Teaching technical manual writing: a genre-based, English-in-the-discipline approach in EAP

Abstract

Language teaching using a genre-based approach (Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990) and authentic materials (Gilmore, 2007) has received significant attention, but little research has been devoted to their application in teaching technical manual writing. This study seeks to leverage authentic manuals on engineering devices in teaching organizational and linguistic features specific to a technical manual as a genre. Consciousness-raising tasks were designed to help a group of third-year medical engineering undergraduates in a Hong Kong university to write a manual on operating a portable electrocardiogram (a heartbeat measurement device). Questionnaire findings on students’ receptiveness of the approach will be discussed in terms of the relevance of learning materials, the perceived level of difficulty, and the enhancement of subject understanding and knowledge application. Post-study manual writing by students will also be examined with respect to the concepts applied and the avoidance of common pitfalls. Challenges to teachers, on the other hand, include the demand of time and subject-matter knowledge in materials selection. Recommendations will be offered on the use of genre knowledge to promote academic literacy in specific disciplines (Hyland, 2012), aiming to not only improve the quality of English-in-the-discipline teaching but also facilitate a potential partnership between subject-matter and language teachers.