Task-based language teaching and genre awareness in sports news writing: A case study

Khainur Jannah; Dadang Sudana; Ahmad Bukhori Muslim

doi:10.30862/jri.v6i2.129

Authors

Khainur Jannah Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia Author
Dadang Sudana Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia Author
Ahmad Bukhori Muslim Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30862/jri.v6i2.129

Keywords:

English for specific purposes, genre awareness, sports news writing

Abstract

Physical Education undergraduates increasingly need occupational English literacy for sports-media writing, but ESP courses rarely focus on acquiring the sports news genre as language learners do. Since the consolidation of English as the language of global sports media is being strongly felt, this situation seems urgent. The paper investigated the use of task-based teaching methods to promote sports news genre writing and also genre awareness in English learners during that process. The research was a qualitative case study involving 26 second-year Physical Education undergraduates, including 8 primary students and the class lecturer. The focus was a six-meeting unit of instruction on one sub-genre: the live/running match report. Data collection included lecturer observation records, detailed lesson plans, different drafts of a student's writing, rubric scores from before and after the intervention, and semi-structured interviews. Data were interpreted using reflexive thematic analysis combined with a systematic move analysis of the drafts. Five areas of results show that bringing real-life language-use demands into the lesson while working within the classroom's constraints was a constant back-and-forth. In contrast, students' genre awareness varied in three areas: structure, register, and audience. Several learners were still struggling with their sport fan identity and emerging reporters' one at this stage. This outcome allows genre knowledge to be discussed, for the most part, based on a real, task-centered process and offers suggestions for mixed-proficiency ESP classes that may be used to arrange writing lessons in a career-related context. ‍‍‍

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