The genre-based Approach to teaching writing in Russian as a foreign language (on the example of the recommendation letter genre)

Abstract

The research focuses on the relevant pedagogical problem of the formation of genre thinking as a foreign language communicative competence component. The article is part of the authors' project aimed at creating a genre-based approach to teaching Russian as a foreign language. It presents a genre-based approach to teaching writing in Russian as a foreign language on the example of the recommendation letter genre. The authors not only developed but also tested this teaching format. The authors substantiated the research methodology using Russian and foreign scholars' modern research. They consider concepts “genre-based approach”, “genre literacy”, “genre competence” as important for the study; define the concept of speech genre by characterizing the content of genreforming parameters. As an example of applying the genre-based approach to teaching writing, the authors give the system of working with a recommendation letter with its genre varieties such as (1) informal, friendly letter of recommendation; (2) private official letter of recommendation; (3) business letter of recommendation. The authors note that the application of the presented approach involves compliance with two principles: (1) the teacher should know the genre features of the genre students study; (2) all language means of the text should be selected and explained taking into account their focus on the implementation of genre parameters of the studied speech genre. The genre features of the recommendation letter are clarified, the stages of the implementation of the genre-oriented methodology are characterized and justified, a set of genre-oriented tasks and a genre-oriented system for evaluating the results of students' productive speech activity in writing are proposed. The authors conclude that the methodology of teaching written speech focused on the implementation of genre parameters in the text, allows students to form stable skills of productive speech activity, providing the ability to produce texts of the studied genres in real situations of written communication. At the same time, this approach can be used when teaching the writing of not only scientific and business texts, but also genres of private official correspondence, as well as friendly correspondence, which is less codified, but still has certain features. The next advantage of the proposed approach is the importance of stable genre skills formation in the field of foreign language writing, since students in the future, if necessary, will be able to transfer them to their native language.