GENRE ANALYSIS IN TEACHING ENGLISH FOR PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION
Journal Title: Journal of Languages for Specific Purposes (JLSP) - Year 2014, Vol 1, Issue 1
Abstract
During their studies of general English at secondary school students obtain knowledge of the forms and meaning of words used in everyday situations, knowledge of grammatical components and frequently occurring language functions. Then they enroll in university to study a profession. English for Professional Communication is usually a part of their curriculum. Within it, they need to acquire communicative competence enabling them to enter a discourse community of experts. In addition to learning the terminology used in a profession they have to acquire sociolingual and discourse competences as well including generic one. It is a challenge that English teachers face when they decide to enclose authentic genres into their teaching materials. This paper presents suggestions how written genres can be used in teaching English for nurses. Most of the discourse and genre analyses relate to face-to-face doctor-patient encounters and nurses´ computer-mediated communications. To my knowledge, less attention has been given to written genres of the nursing discourse. Therefore the paper presents the most important concepts of genre, explains the roles of genre in organizational communication and gives a brief description of the discourse community of nurses and ways it uses task-oriented and patient-oriented genres as mechanisms of interaction.It also explains the purpose of individual genres. In the process of creating materials for learning professional English one of the most important tasks is the selection of suitable texts as they should meet learners´ needs and represent texts used in practice. I consider a Nursing Care Plan for a key text. Therefore, I present a detailed analysis of its parts focused on their communicative functions, description of standardized lexis, grammar structures and broken grammar rules. I suggest a method how to teach the Nursing Care Plan genre in English lessons and present tasks leading to the acquisition of receptive and productive skills related to the use of this genre.I believe that the knowledge of genres can help students to make sense of the diverse types of communicative actions that are typical of the discourse community to which they will belong.
Authors and Affiliations
Klaudia Valdmanová
Keywords
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