Developing students’ communicative competence became the primary goal of the current College English Curriculum Requirements in 2004 in China. There has been increasing concern, however, that this goal has yet to be realized, particularly in relation to the teaching of writing. This study investigated the potential of a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL-) informed genre approach to enhance Chinese students’ communicative competence in writing. As teachers’ beliefs have a strong impact on the effectiveness of their teaching practice (Borg, 2003), the study examined six Chinese College English teachers’ shifts in their beliefs and practices after attending a training workshop in the genre-based approach to writing development. Using pre- and post- workshop interviews and classroom observations and drawing on the analytical frameworks of teacher cognition (Borg, 2003), teacher knowledge (Shulman, 1986) and interactional scaffolding (Hammond and Gibbon, 2005), the study found that professional training in SFL genre pedagogy had a positive impact on teachers’ cognition about writing instruction, albeit with one notable constraint; the teachers paid only partial attention to the social purpose of the targeted genre, thus limiting the successful implementation of the pedagogy to a certain extent.

In China, developing students' overall communicative competence was set as the central goal of the current college English curriculum requirements since 2004. However, this goal has remained largely unfulfilled, particularly with regard to writing competence. This study proposes that the genrebased pedagogy in systemic functional linguistics may be the key to achieve this national curriculum goal. After teachers were trained in this pedagogy, through designed workshops for teacher development, this research examined possible changes in teachers' stated beliefs about effective writing pedagogy and actual teaching practices. The findings from classroom observations and teachers' self-reports suggest that even though all teacher participants valued the genre-based pedagogy, a very weak connection was made to their actual teaching practice. This study aimed to understand possible constraints leading to this inconsistency. Teachers' prior instructional knowledge, general attitudes to educational changes, self-confidence, and contextual factors such as class size, knowledge of students and assessment, were the main contributors to inconsistency. To overcome barriers and maximize the effectiveness of the genre-based pedagogy in achieving the national curriculum goal, several implications are discussed.

In China, since 2004, developing students’ overall communicative competence has become the central goal of the current College English Curriculum Requirements. However, this goal has yet to be addressed, particularly in regard to the teaching of writing. This paper examines whether and how changes in teachers’ knowledge base related to teaching writing may impact their students’ writing outcomes. Six experienced teachers were introduced to a SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics)-informed genre approach and subsequently trialled this pedagogy in practice. Through pre- and post- workshop interviews and classroom observations, changes in teachers’ knowledge base were investigated. In each observed class, two writing samples produced by students were collected. The findings of changes in the teachers’ knowledge base were compared with possible changes emerging in their students’ writing products. The results of the comparison reveal that, corresponding to positive changes evidenced in the teachers’ knowledge base, the majority of the students made improvements in their writing products.

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