Exploring genre awareness: L2 learners’ voices in tertiary-level writing contexts

Abstract

This study explored tertiary-level L2 learners’ familiarization with genre-specific conventions in English writing skills. Employing a qualitative research paradigm, data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with 26 L2 learners. An inductive content analysis was conducted to elicit recurring codes and themes. The learners expressed strengths encompassing the recognition of genre-specific features, awareness of linguistic and organizational conventions in genre writing, and formality level. They highlighted the challenges in their orientation to genre identification, text organization, and genre-specific language choices. The learners established connections between these challenges and limited prior writing experience in L1 and L2 and their subsequent reliance on L2 formal knowledge. Further sources of challenges were linked to affective factors, language proficiency, genre convention mastery, and topic familiarity. They reported feeling anxious due to unfamiliarity with genre features, lack of interest in a given topic, inadequate pre-writing, and planning stage, the demanding nature of the process-genre writing instruction, and instructors’ expectations. They proposed suggestions regarding the mastery of lexical and grammatical knowledge, the provision of effective feedback from instructors to improve textual organization, and genre-specific language conventions. Accordingly, instructional implications for the cultivation of genre knowledge and awareness of tertiary-level writing skills are presented.