Didáctica

Applying a genre-based framework and task-based instruction to the writing of research article abstracts in the field of medical education: A pedagogical proposal

Rosa Isela Sandoval Cruz *
Universidad Tecnológica de Chetumal

Abstract Mexican, Spanish-speaking scholars are under increased pressure to publish internationally in English since this kind of publication is highly rewarded. However they are likely to encounter problems when writing Research Article (RA) abstracts because of differences between the rhetorical structures of this genre in English and Spanish. This paper presents a pedagogical solution to this need that is based on genre analysis and task-based instruction (TBI). In order to do this, this paper presents key theoretical constructs in these areas and in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), genre analysis, and TBI. These constructs are then applied to a pedagogical proposal consisting of three inter-related tasks.

Resumen Los académicos mexicanos hispanoparlantes se encuentran bajo presión para publicar en inglés en revistas internacionales ya que este tipo de publicación es altamente valorada. Sin embargo, es muy probable que encuentren problemas al redactar los resúmenes de sus artículos de investigación debido a las diferencias entre las estructuras retóricas de este género en inglés y español. Este trabajo presenta una solución pedagógica basada en el análisis de géneros textuales y la instrucción basada en tareas. Con este fin, el trabajo presenta constructos clave de estas áreas y del campo del Inglés para Fines Académicos. Finalmente, se explica la tarea propuesta.

Keywords Research Article, genre analysis and task based instruction, English for Academic Purposes.

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Introduction

Mexican academics face increased pressure to publish in English because international publications are highly rewarded by the institutional structures that evaluate these academics’ work, such as the National System of Investigators (SNI, Sistema Nacional de Investigadores in Spanish). Yet, as the work of Englander (2010) has shown, they face problems when trying to make the style of their manuscripts meet the expectations of the Anglophone editors and reviewers of prestigious international journals.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is a sub-field within TESOL/applied linguistics whose purpose is precisely to help non-native speakers of English to master the academic styles of English with the goal of participating meaningfully in the English-mediated world of international knowledge production and circulation (Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Swales & Feak, 2004). Studies in EAP focus on exploring the features of written academic English (e.g., Biber, 2006) and the dynamics of Anglophone academic cultures (Swales, 1998). EAP scholars produce pedagogical materials as a result of those explorations (e.g., Swales & Feak, 2004). EAP enjoys a high status in Europe and Asia, but it is less known or practiced in Mexico (Encinas, Keranen & Salazar, 2010).

This paper contributes to the growing interest in and knowledge about EAP in our country by presenting some key theoretical constructs in EAP and illustrating their pedagogical application when teaching how to read and write research article (RA) abstracts. The constructs in focus are those of discourse communities, genre analysis, and rhetorical moves. The pedagogical relevance of these concepts is presented through the explanation of three tasks. These are discourse-analytic tasks that can be implemented with students. The first one involves a contextual analysis of the RA using Paltridge’s (2001) method. The second task focuses on analyzing the move structure (Swales, 1990) of RA abstracts. The last task focuses on a grammatical structure salient in the selected genre. The tasks and methodological explanations that are included in this paper are based on the principles of Task Based Instruction (TBI). Thus, the tasks exemplify a kind of genre-based TBI that can be used to teach novice academics how to read/write RA abstracts.

Discourse Communities and Genre Analysis

Swales (1990, p. 24-27) identifies six defining characteristics that might be necessary or sufficient to consider a group of individuals as a DC:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one of more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.

The interaction between members of a DC is conducted through language. The construct “genre” has been widely used to describe the language patterns that realize the negotiation of meaning in DCs. Swales (1990) provides the construct of communicative purpose as an element of DCs and it is this communicative purpose of discourse created by the participants of the community, which is a core element in Swales’ concept of genre. Thus, he defines genre as follows:

A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style (Swales, 1990:58).

Hence we might encounter discourse communities such as the business community or medical or academic communities where we can find genres such as business letters, or research articles, or summaries, or academic presentations. One example of the studies on genre analysis is the exploration of aspects of academic writing, such as the rhetorical constituents of RAs (Introduction, Discussion and  Results) (e.g., Brett, 1994; Holmes, 1997; Hopkins & Dudley-Evans, 1988; Swales, 1990; Williams, 1999, Martín, 2003). Likewise, attention has been paid to the academic genre of RA abstracts due to their important role in the structure of RAs. Martín (2003:2), claims that such attention stems from the importance of this rhetorical constituent to the scientific community: “They [abstracts] have the main function of serving as a time-saving device by informing the readers about the exact content of the article, indicating in this way whether the full text merits their further attention.”

However, as Paltridge (2001:45) suggests, genres are more than just rhetorical structures, grammar patterns and lexis that tend to occur in delimited communities. Genres are also embodiments of socially recognizable communicative purposes. Therefore, in order to know a genre thoroughly, it is not enough to know about its linguistic realization; genre knowledge also involves knowing about the social uses of a text and features of the social environment where it is used. Then, in order to have a thorough understanding and control of the elements and purpose of the genres (genre knowledge), teachers/students, writers/readers and speakers/listeners need to address the sociocultural and situational contexts of oral and written texts. Paltridge’s Contextual Genre Analysis is a way that learners of EAP can be taught to analyze the social aspects of genres.

Contextual Genre Analysis

For illustrative purposes, in this section a selected RA abstract is analyzed contextually according to Paltridge’s (2001) model. He suggests that a way in which students can be guided in acquiring understanding of the contextual aspects of genres is through “classroom-based context-analysis tasks” (2001:51). Thanks to these tasks students may gain a better understanding of how texts are written to fit the requirements and expectations of a particular audience.

The following abstract was taken from an article published in the journal Medical Education.

Medical educators internationally are faced with the challenge of teaching and assessing professionalism in their students. Some studies have drawn attention to contextual factors that influence students’ responses to professional dilemmas. Although culture is a significant contextual factor, no research has examined student responses to professional dilemmas across different cultures. Semi-structured interviews inquiring into reactions towards, and reasoning about, five video clips depicting students facing professional dilemmas were conducted with 24 final-year medical students in Taiwan. The interviews were transcribed and analysed according to the theoretical framework used in prior Canadian studies using the same videos and interview questions. The framework from previous Canadian research, including the components of principles, affect and implications, was generally applicable to the decision making of Taiwanese students, with some distinctions. Taiwanese students cited a few more avowed principles. Taiwanese students emphasised an additional unavowed principle that pertained to following the advice of more senior trainees. In addition to implications for patients, team members or themselves, Taiwanese students considered the impact of their responses on multiple relationships, including those with patients’ families and alumni residents. Cultural norms were also cited by Taiwanese students. Medical educators must acknowledge students’ reasoning in professionally challenging situations and guide students to balance considerations of principles, implications, affects and cultural norms. The prominence of Confucian relationalism in this study, exhibited by students’ considerations of the rippling effects of their behaviours on all their social relationships, calls for further cross-cultural studies on medical professionalism to move the field beyond a Western individualist focus.

Figure 1. Abstract taken from Ho et al. (2012)

Paltridge’s model of contextual analysis includes the following elements: topic, purpose, audience, setting, tone, author, audience, relationship between writer/audience, rules and expectations of the text structure, shared understanding, assumed previous knowledge and factors that influence language choice. Table 1 below presents a contextual analysis of the abstract presented previously following this model.

Topic	Variation in responses to professional dilemmas across countries.
Purpose	To show that the responses of Taiwanese medical students to professional dilemmas show patterns that are culturally different from those of Canadian medical students.
Setting	This abstract comes from a medicine education journal.
Tone	It is a piece of formal research writing.
Author	The authors are researchers in the Departments of Medicine of prestigious Taiwanese and Canadian universities and research institutes.
Audience	Medical trainers, those in charge of medical education, those interested in studying cross-cultural differences in medical education.
Relationship between the writer and the audience	Writer and audience should belong to the same medical education discourse community.
Rules or expectations that limit how the text might be written	The journal requires that all abstracts include the following sections: Context, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. All this with the purpose of deciding whether the article is worth reading or is in line with the interests of the reader.
Shared understanding implied in the text	Cross-cultural differences in responses to professional dilemmas are worth knowing, the nature of professional dilemmas is shared knowledge, the Canadian framework used is shared knowledge.
Assumed background knowledge	Readers should know what professional dilemmas are.
Overall factors that influence language choice	The nature of the subject matter influences the selection of text and medical jargon.

Table 1. Contextual Analysis of a RA abstract

This table can be introduced to students and then the EAP instructor can guide them through the analysis. This process can be challenging because many Mexican students lack awareness that texts serve specific purposes and address particular audiences (Perales Escudero, 2013). How the negotiation of these kinds of meaning can best be conducted with concrete student populations is a matter for empirical research, as studies have shown that students vary a lot in their levels of genre awareness (Perales Escudero, 2013; Hanson, 2004).

The linguistic and nonlinguistic elements of a genre are essential knowledge that a language user should be aware of in order to perform the genre according to the situational and contextual demands and expectations from the participants in a specific discourse community (Paltridge, 2001:52). Furthermore, these users should be also aware of how the genre might be affected by those expectations and demands (Dudley-Evans & St John,1998: 92). Thus, the concept of genre is not rigid but flexible (Dudley- Evans, 1995; as cited in Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998:93). Within this flexibility, however, genres tend to have recurring features. One of those features is the arrangement of information, which tends to happen in steps organized in a somewhat predictable order. Move analysis, presented below, is a discourse analytic procedure that attempts to capture the predictable patterns of organization of genres.

Move Structure Analysis

The rhetorical structure of genres is a field which has been studied since the 80s with the pioneering work of Swales (1981) focusing the structure of introductions of academic articles (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998:89). Researchers (e.g. Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Flowerdew, 1993; Flowerdew 2000) have taken, studied and expanded those stages identified by Swales in order to see the pedagogical benefits of genre analysis. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:89) explain that Swales identified a pattern of “moves” and “steps” occurring in the majority of the introductions studied. According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:89) a move is “a unit that relates both to the writer’s purpose and to the content that s/he wishes to communicate.” In other words, a move is a segment of text, which can vary in length from a sentence to several paragraphs, that performs a communicative action which is different from those performed by other segments of the text, and smaller than that of the whole text (Gere, Aull, Perales-Escudero, Lancaster and Vander Lei, 2013).

It has been found that abstracts in English contain the following moves: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Within the Introduction, there is a step known as Gap, or making the need for the research clear. Martín’s (2003) study contrasting the structural elements of 80 English and 40 Spanish RA abstracts showed that the four basic moves that constitute the RAs were all present to some degree in these abstracts in both languages. However there were also differences. For example, the Results move happens in 86.25 percent of English abstracts but only in 41.25 percent of Spanish abstracts. Spanish-speaking academics are not likely to know that they need to mention their studies’ results and conclusions in the abstract, which may hinder their chances to get a paper published and cited in English-language journals (Englander, 2010). Thus, it is necessary to devise pedagogical tasks that will make students notice the presence of these genre features and will encourage them to practice writing those. An example of this kind of task is presented and discussed below.

The Genre Analysis Task-Based Lesson

Swales’ (1990:76) defines tasks as “one of a set of differentiated, sequenceable goal-directed activities drawing upon a range of cognitive and communicative procedures relatable to the acquisition of pre-genre and genre skills appropriate to a foreseen or emerging sociorhetorical situation.” Swales’ definition is connected with Task-Based Instruction (TBI) studied by Ellis (2003) and Willis (1996).

Willis (1996, p. 53) presents a framework for TBI which includes a pre-task (introduction to topic and task), task cycle (task-planning-report), and language focus (analysis and practice). The pre-task stage is the focus of this paper. It is characterized by preparing the students to perform the task in ways that will promote acquisition (Ellis, 2003:244). According to Willis (1996, p. 59) exposure, use of language, motivation and focus on language are necessary conditions for acquisition and occur in the pre-task stage.

Table 2 below summarizes the lesson plan I propose. Then, I provide an explanation focusing on the pre-task stage.

Task: writing a RA abstract Participants: medical education researchers in an EAP course Level of English: advanced Goal: by the end of the task cycle, the participants will have written a target-like RA abstract of their own.
Stage	Activities	Stages	Outcome
Pre-task	Contextual Genre Analysis and Move Analysis	Discussion of the purposes of RA abstracts Teacher-led analysis of Spanish-language abstract Teacher-led analysis of English-language abstract Contrast between the two Students’ independent analysis of a pair of abstracts, one in each language	Context Analysis of Spanish and English RA abstracts. Move analysis of Spanish and English RA abstracts
Task	Task-Planning-Report	Students write abstracts in pairs or groups. Students report on their writing processes.	Students’ own abstracts
Language focus	Feedback Re-writing	The teacher and peers give feedback on language and genre features. Students re-write their abstracts	Revised versions of the students’ own abstracts.

Table 2. A task-based lesson for teaching how to write RA abstracts

For the pre-task stage, Flowerdew (2000, p. 373) suggests a set of exercises to make students aware of the organizational structures of genres. In this case, the exercise entitled “identifying content” is used. The goal of “identifying content” is that of helping the students discover the four moves commonly found in RA abstracts. The input consists of two exemplars of abstracts belonging to the students’ field of study, one in English and one in Spanish. The English one is from Ho et al. (2012) and the Spanish one is from Muñoz Cano et al. (2008).  The conditions for this task involve shared information since all the participants would have access to the abstracts. The methodological procedures involve the use of small group work and students would have plenty of time for reading and identifying the moves and their communicative purpose. The expected outcome is the written identification of the moves in both abstracts and the contrast of the two. Moreover, since students will discover the moves by themselves, the cognitive processes that this task involves might be evaluating the content, deducing, reasoning and finding patterns.

The rationale for implementing this kind of task in the pre-task stage is that according to Ellis (2003, p. 246) providing a model (oral or written) demonstrates an ideal performance of the task. Moreover, this stage might be accompanied by activities “designed to raise learners’ consciousness about specific features of the task performance”.

As discussed above, the features that are different between Spanish and English RA abstracts are the results and conclusion moves. These moves tend to be present in the English abstracts and absent in the Spanish abstracts. A contrastive analysis task can be useful in making EAP students notice these differences. According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998, p. 90) the pedagogical relevance of the identification of genres and the macrostructure that defines them is that it is possible to convert this analysis into teaching material. They suggest that this analysis might provide a way for studying both the organization of writing and the relevant language forms. An example of such a task for medical education researchers is presented below.

As a first step, the instructor can ask students to discuss what the purpose of RA abstracts is in the field of medical education. After having established that purpose, a contextual analysis of the following abstract from the Mexican journal Perspectivas Docentes can be performed by the class.

La educación médica requiere un cambio profundo, de reforma que se exprese tanto en el plan de estudios como en la práctica cotidiana. Un cambio que procure mejorar integralmente la formación escolar, pero que trascienda el aula, el laboratorio y el hospital, se complemente con el uso correcto de tecnología educacional disponible y favorezca la educación continua y la actualización permanente. Esta transformación requiere cambios en los procesos educativos, transitar de un modelo profesional a uno dinámico, cuyos ejes sean la capacidad de su planta docente, la competitividad de sus egresados y la innovación educativa También que otorgue mayor peso al aprendizaje y no se centre solamente en la enseñanza, promueva la participación activa y la formación continua de alumnos, profesores y de los trabajadores y la administración Esta transformación requiere cambios en los procesos educativos, transitar de un modelo profesional a uno dinámico, cuyos ejes sean la capacidad de su planta docente, la competitividad de sus egresados y la innovación educativa. En este contexto se presenta el proceso de rediseño curricular de la carrera de medicina y el estudio de un caso. Se realizó una intervención sustentada en el constructivismo con un grupo de estudiantes de la licenciatura de médico cirujano. Se trabajó en la asignatura biología celular con el fin de resignificarla en el contexto de la clínica y en el primer nivel de atención.

Figure 2. Abstract taken from Muñoz Cano et al. (2008)

Then, the moves can be analyzed by asking students to divide the text into sections according to the kind of function that each step in the text performs. The students can then analyze the moves in Ho et al. (2012). It can be observed that this abstract goes in line with the move structure that is characteristic of RA abstracts (Martín, 2003). The students can then be lead to contrast the two analyses: it is clear that the Spanish-language abstract by Muñoz Cano et al. lacks the Results and Conclusions move. After this teacher-led analysis, students can analyze more abstracts on their own in order to increase their awareness of these differences in rhetorical organization at the level of moves.

Once differences in move structures have been identified, the learners can be guided to consider intra-move variation, or differences in the ways that moves are realized between the two languages. For example, the Introduction move in the Spanish abstract does not include the Gap. By contrast, this move is present in the English abstract.This is an important difference as Spanish abstracts and introductions tend not to include the Gap move (Englander, 2010). Thus, Mexican students of EAP need to be aware of the need to include a gap in the Introductions move of their abstracts. As a final step in the pre-task stage, students can analyze and compare a second pair of abstracts on their own.

As part of the task cycle stage, students would write an abstract on their own in pairs or small groups. In preparation for this, they would bring an article they are currently working with. They would write the abstract in poster form so that it can be visible for all other students and the instructor so that they can give feedback. As they show their abstract, students would report on the process they followed to write it, how they integrated what they learned in the pre-task stage, and any difficulties they encountered and how they solved them.

Conclusion

This paper has displayed relevant information on genre analysis and new approaches to teaching the rhetorical structures and contextual elements that constitute genres. This pedagogical vehicle is tasks (Ellis, 2003, p. 213). After going through the literature on the fields of genre and TBI, it is clearly observed that having what to teach is not enough for forming a course. As a matter of fact, Ellis (2003, p. 205) suggests that the content is closely related to the methodological procedures to be employed, that is the connection between genre-based frameworks and TBI. An advantage of developing a rhetorical classification of tasks is that it has been proved that participants immersed in a specific discourse domain seem to benefit from the instruction of the rhetorical constituents commonly found in their communities. Moreover, they are also trained to position themselves like a member of that community with the responsibility to conform the expectations other members from the same community might have regarding the texts (written or oral) that occur in their domain.

Although these concepts represent a new approach to seeing language and language teaching, they should not be seen as an absolute and magical answer for the setbacks on language learning in our context. We should be careful at implementing them since they make heavy demands from the language teacher. In order to become a good “noticer” of salient features in texts, the language professional should be a good language user in order to be able to cope with the requirements of communication and appropriateness; moreover, she has to be a good analyst in order to be able to notice those patterns in language which are to be the materials for her instruction. More importantly, she must have the metalinguistic repertoire to put into words the patterns or regularities in the text so she can negotiate these meanings with students. Finally, she should command a whole kit of tools for facing the demands of the language classroom and being able to interpret and transfer the language patterns into teachable materials. The most remarkable advantage of being introduced to these new approaches to language teaching is that they help us explore new ways of seeing language instruction and enrich our set of theories and ideas on what is needed for writing genres in the target language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* Rosa Isela Sandoval Cruz: Licenciada en Idiomas y Maestra en Enseñanza del Inglés por la Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco. Se desempeña como docente de inglés en la Universidad Tecnológica de Chetumal. Ha colaborado en otras instituciones como la Universidad del Valle de México. Cuenta con publicaciones sobre la lectoescritura académica en inglés, una de ellas en la revista MEXTESOL Journal. Ha presentado en el Foro de Estudios en Lenguas Internacional y el Congreso Estatal de Investigación Educativa de Quintana Roo. Ha participado en la supervisión de tesis de licenciatura y maestría. Se interesa por el inglés con fines específicos y la didáctica de la comprensión de lectura.