1. GENRES IN ENGLISH COURSE
BOOKS: TEACHING WORDS AND
IMAGES

2. Why are genres important for
learners?
Exposure to genres through teaching material
help learners to build knowledge of linguistic
features.
Students gain a solid awareness of language and
they will be successful in communicating in
everyday situations.

3. Working with genres
EFL (English as a foreign language) course book
contains several genres such as letters,
advertisements, postcards, articles, Internet
pages, some in written form and others are
images.
articles
advertisements
letters
postcards Internet
images
pages

4. The visuality in course books has become more
and more appealing in recent course books.
According to Terry Royce “learners need to
develop a multimodal communicative
competence” (2002).

5. Genre knowledge
The genre knowledge needs to be part of
teaching and learning a second language
because communication happens through
genres.

6. Knowing a genre is being able to:
Recognize one;
Understand one;
Contextualize one and
Produce one.

7. Genres can serve as a secondary support for
teaching and learning or as a direct relation to a
language topic.
Class topic
Exposure based on the Text
book

8. UNDERSTANDING COURSE BOOKS
Good course books must contain as much
genres as possible; variety of genres makes the
students feel closer to the language.
However we must notice that course books
themselves are also a genre.

9. According to Davies, “The textbook is seen as an
element that is integrated into the process of
education, and it is identified as a genre that
functions communicatively as a source of
instruction and information about how people
do things in a society.”

10. Course books assures that learning actually
happens in school and they also teach the
knowledge that is necessary for the student's
participation in society.

11. It is important to notice how often cultural
aspects happen in course books. The aim is to
make students learn about the whole cultural
process involved in this learning activity.

12. In an ELT (English Language Teaching) course
book, what needs to be learned about language
is organized and sequenced in the book.
Everything is arranged and illustrated in a series
of sub-genres.

13. But it is not all about communicating...
Schneuwly and Dolz have similar viewpoint
about this topic.
They both believe genres are not just way of
communicating but also object of teaching and
learning.

14. And also, classroom materials do not prepare
students for social activity outside the
classroom.
Classroom activities can be unrelated to “real
life” practices.

15. A MULTIMODAL APPROACH USING EFL
COURSE BOOKS
Multimodal awareness is more important in
contemporary society and it is one of the
competences that need to be mastered.

16. And more...
Images need to be related to written text.
Learners need to understand the intentions that
inform visual representations and meanings in
course books images.

17. The Genres of advertising and tourist
guidebooks

18. Why are ads often used in language
teaching materials?
They are appealing, motivating for students and
can lead a reflection on consumer habits.
Contemporary language
Cultural information
Visual presentation of contexts
Brevity

19. Listening and discussion activities
about ads
Focus on knowledge of visuals as social practice,
not just as language learning tools.
How to use it:
Indicate that learners are positioned as users
of ads.
Explore the genre by asking students to
consider the force of ads from a critical
perspective.

20. Activities using the tourist guidebook
genre
Images only complement the verbal text (are not
referred to in any of the items in the activities).
Questions (focused on genre contrasts of the
developed texts) draw attention to differences in:
 Purpose
 Audience
 Genre expectations
 Language structure
 Lexical choices

21. Invitation to Genre knowledge
Recognition
Understanding of genre structure
Understanding of linguistic features
Awareness of the context of each genre
Learning the meaning of a used image is
unexplored

22. What is the challenge of teaching
English language?
Identify the teacher’s role in the transfer of
pedagogical genre knowledge to social and
professional knowledge of genres.

23. Reference
HEMAIS, B. Genres in English language course
books: teaching words and images. In:
GONÇALVES, G. R. et al. New challenges in
language and literature. Belo Horizonte: FALE,
2009. p. 67-79.

24. Group 2
• Clarice Batista
• Juliana Guerra
• Rosana Soares
• Sabrina Cotta