April 2010 Volume 6 Issue 1
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Title
Integrating Product, Process and Team Teaching in Writing Instruction

Authors
Carmel Heah & Sujata S Kathpalia

Biodata
Dr Carmel Heah teaches at the Language and Communication Centre at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She is an Assistant Professor and teaches communication skill courses such as Technical Communication, Professional Communication and Academic Writing at both the undergraduate and graduate level. She also conducts corporate training in technical writing and technical presentations. Her research interests are in the areas of discourse/genre analysis, academic writing, second language teaching and teaching pedagogy, and language for special purposes. clhheah@ntu.edu.sg

Dr Sujata Kathpalia is the Deputy Director of the Language and Communication Centre in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University. She is an Assistant Professor and teaches courses in communication skills such as Effective Communication, Technical Communication and Professional Communication as well as Academic Writing and English Proficiency. Her research interest is in the areas of discourse analysis, composition theory and second language teaching/learning. Her PhD thesis is on the genre analysis of promotional texts that include book blurbs, sales promotional letters and print advertisements. Her research interest is in the areas of discourse/genre analysis, academic writing, second language teaching and teaching pedagogy. msskath@ntu.edu.sg

Abstract
The genre approach to writing has been criticized by some hard-line advocates of the process movement as it focuses on the ‘products’ rather than the ‘processes’ of writing. Instead, they emphasize practices such as planning, self-reflection and revision of drafts. In response to these criticisms, many practitioners argue that ‘form’ cannot be dissociated from content, and they propose a more sophisticated notion of ‘form’ as one which comprises macrostructures and moves of texts that reflect the conventions of a discourse community. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the product and process approaches can be combined and further enhanced by incorporating team teaching in university programmes that focus on writing in subject-specific academic genres. This three-dimensional approach of product, process and team teaching - which involves the cooperation of the subject specialists, language experts and the students - will be explored in this paper. This unique approach will be demonstrated with specific reference to the technical communication course in the Singapore Stanford Partnership (SSP) Programme joint collaboration between Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Stanford University.  

Key Words: genre approach, process approach, team teaching, technical communication, academic genres, English for Specific Purposes