Supporting Bilingual Learners Through Genre Pedagogy
So often the hidden curriculum of schools is .....
text about explicit instruction, the cake, the ingredients, etc
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agency as authors to support linguistic and cultural frames
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not tool for assimilation WHILE ALSO teaching genres of writing to help them have deep success and support them in making those informed choices about how they want to convey their messages
Genre pedagogy helps students learn the "recipes"
Just like in the Great British Bake Off
In The Great British Bake Off participants compete to produce the best baked goods. The bakers are asked to create traditional British breads and pastries. Some of the challenges require that bakers demonstrate their technical skills in following a recipe. Other challenges ask bakers to be highly creative in the ingredients they choose and in the form that the final product takes. Bakers frequently draw upon their own experiences, interests, and cultural backgrounds to create these baked goods as they design cakes and deserts representative of them.​
Creating on Their Own Terms
Just like in the Great British Bake Off
Similarly, SFL genre pedagogy supports students in learning some of the traditional text types that students encounter at school (e.g., reports, arguments, fictional narratives, explanations). Like the British breads and pastries, these are cultural ways of engaging with language and texts (which often have a monolingual, monocultural orientation).
However, SFL genre pedagogy is not simply aimed at students reproducing school-based forms. You don’t win the British Bake Off if you just create the basic recipe. The aim is for students to learn the basics of the “recipe” so that they can make creative choices with their own writing, bringing themselves fully to the task of composing. This is where the teacher plays an important role in elevating students’ multilingualism and multiculturalism in the process of writing.​​
Learning With Support
Like baking, learning to be a strong writer in school contexts requires learning how to navigate a recipe. We wouldn’t just give bakers a bunch of ingredients and expect them to already know how to create a scone or tart. Rather, bakers learn by reading lots of different examples of recipes and trying them out, ideally with a more experienced baker. They do this until they master the pastry and, ultimately, design their own recipes by making their own choices!​
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Genre pedagogy operates with the same approach. Through the Teaching and Learning Cycle, students learn the "recipe" of each genre including purpose, organizational structure, and linguistic features. They learn in supported, collaborative ways before they are expected to create a written composition independently.