A ReciProcal Teaching and Genre-Based Approach Combination : Proposed Strategy in Business English Classes

Reciprocal teaching (RT) is a teaching procedure for reading comprehension involving direct instruction, modeling, feedback and repeated practice in four cognitive strategies, namely questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting. The focus of Genre-based approach is to show students how meaning can be constructed with language and train them to make use of language to fulfill their needs. This approach proceeds through 4 steps: preparation, modelng, joint construction, independent construction, plus one additional step, publishing. Reciprocal teaching approach (RT) is used because it can incorporate speaking activities. The texts are selected based on the genre that will be used in the work sites, namely in the office setting. This article presents how to apply reciprocal teaching and genre-based approach to teach Business English at non-English Department of university level. This proposed strategy has been tried out at Business Administration Department of State Polytechnic of Malang. A sample lesson plan is given at the end of this article.

The appendix is a lesson plan designed based on it.It is for English for Specifii Purposes (ESP) for the students of Business Administration departments.
THE THT,ORETICAL BASES FOR THE PROPOSED STRATEGY Using this model, the class will not follow the textbook's sequence.
Students are involved in every step of instructions.Reading is still taught, and so is writing.Every unit starts with reading, which is taught with rcciprocal teaching (RT) technique.
The writing dealt with in this lesson plan is not expository writing, but the texts typically occurring in the workplace.The type of the text to rvrite is related to the reading text and is selected based on the specific g,eure.Then, u,riting session is given using genre-based approach' with the application of genre-based approach using workplace texts, tlrc students att fa-iliatized with and trained to write documents as they rlill have to in their profession later.Such idea is offered by Joyce (1992: .l)rvith a different context of students, who go to the classes especially to rnrl)rove their job-related language.
By incorporating workplace texts, the oral language is not neglected ;rt lll. in rcal ivorkplice people talk, read, and write.They talk about the tt'rt thcy have to read or write, and after reading they can even talk more (lgvcc, 1992'.4).If such situation can be transferred into the classroont' , )r li lilnqgagc dcvelopment can be promoted naturally without worrying to r lroosc r1r."in" topics.The topics rvill be the same as the topics of the lr'r l:r Thefollowingaretheprinciplesor'theoreticalbasesforreciprocal t"u"t lrrg *a genrelbased approach to teaching writing'

Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching (RT) is a technique in teaching T"1Tg in which the teacher helps studlnts io employ cognitive slrate.gy* in a reading ;;;";t.Th. p-""aui' iittrr*" designed by Anne Marie Palincsar' from Michigan State Univ;;; ;d Ann-e Brown' from the University of Illinois.TobeinvolvedinaRTsession,studentsaregroupedintosmall heterogeneous groups' In its original p-"tdt"t, RT is charac{erized by: (a) a dialog befween students and teacheJi;; ; ;ro"p leader), (b) "reciprocal" interactions where one student u"t,'ln i"tlontt to the.other *a {"),11T-"tured dialog using four strategies or steps: questioning' tuPTuti'tt9 '-clarifying' oredicting.Thur, "J siudent has ample oppott*lty to practice using the ;;;;;;;*mi.i"""iulng feedback from other group members' These four stratffi ui" trr" main steps in any RT session.Each step helps student, ,o "o*it"hend meaniig q:t the texl and monitor whether ,ir"'V A" ,rAerstand *ilui U*V read.Us-ually the four-step cycle takes place for one Part ofa text.ln questioning sessioq students generate questions'.Ilere Jhey should think-;-f;hat theylon i t oo*, need t-o know or would like to know about a part of a passag.. b"n"tuting questions helps to promote purposeful reading' ven an opportunity to identify' In summarizing, the students are gl pu*ffi", and iiiegrate important information in the tex"t and iorn*rrni"ute it in a coirprehensiblt -uttott' The summary may center on gists, key words, themes and topic sentences' Clarifuing"*pt u,i'"t thai the goal of reading is to make sense of the text.when students ask for clarifiiation, they b""o."more aware of potential problems ihat hinder their compiehension.The potential problems can be n"* uo"ubulary' unclear referent words' and unfamiliar ordiffrcultconcepts.Recognizingtheseblockstounderstandingsignals the reader to ,er"ud, ."uJuh""ud, oi ask for help' In this step' any reference books are useful.The teacher should be ready to come to the rescuc instantlY or later.
Sugeng Hariyanto, Reciprocal Teaching and Genre-Based 255 ln predicting session, students are required to hypothesize about what the author niight discuss next in the text.This step demands students to utilize given information and background knowledge.Predicting .n"ourug., iftoughtful, strategic reading, tbo' This provides a purpose for reading:-to confiim or disapprove their hypotheses' How a Typical RT Session Takes Place RTtechniqueusestheideaofscaffolding.Beforethestudentsarelet to have a group discussion using RT' the teacher first gives an example of how to conduct u ai."u.rion u"sing R1..The students are encouraged to observe, to copy, and then to participate' As they get more confident and competent, the teacher's ,"sponsibility in the process is-withdrawn giuiuuffy.This kind oi giuing -d with{rawrng help is called scaffolding iNg, tqgo: 14).In ott"f *orit, scaffolding refers to situation where the teacher provides a supportive context in which the students can gradually acquire ihe skills the tutor has (Seok Dawn, 1989: l5) After every group is competent enough to run.anRT session' it can start the reading pri""... First' the group reads the predetermined paragraphs silently.-Thediscussion leader raises questions to the group' :rtr" iro,rp members respond to it.The members can also raise additional .lrestiorrs.The leader then summarizes the text and asks if other members would like to elaborate upon or revise the summary' Clarifications are 1:,iven here by any membei of the group' Then, before moving on to the .cxtpart of text, ih" group generate-s pttdi"tiont' Another member will be ,,ssigned to be the leJder ioi ttt.next part.This process continues until the ,rho'ic passage is discussed (Ng' 1990: 15; Westera' 1993: 99)' Why RT is Selected AccordingtoWestera(1993:100)thistechniqueissuitablefor lurlllish as a SJcond Language (ESL) students.He states further that it can rlcvclop students' readin-g iiterest, give opportunity to extend language praclicc as it also nee-ds discussi,on, and improve students'reading ,'.,nrprcltc,rsion skills and academic achievement' Awcbpagowritesthatteacherswhoutilizereciprocalteachingwith It:xl nratcrials prortrote learning bccause reciprocal teaching actively engages students in the process of "constructing meaning" pri'm"oting the conscious use of effective comprehension strategies page states further: This strategy is especially effective with contenvexpositorytext.
while recipiocal tbaching has been successfully applied with students in the primary grades through college, the research indicates that this procedure rnuyl" most effective with less proficient readers.This is understandabie since the four component strategies of reciprocal teaching are designed bY readers.
In short, RT is proposed to be used here because it gives the students opportunity to extend language practice into reading and speaking at the same time.These are the two important skills needed in the workplace (offices).In addition, the choice is also motivated by the fact that non- English Department students are less proficient English readers as compared to those of English Department.
In the proposed lesson plan, RT technique is done during the first week.By fhe -end of the session, teacher asks the class if there is sornething left unsolved during the discussion."l-hen using the same technique the teacher deals with the problems classically-Finally' at the end of the lesson, students would have comprehended the passage. (It means the first and second objectives are achieved.See lesson plan for further details.)Their schemata, or knowledge of the field, about business meeting is built, or at least enriched.This also prepares students for the followirg sessions.This technique is applied at the first half of the first week's session.

Genre-based APProach
Genre approach to teaching writing is adapted from a functional approach to ianguage (Shi: 1995: 153).Such approach examines how language enables min to do things, such as sharing information, giving ;nsiufiot, enterfaining, arguing, etc.Here, genres are redefined act-ording to their functions and purposes.The focus of this approach is to while tThe ,* Flrror!Bookmark not defined.
Sugeng Haiyanto,  show students how meaning can be constructed with language and train them to make use of language to fulfill their needs (Derewianka, 1990:3).Such teaching approach is applied in Primary schools and High Schools in Neu, Zealand.Australia, and Singapore. In  application the teaching process proceeds along a curriculum cycle' Such cycle was first introduie'd by Deiewianka (1990) and is divided into 4 steps: preparation, modeling, joint construction, independent construction, plus one additionii stlp, publishing (Derewianka, 1990: 6-9;Shi, 1995: 155) ' The moit well known model is the one developed by Literacy and Education Research Network (LERN), which consist of three phases: modeling, joint negotiation of the text, and independent negotiation of the text GEftN, 1990i: I l).This differs from Derewianka's in the sense that it does not include the preparation phase. This is  may be caused by the nature of the main genres Lught with this model. The genres are called schools genres including reports, procedures, expositions, and explanation (Hyon, 1996:699-700).
Iithe students were managers, thc first step "oufa Ut o'iitt"Jt"uu'" uff *u*gtts must have the knowledgc of "business meeting"' Sugeng Hariyanto, Reciprocal Teaching and Genre-Based 259 A NOTE FROM THE CLASSROOM This strategy has been tried out at the Business Administration Department of State Polytechnic of Malang (Polytechnic of.Brawijaya University) for Business English Subject at the fifth semester (in 2000).It was notei from the try out that, at first the students were confused as reciprocal teaching technique was new for them.To overcome this, the teacher needed some time to explain the procedure.Starting from the second meeting, however, everything went well.Some were actively involved in the process.
Another p-oint is that not all of our units can be taught with this tcchnique, such as "Business TelephOning" and "Socializing" becauSe we hardly need any texts on the units.

Conclusions
Based on the discussion above and the try out of this teaching slrategy, it can be concluded that: l.Teaching Business English at university level can be made more interesting by adopting reciprocal teaching and genre based approach' .)Some topics can be dealt with this new strategy, some others are not.
Topics that are possible for the strategy application are the ones that have the following characteristics: involve understanding written rnaterial.

Suggcstions
Based on the discussion and the try out, the following suggestions ,'lrn bc made.
| 'l-cachers of Business English are suggested to try out this strategy in tlrcir own setting and modifi the strategy to suit the local condition.
'l'hc bcnefit of itris approach is that it is more motivational to the studcnts and the material is close to the target situation where the studcnts rvill usc English in their jobs.
.' llclbrc adopting this strategy, the teachers should select and determine rvlrich ol' tlrcir syllabus items are potential to be taught using the Teacher asks the students about : -the function of minute of meeting -who makes it -who uses it (By that time the students should have known the answers as they have discussed about it in the reading session.)d.Teacher and students identifu the text structure and language feature for minutes of meeting.
e. Teacher distributes some other meeting agendaand minutes of meeting and students discuss it in their own group to identify the text structure and language feature.f.Teacher helps the group that needs it.

SECOND WEEK
JOINT AND INDEPENDENT CONSTRUCTION This session is devoted to giving the students exercise to write meeting agenda and minute of meeting I. Meeting Agenda Instructional P roce dure : l.Teacher distributes a copy of "A manager note to his secretary in which he asks the secretary to write meeting agenda,'.
2. Students are asked to write the meeting agenda in groups.3. Teacher discusses sample of the meeting agendi written by the groups in front of the class.

II. Minutes of Meeting
Instructional P roce dure : 1. Teacher plays a video of a "Business Meeting" Z. Students are asked to write the minutes of meeting in group.3. Teacher discusses sample of the minutes of meeting *.itten by the groups in front of the class.III.At the end of the lesson, teacher assigns each group to attend any meeting or record any meeting and write the minutes.At the last meeting, cach group prcscnls llre rcsult of its work in front of the class and discussion follows.