Supporting Teachers with Genre-Based Pedagogy: Scaffolding Writing in College English Classrooms

English learning and teaching in China, starting from grade school to graduate school, have received enormous efforts. The College English Courses, required for non-English major undergraduates, have been implemented for almost three decades in Chinese tertiary education. However, the gap between the most and least successful learners in class has yet to be closed in college English classroom. This paper starts with a brief overview on the status quo of the College English Courses, its guidelines and the impact of the prevailing College English Test. Addressing a host of challenges in college writing class, the author advocates an explicit and effective genre-based pedagogy designed and elaborated by J.R. Martin and his "Sydney School", which can be integrated across curriculum both theoretically and practically. The genre-based approach supports teachers with tools for analyzing texts and scaffolding learning, and emphasizes explicit teaching to enable students to succeed in English writing. The paper ends with a detailed lesson plan incorporating the genre-based approach into everyday classroom second language writing.