthy that the above-mentioned genre-oriented studies have often been
constrained, at least as far as I can see, by various limitations in research design and/or
data reporting. For example, apart from a short paragraph that discusses ‘‘studentsÕ opin-
ions’’ about how they enjoyed the genre-based approach, Henry and Roseberry relied al-
most exclusively on a pre- and post-test design and on written products (1998, p. 152).
HyonÕs studies (2002, 2002) mainly use post-instructional naming tasks and interviews
where the students named genre features and self reported on their perceptions of the
course and its applications for L2 reading. As a result, there is inadequate documentation
of the processes or the contexts of learning in these studies. Other studies (Johns, 1999;
Swales et al., 2001; Swales & Lindemann, 2002; Swales & Luebs, 2002; Yakhontova,
2001) focus more on genre-based curriculum design and materials development, and the
reporting of learning in these studies is often in the form of ‘‘a selection of some of the
most insightful student reflections’’ (Johns & Swales, 2002, p. 21; also see Swales et al.,
2001, pp. 454–455).
80 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89

Both the limitations of the ESP genre-based teaching of literacy uncovered by the stud-
ies cited above and the limitations in the design and data-reporting processes in these stud-
ies themselves have pointed to the necessity for more intensive efforts to study learners and
learning in the ESP genre-based approach to writing. They have also pointed to some of
the deeper issues that may be holding back learner- and learning-focused research in ESP
genre-based writing instruction. In the next section, I highlight two of these issues: the
need for more attention to the full intricacies of being a learner in an ESP genre-based
writing classroom and the lack of theories of learning that are sensitive to the unique con-
ceptual frameworks and the pedagogical realities of the ESP genre-based writing class-
room. I argue, with concrete research scenarios, that these two issues can potentially
transmit changes to the current ESP genre-based research agenda in forms which may
prove persuasive to genre-oriented L2 writing theorists and practitioners.

3. Two deeper issues and the research opportunities they generate

3.1. Exploring learner dynamics in ESP genre-based writing classroom

As evidenced by ESP genre-based practitionersÕ justifiably meticulous analysis of learn-

ersÕ target genre needs, learners are admittedly an important component in the ESP genre-
based literacy approach. In fact, ESP has always prided itself on its learner-centered ap-
proaches to curriculum design and materials development (see Belcher (2004) for a recent
discussion of ESP and learner-centeredness). Ironically, when it comes to understanding
learners in their actual appropriation of the results of ESP genre researchersÕ target need
and genre analysis, learners in the ESP genre frameworks often tend to be construed as
the ‘‘generic’’ learners (pun intended). A review of studies that specifically report on
ESP genre-based classroom instructions, for example, reveals that learners in these studies
are often described as ‘‘advanced Asian doctoral students’’, ‘‘nonnative-speaking junior
scholars’’, ‘‘a Mexican student in Latin American literature’’, or ‘‘an Angolan undergrad-
uate student’’ in both the research-design and the data-reporting processes (Chang &
Swales, 1999; Dudley-Evans, 2002; Henry & Roseberry, 1998; Hyon, 2001, 2002; Pang,
2002; Samraj, 2002; Swales & Lindemann, 2002; Swales & Luebs, 2002; Swales et al.,
2001; among others). Admittedly, defining learners as ‘‘advanced Asian doctoral students
in mechanical engineering’’ can describe how different groups of learners react to ESP
genre-based writing instruction. However, taking these labels at face value and failing
to explore their full pedagogical and theoretical significance, as is often the case with
many of the above-cited studies, have caused ESP genre-oriented researchers to miss
the opportunities to observe the full intricacies of learning in the ESP genre-based
classroom.
Given the prevalence of these labels and the fact that they often go unexamined in
current ESP genre literature, a potentially productive research direction is to turn these
labels on their head and use them as heuristics to explore the complexities of genre-
based learning. In the next subsection, I briefly describe a concrete research scenario
in which I re(de)fine the construct of advanced learner to see how it can serve as a lens
to reexamine data and to uncover learner dynamics. I hope that this concrete scenario
can illustrate one of the many possible approaches which can address the somewhat lim-
ited attention to the processes and the contexts of learning in current ESP genre-based
pedagogy.
 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89 81

3.2. Research scenario 1: re(de)fining ‘‘advanced learner’’ for a better understanding of

learner dynamics in the ESP genre-based literacy framework

In current ESP genre-based literature, there is often an assumption that ESP genre-
based writing instruction is suitable and even necessary for advanced learners of the spe-
cialist varieties of English. Such an assumption is evidenced in Ann JohnsÕ observation
that the ‘‘artful and practical’’ ESP genre-based approach as proposed in Swales (1981,
1990) and Swales and Feak (2004) can adequately address the needs of the ‘‘advanced (of-
ten graduate) ESL students’’, but not so much the ‘‘less-advanced’’ novice undergraduate
students in her class, whose needs may be more appropriately addressed by a socioliterate
approach which she details in her 1997 book (Johns, 1995a, p. 186; see also Johns, 1995b,
1997, 2003). Indeed, many studies in the ESP genre-based tradition often describe their
learners as advanced learners (see, for example, Chang & Swales, 1999; Dudley-Evans,
2002; Henry & Roseberry, 1998; Hyon, 2001, 2002; Pang, 2002; Samraj, 2002; Swales &
Lindemann, 2002; Swales & Luebs, 2002; Swales et al., 2001; among others). However,
what the term ‘‘advanced learners’’ entails often goes unexamined in current ESP genre-
based literature, except that ‘‘advanced learners’’ are often described as graduate students
‘‘whose majors are determined and whose disciplinary communities (and their genres) may
be identifiable (Johns, 1995a, p. 185). Moreover, in a heterogeneous, multidisciplinary
graduate-level writing class, which is a typical instructional and research site of ESP
genre-based writing pedagogy (e.g., Hyland, 2002b; Swales & Luebs, 2002), learners
who seem to fit the conventional understanding of ‘‘advanced’’ learners may develop gen-
eric awareness and discipline-specific writing to drastically different degrees. Such a com-
mon but perplexing phenomenon prompts at least these research questions: do these
learners all qualify as ‘‘advanced’’ learners? If these are all ‘‘advanced learners’’, why do
some of these ‘‘advanced’’ learners interact better with the ESP genre-based approach than
others?
One approach, among others, to answering these questions is to reevaluate the notion
of advancedness by juxtaposing it with learnersÕ concrete learning processes and outcomes.
Such an approach can be carried out at three interrelated levels:
Level 1: explore the full meanings of the term in light of learnersÕ learning outcomes.
This level of inquiry aims at re(de)fining what ‘‘advanced’’ means when theorists believe
that ESP genre-based writing instruction is suitable for advanced learners of the specialist
varieties of English. It can clarify, for example, the relationships between ‘‘advancedness’’
and language proficiency, degree progress, or familiarity with generic and disciplinary
practices. Ultimately, it can foreground characteristics that ‘‘advanced’’ learners in ESP
genre-based writing classrooms usually possess.
Level 2: to fully understand the attributes of advanced learners in an ESP genre-based
writing classroom, researchers can also situate the term in the concrete pedagogical real-
ities of genre-based teaching to see what the term reveals about the contexts of learning.
When reexamining the term ‘‘advanced’’ at this second level, one may find, for example,
international graduate students with good professional standing and extensive profes-
sional work experience enroll in genre-based EAP classes because of their ‘‘verbal diffi-
culties and dysfluencies’’ when they use discipline-specific English (e.g., Swales et al.,
2001, p. 442). One may also find, as reported by Swales and Luebs (2002), advanced
Asian doctoral students in social psychology, who are considered to be ‘‘bright students’’,
‘‘an impressive and successful cohort’’ with ‘‘multipage vitae’’ and ‘‘enough English to
82 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89

get a degree’’ (p. 138, 149), still recommended by their academic advisors to enroll in
EAP writing course to acquire literacy skills for long-term career development. Discipline
heterogeneity, which is not unusual in advanced genre-based writing classes (e.g., Chang
& Swales, 1999; Hyland, 2002b; Swales & Lindemann, 2002; Swales & Luebs, 2002) can
add further complexities to the pedagogical realities. For example, in their ESP genre-
based writing course for advanced Asian doctoral students in social psychology, Swales
and Luebs (2002) had originally anticipated that they would be getting a tightly homo-
geneous group of social psychologists. In reality, they ended up with four hard-core so-
cial psychologists, two more from the joint doctoral program in social science and social
work, plus an organizational psychologist, a developmental psychologist, and a psychol-
ogist-inclined student in Information Sciences. The advanced nonnative-speaking ‘‘junior
scholars’’ in Swales and Lindemann (2002, p. 118), who learn to write literature reviews
using a genre-based approach, come from areas as diverse as Public Health, Social Psy-
chology, Southeast Asian Studies, Philosophy, Latin American literature, among others.
Their discussion of the literature review section, however, is based on materials from
engineering education. The complexities of advancedness as it is played out in these learn-
ers in concrete pedagogical realities can generate meaningful observational perspectives
into the processes and the contexts of ESP genre-based learning. For example, one
can observe how these ‘‘advanced’’ learners position themselves as (academic) readers,
(academic) writers, and language learners before they are initiated into a genre-based
way of learning in academic literacy classes. One can also examine how these different
ways of positioning themselves interact with the ESP genre-based learning processes
and whether these different ways of positioning themselves have been changed by the
genre-based ways of learning. A potential third observational perspective is to examine
how disciplinary heterogeneity impacts classroom discussion and, in turn, the advanced
learnersÕ deciphering and appropriation of discipline-specific generic features in their
respective fields. Situating ‘‘advancedness’’ in such concrete pedagogical realities can lead
to more grounded pictures of learners and learning in the ESP genre-based writing ped-
agogical framework.
Level 3: since any contextualized study of learners has to ultimately inform our theoret-
ical understanding of the ESP genre-based literacy approach in general, the third level of
reexamining the term would be to resituate the term in the ESP genre-oriented theoretical
framework to examine its theoretical significance. Exploring the construct ‘‘advanced’’ at
this third level will raise, for example, questions that speak to the relationships among
genre, language, and writing: does being an ‘‘advanced’’ learner mean that one is less a
learner of language and writing and more a learner of genre (e.g., Hyland, 2003b)? Can
these three constructs be separated at all? Another set of questions at the theoretical level
would be the relationship between reading and writing in the ESP genre-based framework
(Hirvela, 2004). How can a more coherent reading/writing connection be established in the
ESP genre-based literacy framework and how does such a connection on the learnersÕ part
influence their learning of genre and academic literacy?
Using ‘‘advanced’’ as an example, I hope to illustrate how a closer examination of this
term at the three interrelated levels (definition, pedagogy, and theory) can transform the
term into a powerful heuristic which can direct us to a more learner- and context-sensitive
research agenda and can afford us a more nuanced picture of learning in concrete ESP
genre-oriented pedagogical contexts. Such an approach can provide us with some clarify-
ing observational perspectives into sometimes very messy learner data.
 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89 83

As to methodology, a learner-focused, context sensitive research project in the ESP

genre-based frameworks, as briefly described above, may necessitate the use of case studies
as exemplified in Belcher (1994, 1997) and Spack (1997). Such case studies need to be sit-
uated in typical ESP genre-based pedagogical applications (Swales, 1990; Swales & Feak,
2000, 2004) to ensure that the contexts of learning emerging from the data are those most
relevant to the ESP genre-based framework (see Belcher, 2004 for her caution against
making claims about the effectiveness of ESP genre-based applications). Multiple data
sources originated from concrete research sites, such as learnersÕ genre-analysis tasks, writ-
ing tasks, classroom interaction data, curriculum materials, learnersÕ literacy autobiog-
raphies, and ethnographic interviews, among others, can be orchestrated to generate
grounded pictures of the contexts of learning in ESP genre-based pedagogy.
The concrete research scenario described here is applicable to a host of other learner-
related terms, such as ‘‘nonnative-speaking’’ or ‘‘international’’, which are customarily
used, but rarely examined, in ESP genre-based literature. Indeed, the purpose of carefully
problematizing labels such as ‘‘advanced nonnative-speaking international doctoral stu-
dents in mechanical engineering’’ and using them as heuristics is to generate more thick
descriptions of the fully instantiated human agents/learners developing the abilities to ap-
proach genre in realistic pedagogical contexts. As one of the many possible approaches,
the one described here can lead us to layers of contexts of genre learning, until a nuanced
picture of learners actually operating in concrete pedagogical contexts can finally emerge.
As a result, it should prove to be one of the productive ways of expanding current research
horizons from genre/text-focused research into learner-focused research. By extension, it
should also better inform us of the effects of ESP genre-based literacy teaching.

3.3. Developing theories of learning applicable to ESP genre-based writing instruction

ESP has long been noted as paying ‘‘scant attention to how people learn, focusing in-
stead on the question of what people learn’’ (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p. 2; emphasis
original). Unfortunately, such an assessment of the ESP research agenda in general can
also be applied to ESP genre-based writing pedagogy in particular. Currently, when con-
ceptualizing classroom teaching and learning, the ESP genre-based approach rarely moves
beyond premises such as ‘‘exposing students to a variety of texts within the relevant target
genre and providing them with an understanding of how the contexts and purposes of
these texts are related to their structure and lexicogrammar’’ (e.g., Hyland, 2003a, p. 21;
see, however, Johns (1997) for a notable exception). Such premises only sketchily explain
how genre is taught, and tell us even less about how it is learned. In earlier genre studies,
task, or the ‘‘differentiated, sequenceable goal-directed activities relatable to the acquisi-
tion of pre-genre and genre skills appropriate to a foreseen or emerging sociorhetorical sit-
uation’’, has been proposed as a guiding pedagogical principle in genre teaching (Swales,
1990, p. 76). However, in that proposal, task is more a guiding principle for curriculum
and materials development than a principle for observing learning. It seems, therefore,
that ESP genre-based pedagogy is still in need of conceptualizations of learning which
are sensitive to the ESP conceptualization of language and genre, applicable to the ESP
genre pedagogical realities, and capable of explaining how its targeted learners intersect
with the results of genre analyses.
Currently, many ESP genre-oriented researchers often turn to the theoretical and/or
pedagogical siblings of ESP genre-based genre studies – Systemic Functional Linguistics
84 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89

(SFL) genre studies and the New Rhetoric genre studies (NR) – and invoke conceptualiza-
tions of learning in these schools as the master theories that can also explain teaching and
learning in the ESP genre-based pedagogical contexts (e.g., Hyland, 2003a; Johns, 2002).
Such a theoretical move is understandable, given the many influences SFL and NR genre
studies have on ESP genre-oriented research (for a recent extensive discussion of how NR
and SFL enrich ESP genre studies, see Belcher, 2004). However, it is worth noting that,
despite the influences these two other schools have on ESP genre studies, the significant
differences between ESP and the other two schools of genre studies make the transfer of
theories of learning from these two schools to ESP problematic at best. Johns (2003),
for example, highlights the differences between SFL and ESP in the conceptualization
of genre and the target genre exemplars that the students need to learn: ESP deals with
discipline-specific genres, while SFL is concerned with what ESP theorists would call
‘‘pre-genres’’ (Swales, 1990, p. 58). On another front, Belcher (2004) emphasizes the differ-
ences between ESP and NR regarding the use of immersion or community of practice as the
metaphors of learning. According to Belcher, most ESP theorists would not disagree with
NR theoristsÕ strong emphasis on the necessity of immersion in the target situation as ‘‘the
enabler of expertise in academic and workplace genres’’, but they would also insist that
mere immersion is not enough, and much more explicit, guided ‘‘immersion’’ is called
for than normally available in situ (Belcher, 2004, p. 171). Overall, suffice it to say that
the different envisioning of genre, target student populations, instructional contexts,
and the expected teacher/student roles makes the applicability of theories of learning from
the other two schools to ESP genre-based teaching an open empirical question, rather than
a given.
Although ESP researchers will, understandably, continue to explore the applicability of
learning theories from SFL and NR to ESP, another possible research direction is to con-
struct theories of learning which are grounded in the current pedagogical practices of ESP.
For example, ESP genre-based researchers have always been interested in incorporating
more discovery-based genre learning where the goal is to help resituate the disciplinary-
specific texts in learnersÕ eyes (Swales & Luebs, 2002). Correspondingly, since as early
as SwalesÕs monograph on introductions (1981), various pedagogical proposals, such as
data-driven learning (Johns, 1994), urging learners to be ethnographers of disciplinary
practices in their fields (Johns, 1997), and engaging learners in genre-analysis projects,
have been proposed (Currie, 1999; Flowerdew, 1993; Hirvela, 1997; Parkinson, 2000;
Swales, 1990, 2004; Swales & Feak, 2000, 2004; among others). Such a renewed under-
standing of effective genre learning has pointed to the exciting possibilities of cross-section-
ing ESP genre-based writing pedagogy with approaches that explicitly address learning
such as Language Awareness (Bolitho et al., 2003; James & Garrett, 1992; White, May-
lath, Adams, & Couzijn, 2000), Learner Autonomy (Jordan, 1997; Lynch, 2001; Wenden,
2002), and, in general, a constructivist view of learning (Candy, 1991; Prawat, 1996; Steffe
& Gale, 1995).
Language Awareness (LA), for example, is an approach that relies on the learners pay-
ing conscious attention to instances of language in an attempt to discover and articulate
patterns of language use. The basic tenets of LA include three major dimensions – the
objectives of learning, the processes of learning, and assessment – which a viable concep-
tualization of learning usually includes. These basic tenets expound on various parameters
of learning such as the role of enhanced consciousness; the importance of shared enquiry
and active engagement; the dialectic relations between the experiential and the analytic in
 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89 85

learning and between noticing and performance; the target, format, and timing of assess-
ment; as well as affective investment and critical awareness. Given their relevance to ESP
genre-oriented learning, these tenets can potentially serve as lenses to examine the pro-
cesses of discovery-based genre learning currently practiced in the ESP genre-based liter-
acy framework. In the research scenario described below, I will illustrate how Language
Awareness can help generate meaningful research questions as well as provide useful
data-analysis categories.

3.4. Research scenario 2: examining learner annotations through the lenses of Language
Awareness

Currently, a typical ESP genre-based writing class for international graduate students
often involves guiding students from various disciplinary fields to explore the generic fea-
tures and the disciplinary practices in research articles (RAs) that they themselves have
collected. It also often involves learners engaging in discipline-specific writing tasks. Given
such focuses, learning to annotate published RAs as well as oneÕs own texts from a genre-
analytic perspective is an enabling cultural tool that the learners need to develop in an ESP
genre-based writing class. However, there have been few studies that systematically exam-
ine learnersÕ actual development or their use of this tool. A study that focuses on learnersÕ
genre-related annotations of published RAs, and more important, their self annotations of
their academic writing, therefore, can provide a useful glimpse into the emergence of genre
awareness and the development of discipline-specific literacy. Such a study, especially in
the question-formation and data-analysis phases, can be greatly enhanced by the system-
atic application of some of the basic LA tenets.
For example, LA defines the objectives of language learning as the enhanced conscious-
ness of the forms and functions of language, the awareness of the limitations of closed cat-
egories (for example, learnersÕ often static views of what certain language categories are),
and the importance of shared enquiry about language rather than blind acceptance of
existing ‘‘expert’’ linguistic knowledge and analytic frameworks. Using these basic tenets
as possible points of entry into the scenes of research and, subsequently, into learner data,
ESP genre-based researchers can explore how an enhanced consciousness of genre and lan-
guage gradually emerges in learnersÕ annotations and how discipline-specific texts become
resituated in their eyes in an instructional sequence. Researchers can also look at whether
learners develop an awareness of the limitations of closed linguistic and generic categories
and how such awareness leads to more destabilized and enriched theories of genre (Johns,
2002).
Regarding the learning process, LA emphasizes the holistic entries into texts, the bridg-
ing of the experiential and the analytic in developing language awareness, and the active
engagement between the learner, the language data, and the learning process on the tex-
tual, contextual, sociopolitical, and attitudinal levels. Using these as question-formation
or data-analysis heuristics, ESP genre-based researchers can examine how learners gain
gradual entries into genre as evidenced in their annotations. Researchers can also examine
the annotations closely to decipher the roles the experiential and the analytic processes of
learning play in learnersÕ efforts to make visible to themselves the rich features (Barton,
2002) of disciplinary genre exemplars, among others.
As to assessment, LA believes in the importance of observing how learners notice the gap
between their own performance in the target language and the performance of proficient
86 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89

users of language because such noticing gives salience to a feature that can become more
noticeable in future input and output. Such insights are valuable in ESP genre-based ped-
agogy because of their potential in shifting the focus of ESP genre-based assessment from
the products to the processes of genre learning. For example, researchers can focus on the
correlations (or the lack thereof) between learnerÕs annotations of other researchersÕ pub-
lished RAs and their annotations of their own discipline-specific writings. Such correlations
can index learnersÕ transition from noticing genre to performing genre; they can reveal, for
example, learnersÕ gradual development of the abilities to rematerialize some of the genre
awareness in their own writings.
I have suggested how the basic tenets of LA, when systematically applied to a concrete
ESP genre-based research project, can generate some meaningful research questions and
provide lenses for the microgenetic analysis of data, analysis that relies on the density
of observations to capture both the quantitative and the qualitative aspects of learning
‘‘in the process of change’’ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 65; see Belz & Kinginger (2003) for a recent
example of using microgenetic analysis in L2 research). However, my purpose in juxtapos-
ing LA, with its explicit attention to the process of language learning, and ESP genre-
based writing instruction, which presently focuses more on genre description and less
on learning, is not to argue for the hasty (and arranged) marriage of the two. Indeed, there
are some major theoretical issues (e.g., the extent to which genre resides in language) and
disagreements (e.g., on explicit ‘‘top-down’’ teaching) between the two which need to be
ironed out. Also, I am not suggesting that the basic tenets of LA be used as predetermined,
static categories in project design and/or data analysis. Rather, I hope to use the juxtapo-
sition of the two as heuristics to explore areas of potential changes in the ESP genre-ori-
ented research agenda. Specifically, I am interested in how a clearly articulated
conceptualization of learning (here, through the lenses of the basic tenets of LA) can gen-
erate a set of systematic and clarifying observational dimensions that can cover various
aspects of discovery-based genre learning (cognitive, affective, and critical; text, learner,
and teacher; goal, process, and assessment). These observational dimensions can then lead
ESP genre-based researchers and practitioners to ask productive questions and to design
studies, such as the one described above, that can shed light on the various parameters of
learning in ESP genre-oriented pedagogy.

4. Conclusion

Elsewhere, researchers have proposed that the T(eaching) word should be put back into
EAP research, given our relatively less developed understanding of teaching in EAP (Wat-
son Todd, 2003). Here, I argue that, equally important, if not more so, the L(earner) word
also needs to be put into a more focal position in the ESP genre-based approach, which is
an important strand of EAP. Doing so would require revisions of the current research
agenda. It would require, for example, that the field of ESP genre studies resist the seduc-
tion of what two prominent ESP genre-based researchers called ‘‘the straightforward re-
search life’’ which relies on the descriptions and analyses of ‘‘easily accessible and
portable’’ published research articles (Johns & Swales, 2002, p. 13). It is hoped that, with
more researchers devoting their research energy to conceptualizing learning and to exam-
ining how learners, as complex and instantiated agents, operate in the ESP genre-based
pedagogical contexts, the ESP genre approach to academic literacy will be able to better
determine its objectives, clarify its approaches to learning and teaching, measure its effects,
 A. Cheng / English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006) 76–89 87

and, ultimately, measure up to its promise as one of the uniquely effective approaches to
the teaching of the specialist varieties of English to L2 users.

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An Cheng is Assistant Professor of English (Professional Writing) at Oklahoma State University where he teaches
courses in written communication and applied linguistics. His research interests include rhetorical genre studies,
(L2) literacy, and L2 learner characteristics.