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Abstract

In the last 19 years (2003–2021), research on genre-based approaches (GBAs) to writing pedagogy has been accumulating in the fields of English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL). This review mapped existing literature to identify research trends and provide a research agenda for future GBAs. This study employed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines and identified 52 published articles and 2 unpublished doctoral theses via a structured keyword search on Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, Google Scholar, and ProQuest in the fields of teaching English to speakers of other languages, language learning, and education. The results show that GBA is now widely used in teaching English academic writing to ESL/EFL tertiary/graduate students. The main research findings include: (1) the top five countries in the number of paper publications are China (i.e., five), the United States (i.e., five), Japan (e.g., 4), Thailand (e.g., four), and Sweden (e.g., four); (2) the top four authors in the number of paper publications are Hyland (i.e., two), Lu (i.e., two), Negretti (i.e., two), and Pineh (i.e., two); and (3) the top three most strengthen keywords are writing pedagogy, genre-based approach, and English for academic purpose. This study also discusses the theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords

genre-based approach writing pedagogy bibliometric analysis content analysis scientometric analysis

Introduction

Genre-based pedagogy has been a hot topic since it was firstly introduced in the 1980s by John Swales in the area of English for Specific Purposes (Li, 2022; Swales, 1990). Now it is popular in language teaching and learning (Martin, 1992; McKnight, 2020; Zhang & Zhang, 2021), primarily in language education (Derewianka, 2003; Negretti, 2021). Some researchers have also employed genre-based pedagogy in studies on teaching writing in diverse discourses and on the effects of using a genre-based approach (GBA) to increase students’ genre awareness (Carstens, 2009; Dong & Lu, 2020; Flowerdew, 2016; Giraldo, 2019; Guerra-Lyons & Mendinueta, 2020; Kuiper et al., 2017; Morell & Pastor Cesteros, 2019; Negretti, 2021; Tribble, 2017; Truong, 2017; Ye, 2020). Therefore, research on development of a GBAs to writing pedagogy may enhance students’ English writing performance to the benefit of their development in English writing.

In the English as a second language and as a foreign language (ESL/EFL) context, the GBA has been widely used in teaching academic writing courses. In the GBA to English writing pedagogy, English language teachers provide clear instructions explaining linguistic characteristics and rhetorical patterns specific to the discourse in which students need to participate (Hyland, 2007). Teachers also explain genres’ social-communicative purposes, structures, and language features (Hyland, 2003). With this instructional approach, English teachers help improve ESL/EFL students’ understanding of textual structures, familiarize them with genres, and enhance their awareness of the conventions of English academic writing (Lu et al., 2021; Nagao, 2018).

The term genre usually refers to abstract, socially recognized ways of using language; it was first introduced in the 1980s by John Swales in the fields of second language (L2) writing and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) (Hyland, 2003, 2007). The concept is based on assumptions that features of a similar group of texts align with the social settings of their creation and applications and with their authors’ choices. Scholars in the systemic functional linguistics field have focused on researching genres in the context of registers (Hasan, 1996; Martin, 1992; Meyer et al., 1987). Then, the Sydney School’s genre theory was proposed, defining genre as a staged, objective, and goal-driven socio-communicative activity in a specific culture (Martin, 1992). As developed by the Sydney School, genre is applied in the pedagogical field when teaching writing. In writing curricula, the GBA is used to teach ESL/EFL or native English learners the structure and linguistic patterns that occur in some significant genres, for example, letters, recounts, research articles, narratives, reports, and expositions.

Furthermore, the Sydney School proposed a genre-based teaching and learning model (Lai, 2014; Liu, 2014) that can inform how language acts to generate genres and can also support teachers in increasing students’ genre awareness (Dirgeyasa, 2016; Jodairi Pineh et al., 2017; Loi, 2010; Yasuda, 2011). Although the GBA is becoming increasingly popular in writing classes, English language teachers in the ESL/EFL context often remain unfamiliar with this practical teaching approach (Dirgeyasa, 2016; Yang, 2016). Additionally, the GBA to teaching writing involves some critical issues, that is, some researchers argue its drawbacks. For instance, Byram (2004), states that the GBA neglects ESL/EFL learners’ self-sufficiency. Moreover, the GBA ignores the importance of teaching basic linguistic, grammatical, and vocabulary knowledge so that ESL/EFL learners can express their ideas in English; meanwhile, it pays too much attention to conventions and genres (Byram, 2004). Furthermore, many scholars have argued that GBAs limit ESL/EFL students’ generation of creative ideas because they (too) carefully follow a genre’s structures (Badger & White, 2000). Therefore, this teaching approach remains somewhat questionable.

Recent decades have seen GBAs’ increasing development—employed at the primary, secondary, college, and graduate levels in, for instance, Australia, Canada, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States (Allen & Paesani, 2022; Derewianka, 2003; Khaw & Tan, 2020; Zhang, 2018). Much research has been conducted in the field, and, from 1979 to 2021, many significant articles were published on using a GBA in English Language Teaching and learning. However, in our review of these studies, we found that the main focus has been on writing courses, with only a few review articles (Derewianka, 2003; Li & Flowerdew, 2020; Paltridge, 2014).

Additionally, we found that published articles focused on GBAs are mainly quasi-experimental research articles or natural classroom-based longitudinal research articles (Almacıoğlu & Okan, 2018; Humphries & Takeuchi, 2004; Khaw & Tan, 2020; Mauludin, 2020). Still, few review articles have been published. We searched websites of the leading Scopus indexed journals in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and language learning and teaching to find exponential growth in the number of primary studies. Indeed, from 1979 to 2021, 54 preliminary studies were conducted on GBAs in teaching writing in the ESL/EFL context. However, after carefully searching leading academic publication databases, we found only one review article on a GBA in L2 writing instruction (Paltridge, 2014). This leading narrative review (Paltridge, 2014) showcased a holistic picture of GBAs’ development from 1981 to 2014.

However, Paltridge (2014) mostly focused on GBAs’ development in L1 writing, and (Cheng, 2021) argued that although numerous scholars are researching GBAs, review articles have blind spots in mapping existing knowledge. This situation has resulted in gaps in GBAs to teaching L2 writing and the need to identify its trends to help further develop the knowledge base. Unlike a traditional narrative review, a systematic literature review (SLR) is a replicable, scientific, and transparent process that can help collect all existing related publications to achieve specific research objectives (Mulrow, 1994). Thus, the current situation indicates great need for systematic, thorough review to map the GBA in L2 writing pedagogy studies and identify its trends in order to inform further practice and research (Lu, 2021). Therefore, this SLR sheds light on the GBA’s development in L2 writing pedagogy studies because high-quality review articles need to be published to showcase a broader picture of the GBA’s development in writing pedagogy during the last 19 years (2003–2021).

Thus, a systematic, objective approach to scientometric analysis of the research literature is warranted to map existing articles and explore GBA trends in writing pedagogy. Such analysis is made possible by development of visualization technology, namely, CiteSpace. A scientometric analysis is a practical approach for performing reviews that evaluate a specific research focus’s status quo and trends. It has the advantages of making full use of qualitative, quantitative, and computational approaches to assess and analyze research performance and development (Konur, 2012). A scientometric analysis is performed by evaluating publication years, authors, countries, keywords, abstracts, and so on. Numbers and frequencies are analyzed and visualized by using the information visualization software CiteSpace (Chen, 2006).

As an increasingly influential teaching approach, the GBA could benefit from an SLR that uses visualization techniques to identify themes and gaps in existing research. Therefore, this paper has two main objectives:

To map existing GBA research published from 2003 to 2021 in the ESL/EFL context; and To use the findings to explore GBA studies’ trends in writing pedagogy.

Research Methodology

We used triple analysis (i.e., bibliometric, content, and scientometric) and visual analytic techniques to achieve the two objectives. Cheng et al. (2018) investigated tourism and Safura Zabidin et al. (2020) examines both the status quo and the trend of Industry 4.0 applications from the construction engineering standpoint with the triple-approach analysis, but this study showcases a systematic, holistic, diachronic, and quantitative overview of GBA research, as represented in the domains of ESP and English for Academic Purposes (EAP), by reviewing the 54 selected articles from 2003 to 2021, mapping the status quo, and identifying research trends. We believe that such a scientometric review can provide a systematic account to complement existing studies and also contribute to GBA studies by answering the following two research questions:

What is the status quo of GBAs in writing pedagogy studies?

What are the trends of GBAs in writing pedagogy studies?

This review article combines an SLR and triple analysis (i.e., bibliometric, content, and scientometric), as shown in Figure 1. First, an SLR was conducted to collect data by selecting articles according to keywords, language, document types, and so on. Second, quantitative bibliometric analysis was employed to refine article selection and to explore GBA trends in writing pedagogy studies. Third, content analysis was used to describe selected papers in categorical terms. A careful review was conducted to map GBA research in ESL/EFL writing pedagogy studies. Finally, a scientometric analysis was performed by using the text-mining software tool CiteSpace (data visualization software) based on the theory of co-citation and a pathfinder algorithm invented by Chen Chaomei (Chen, 2006; Sabe et al., 2022). Its functions are co-citation, co-occurrence, and cooperative networks. Data analysis can be performed with databases such as the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index, Web of Science (WoS), and Scopus (Chen, 2006; Sabe et al., 2022). This paper used CiteSpace to map and explore trends by country, institution, author, and keyword, to visually analyze the GBA in writing pedagogy studies, and to draw the science map for the last 19 years (2003–2021; details in Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Research procedures.

Systematic Literature Reviews

SLRs were initially used in academia as a systematic, transparent, and reproductive method of synthesizing research findings (Cook et al., 1997). The technique provides a comprehensive overview of existing literature related to specific research questions and to present and synthesize findings. Compared to a traditional literature review, an SLR is objective, systematic, transparent, and replicable (Mallett et al., 2012). SLRs began in the late 1970s when Cochrane (1999) provided practical guidelines for implementing SLRs in medical studies (as cited in Durach et al., 2017).

In recent years, SLRs have become popular for summarizing “evidence-based practice” in some educational research fields, such as e-learning (Valverde-Berrocoso et al., 2020), distance learning (Bashir & Warraich, 2020), and health care education (Madi et al., 2019). However, SLRs are scarce in teaching English as a second language (TESL) (Lu, 2021). Reasons might be the “idiosyncrasies of each area, or the retrieval, identification, and synthesis of related articles” (Evans & Benefield, 2001). Currently, SLRs are mainly designed for medical studies and require adjustment for their application in educational fields (Chong & Plonsky, 2021; Xiao & Watson, 2019).

An SLR contains four steps. First, clear and specific research questions must be proposed. Second, databases must be clearly defined by well-structured questions. Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be set by using prespecified research questions, definitions or conceptualizations, measures/key variables, research designs, participants, timeframes, and data (Xiao & Watson, 2019). Third, a thorough search for related articles should be conducted with minimal bias. Finally, all samples should be checked against predetermined criteria for findings related to the research questions (Xiao & Watson, 2019). In this regard, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) (2020) and Cochrane are two widely used systems that provide standardized methods. Samples are selected from a significant database and one or more supplementary databases to address bias issues (Xiao & Watson, 2019). Additionally, at least two individual researchers should review sample screening to avoid subjectivity (Chong & Plonsky, 2021; Xiao & Watson, 2019). The current study followed PRISMA (2020) guidelines to conduct the SLR.

Systematic Literature Review in this Study

This study conducted an SLR by focusing on trends (during the last 19 years from 2003 to 2021), on existing GBA research in the ESL/EFL context, and on research gaps in recent writing pedagogy studies. Setting a timeframe is vital to conducting a systematic literature review (Major & Savin-Baden, 2010). We selected 2003 as the starting point of the timeframe for the following reasons: First, Professor Dr. Ken Hyland’s seminal article, Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to the process, was published in 2003. He is affiliated with the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, and was the first to compare genre-based and process-based writing instruction in L2 writing classrooms. As of August 2022, Hyland’s (2004, 2007, 2008, 2015, 2016, 2021) paper has been cited 1,575 times according to Google Scholar. Thus, his paper is among the most prominent in the GBAs in L2 writing. Notably, in his subsequent work on GBAs in L2 writing, he developed many of the themes presented in this article.

Hyland’s paper was published 19 years ago; thus, conducting an SLR of research conducted since then will reveal the key works that have influenced and shaped genre and genre-based teaching in L2 writing in English in classroom settings. During the first round, each study’s research type, subject, objectives, and methods were reviewed by preset inclusion and exclusion criteria by careful screening of selected articles’ titles, abstracts, and keywords. If these components were unclear, then full articles were read. A common method of conducting an SLR in diverse research fields, PRISMA requires four steps: identification, screening, eligibility, and data abstraction and analysis, detailed below.

Identification

The identification process was performed in December 2021. In this phase, 56 articles from Scopus, 50 from WoS, 3,486 from ERIC, 24,500 from Google-Scholar, and 52,289 dissertations/theses from ProQuest were carefully selected.

Screening

The screening phase included or excluded articles by preset criteria (Table 1). Eligibility, inclusion, and exclusion criteria were determined to select articles that met the SLR’s requirements (Table 1).

Table 1.

Criteria for Article Inclusion and Exclusion (Adapted from Zhai et al., 2022).

Criteria	Inclusion	Exclusion
Publication timeline	January 2003–December 2021	2004 and before
Language	English	Languages other than English
Document type	Journal (research articles)	Books
	Journals (SLR)/review papers	Non-peer-reviewed articles
	Conference proceedings	Notes
	Book chapters or book series

Eligibility

In the third phase, articles were included or excluded according to the preset criteria. Excluded from the databases in this phase were 22 similar articles, but 88 articles remained. According to the GBA and the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 54 articles were finally selected as relevant to the GBA in writing pedagogy.

Data abstraction and analysis

During the final phase of data abstraction and analysis, all articles were evaluated, reviewed, and analyzed. We selected 54 articles for this study (Table 2) shown in Appendix A. The SLR procedure is shown in Table 2.

Table 2.

PRISMA Steps for SLR Studies (Adapted from Moheret al., 2009).

Triple-approach Analysis in this Study

Bibliometric Analysis in this Study

To identify the essence of a field, bibliometrics, including citation and co-citation analyses, uses quantitative methods based on written documents (McBurney & Novak, 2002). The field of TESOL has embraced bibliometric analysis; thus, its use has increased (Ngoc & Barrot, 2022; Pearson, 2022; Yilmaz et al., 2022). The specific reasons for this increase are the advancement, increased availability, and increased accessibility of scientific databases (e.g., WoS, Scopus, ERIC, Google Scholar, and ProQuest). In addition, using bibliometric analyses in TESOL is not a fad but a reflection of their ability to manage large volumes of data and produce high-quality results. Using SLR data, we applied bibliometric analysis to quantitatively analyze published papers and unpublished theses closely related to this study. As shown in Table 2, 52 articles and 2 theses from the SLR that were strongly related were analyzed. This technique was conducted to obtain an overview of the descriptive data such as year, country, research discipline, and trends in publication. An outline of the bibliometric analysis is presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Bibliometric analysis outline.

Content Analysis in this Study

The importance of references differs in bibliometric analyses, and citations can be unrelated within a publication or article (McBurney & Novak, 2002). Citation patterns tend to be reduced by a sufficiently large sample (Schildt et al., 2006), but references continue to reveal the thoughts and concepts behind a publication. In this study, content analyses of focal articles were conducted to overcome these limitations (Krippendorff, 2018) and provide a direct, comprehensive overview of the topics and themes related to GBAs. Specifically, content analysis was conducted on the abstracts of 54 GBA primary studies conducted between 2003 and 2021 in three fields: TESOL, language learning, and education. Three themes emerged: types of writing tasks, research design/methods, and participant demographics.

Scientometric Analysis in this Study

Scientometric analysis visualizes bibliometric networks to create thematic mappings of special disciplines, science domains, and research frameworks derived from comprehensive bodies of literature (Chen, 2006; Sabe et al., 2022). Manual reviews provide insightful overviews of the field but are prone to bias and interpreted subjectively (Chen, 2006). Thus, in this paper, we used CiteSpace for scientometric analysis. CiteSpace is a Java tool for analyzing co-citation networks (Chen, 2006; Sabe et al., 2022). The software provides unique advantages for visualizing and analyzing scientific literature, thereby facilitating the understanding of the literature by creating accessible graphs that uncover implications hidden in a vast amount of data (Chen, 2006; Liu & Hu, 2021; Sabe et al., 2022). We used this innovative visualization technique for the analysis and visualization of a broader network from Scopus. Figure 6 shows our data mining process.

During scientometric analysis, the 43 Scopus articles were reviewed to visualize bibliometric networks for mapping the GBA’s trend in writing pedagogy studies from 2003 to 2021. Using CiteSpace, the extensive network from Scopus was analyzed and displayed. The 43 records were considered the research data, as outlined in the CiteSpace manual. As a result, the following three scientometric techniques were performed: (1) Co-author analysis: a co-occurrence network of authors and countries, reflecting micro- and macro-level collaboration; (2) co-words analysis: a network of keyword co-occurrences and keyword evolutions; and (3) co-citation analysis: to identify co-cited journals, co-cited authors, and co-cited documents.

Overall, the three approaches—bibliometric, content, and scientometric analyses—complement each other when identifying key concepts and themes, uncovering research gaps, setting areas for future research, and establishing the theoretical foundations and structure of GBAs studies (Donthu et al., 2021). Using network-based citation analyses, we robustly demonstrated the structure and knowledge base of GBA studies. Researchers can gain detailed conceptual insights by analyzing the texts authors use rather than merely authors’ citations. Our use of a triple-approach analysis quantitative systematic review helped map the status quo and identify trends in GBA studies, thereby providing a more systematic, objective, and holistic overview of GBA studies than has been available in the literature. Moreover, this TESOL study is the first to use three methods that complement each other in an integrated, objective, and accountable fashion, thereby reducing bias associated with traditional literature reviews and expert interviews in TESOL (Gough et al., 2017).

Results and Discussion

To achieve the current study’s two objectives, we used triple analysis (i.e., bibliometric, content, and scientometric) (Cheng et al., 2018; Donthu et al., 2021; Qureshi et al., 2020) combined with the tools Flourish and CiteSpace to map the existing GBA research and its trends in the ESL/EFL context for the past 19 years (2003–2021).

Bibliometric Analysis

We used bibliometric analysis to review 52 previously published articles and 2 unpublished doctoral theses based on SLR data. This quantitative technique allows a holistic overview to obtain descriptive data, such as the year, country/region, research discipline, and author (Cheng et al., 2018; Donthu et al., 2021; Qureshi et al., 2020) (see outline in Figure 2).

Publication year map and trend

Figure 3 shows the publication year trend for the GBA in writing pedagogy studies from January 2003 to December 2021. Studies peaked in 2020 with 11 published articles. Figure 3 evidences that most work on GBAs was undertaken within the last 5 years (e.g., 2017–2021). In contrast, research productivity in previous years was extremely low, at approximately one paper per year from 2003 to 2016 and that the GBA in writing pedagogy studies has not developed progressively during the past 19 years. In 2017, seven papers focused on this topic in the ESL/EFL context. In 2018 and 2021, the numbers were 8 and 6, respectively. In 2019, only one article was published, less than the average of the previous 5 years (2017–2021). Findings from bibliometric research on annual publication trends indicated the GBA’s equal distribution of publications and positive development, with an average of 6.6 publications for the last 5 years (2017–2021). However, minor fluctuations occurred (see Figure 3). Therefore, we call for more publications on the GBA in writing pedagogy studies, especially in ESL/EFL.

Figure 3.

Yearly publication trend.

Publication distribution by country/region map and trend

Figure 4 shows that China (e.g., five) and the United States (e.g., five) produced most of the articles on the GBA in writing pedagogy during the past 19 years, followed by Japan (e.g., 4), Thailand (e.g., 4), Sweden (e.g., four), and Hong Kong (e.g., three). Meanwhile, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), specifically Malaysia (e.g., two), and Indonesia (e.g., two), also contributed (Cullip, 2009; Emilia, 2005; Mauludin, 2020; Phan & Ganapathy, 2020). However, the GBA’s birthplace, Australia, produced only two articles during the research period (Khaw & Tan, 2020). A possible reason might be global collaboration since many GBA scholars have researched countries other than their own. Figure 4 shows publications by country/region (details by the Flourish visualization tool shown in Figure 4) (Flourish - Data visualization & storytelling).

Figure 4.

Country/region publication distribution.

The results of the bibliometric research regarding country/region distributions support Hyland and Jiang (2021), that is, the United States has dominated the scholarly publishing industry, owing to substantial investments in science, technology, and education. Our findings are also supported by Alinasab et al. (2021), who found that genre-based writing instruction in nonnative English speaking countries has received insufficient empirical attention. Thus, although the GBA has been used worldwide, their use in L2 writing has not been widespread (Alinasab et al., 2021).

Notably, the reason that China (e.g., five) produced the most articles on GBAs in writing pedagogy during the past 19 years might be its 2013 educational policy concerning EAP, implemented by the Shanghai Education Bureau (2013). Since then, China’s EAP scholars have focused on genre-based instruction in writing classes at the nation’s universities (Li & Wang, 2018). This result is supported by Hyland and Jiang (2021) that China has become an emerging center for EAP research. Another possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the Chinese government has increased funding and support for research (Zhang et al., 2013). Therefore, in China, a language policy should be developed that promotes EAP education, and worldwide, improvements in genre-based writing instructions are necessary.

Research discipline map and trend

Subject categories were identified from the Scopus database, with 43 articles reviewed (Table 3). Most studies (46) were produced in the social sciences, followed by the arts and humanities 36 (Changpueng, 2012; Corcoran & Englander, 2016; Mahboob, 2014; Shi et al., 2019). Only four, an insufficient number, were published in psychology (Almacıoğlu & Okan, 2018; Firkins et al., 2007; Guerra-Lyons & Mendinueta, 2020; Myskow & Gordon, 2009). Furthermore, researchers from computer science three (Corcoran & Englander, 2016; Lu, 2021; Morell & Pastor Cesteros, 2019), engineering two (Corcoran & Englander, 2016; Morell & Pastor Cesteros, 2019), business, management, and accounting two (Corcoran & Englander, 2016; Morell & Pastor Cesteros, 2019) were also interested in the GBA in writing pedagogy (details in Table 3). Bibliometric studies on research disciplines indicate that GBAs have been widely used in various disciplines. For instance, Ryshina-Pankova and McKnight (2022), Tardy et al. (2022), and Tribble and Wingate (2013) have found an increasing trend in the frequency of using GBAs in academic writing classes in nonnative English speaking countries across various disciplines (Swales, 2019).

Table 3.

Article Distribution by Subject Area.

Subject area	f
Social Sciences	46
Arts and Humanities	36
Psychology	4
Computer Science	3
Business, Management, and Accounting	2
Engineering	2

Author map and trend

From the Scopus database, 43 articles were selected based on our aforementioned criteria. Among these articles, four authors significantly contributed to the GBA in writing pedagogy studies: Hyland (2003, 2007), Lu et al. (2020), Lu, Casal et al. (2021), Negretti and McGath (2018), Negretti (2021), Jodairi Pineh et al. (2017), and Jodairi Pineh (2017) each published two works. Other scholars’ trend was also constant, with only one publication each (Table 4), so an increased number of scholars are needed to research the GBA in writing pedagogy. Given the topic’s importance and potential, we believe that more authors should be writing on the GBA in the ESL/EFL field.

Table 4.

Article Distribution by Author During the Past 19 Years (2003–2021).

Author	f
Hyland	2
Lu	2
Negretti	2
Pineh	2
Allen	1
Almacıoğlu	1
Araneda	1
Baker	1
Cesteros	1
Zhang	1
Chen	1
Abdel-Malek	1

In addition to the four prominent authors, Hyland is a well-known ESP scholar with over 30 significant books, 240 journal articles, and book chapters in the ESP field. He is also the co-founder of an SSCI indexed journal: Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Hyland’s seminal publication in 2003, titled Genre-based pedagogies: A social response, has had a substantial effect on writing pedagogy, especially second language writing, and increased the teacher-friendliness of writing lessons. Additionally, Hyland has taught L2 writing in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Hong Kong and significantly contributed to the development of L2 writing pedagogy. He (https://uea.academia.edu/KenHyland/CurriculumVitae) is among the top 0.5% of scholars on ResarchGate and Academia.com.

Another leading scholar, Professor Xiaofei Lu, from Pennsylvania State University, USA, is an expert in corpus linguistics, second language writing, and EAP. Lu has contributed to the integration of GBAs with corpus analysis into academic writing pedagogy (Lu et al., 2020), focusing on the linguistic realizations of rhetorical and communicative functions in academic writing genres (Lu et al., 2020; Lu, Casal et al., 2021) (http://www.personal.psu.edu/xxl13/). Two other productive authors are Professor Dr. Raffaella Negretti of Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, and Professor Dr. Aiyoub Jodairi Pineh of the English Department of the University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran, thereby indicating the global acceptance of GBAs.

Content Analysis

To map existing GBA research and identify its trends in the ESL/EFL context, we performed content analysis on the 54 selected articles, classifying them into three major themes: (1) types of writing tasks, (2) demographics of research participants, and (3) research design and/or methods (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Content analysis procedure.

Map and trend of types of writing tasks

Most articles reported on GBA’s effectiveness mainly at the whole-text level. One study focused on the paragraph level, particularly, introductions to research articles (Khaw & Tan, 2020). For this SLR, regarding the types of genres studied in these selected articles, we employed the classification of classroom genres proposed by Derewianka (2003): recounts (Abdel-Malek, 2020; Allen & Paesani, 2022; Crane & Malloy, 2021; de Oliveira & Lan, 2014; Donthu et al., 2021; Kindenberg, 2022; Mingsakoon & Srinon, 2018), research articles (Dong & Lu, 2020; Giraldo, 2019; Hasan, 1996; Li & Flowerdew, 2020; Mizumoto et al., 2017; Morell & Pastor Cesteros, 2019; Negretti, 2021; Negretti & McGrath, 2018; Zhang, 2018), narratives (Mauludin, 2020), expositions (Kongpetch, 2006), and some others, for instance, emails and letters (Changpueng, 2012; Truong, 2017), university application letters (Myskow & Gordon, 2009), critical literacy (Guerra-Lyons & Mendinueta, 2020), professional reflective writing (Heron & Corradini, 2020; Pérez-Llantada, 2018; Read & Michaud, 2015), research grant proposals (Flowerdew, 2016), and testing purposes (Shi et al., 2017) (details in Appendix A).

The bibliometric research on writing tasks showed that the use of GBA approaches is increasing for teaching recounting, researching, writing narratives, critical literacy, and professional reflective writing as well as for test purposes, which is consistent with Derewianka’s (2003) predictions on the development of GBA writing instructions. Based on these findings, our suggestion is that further research should explore how to use GBAs in teaching digital and multimodal genres (Swales, 2019).

Research design map and trend

Of the 54 selected articles, 12 employed qualitative research methods to investigate perspectives of teachers, students, or both (Abdel-Malek, 2019; Almacıoğlu & Okan, 2018; Andre & Schneider, 2004; Giraldo, 2019; Heron & Corradini, 2020; Kindenberg, 2022; Mingsakoon & Srinon, 2018; Mizumoto et al., 2017; Negretti, 2021; Negretti & McGrath, 2018; Tribble, 2017; Xeketwana, 2018). As research methods, the majority of these studies employed semi-structured interviews or focus group discussions. They also employed case study research designs focusing on attitudes and beliefs of teachers, students, or scholars on application of the GBA in writing curricula. Other research methods were also adopted, for instance, experimental/quasi-experimental (Carstens, 2009; Changpueng, 2012; Jodairi Pineh et al., 2017; Mauludin, 2020; Meyer et al., 1987; Phan & Ganapathy, 2020). In this method, researchers usually divided student participants into one to four treatment/experimental groups who received various GBA instructional strategies and, in general, a control group who did not receive any strategies, in order to examine how the GBA was applied to enhance writing competence.

Additionally, these studies usually adopted pretest, treatment, and posttest methods to measure students’ progress. Six of the 54 selected articles adopted mixed research methods. These studies were mainly quasi-experimental with qualitative techniques, for example, interviews, focus group discussions, or qualitative observations focused on the GBA’s effectiveness and identified teachers and students’ perspectives (Chaisiri & Chaisiri, 2010; Dong & Lu, 2020; Kuiper et al., 2017; Morell & Pastor Cesteros, 2019; Shi et al., 2017; Ye, 2020; Zhang, 2018). Additionally, action research (Chaisiri & Chaisiri, 2010; Gómez Burgos, 2017; Nagao, 2018; Truong, 2017) or natural classroom-based longitudinal methods (Abdel-Malek, 2020; Allen & Paesani, 2022; Jodairi Pineh, 2017; Myskow & Gordon, 2009) were adopted (details in Appendix A).

Participant map and trend

Participants in these studies ranged from low (de Oliveira & Lan, 2014; Firkins et al., 2007; Maturana Araneda & Gálvez Fredes, 2021), to intermediate (Arnbjörnsdóttir, 2020; Carstens, 2009; Emilia, 2005; Guerra-Lyons & Mendinueta, 2020; Kongpetch, 2006; Truong, 2017; Ye, 2020), to advanced levels in English writing competence (Johns, 2011; Kuteeva, 2013; Negretti, 2021). The majority of studies (48) focused on the GBA’s effectiveness in tertiary students’ writing courses in or beyond college. Very few concentrated on secondary or senior high schools (Mauludin, 2020). Additionally, some focused on teachers’ perspectives (Abdel-Malek, 2019; Shi et al., 2017; Tribble, 2017), including one that investigated professor–researchers’ perspectives on the GBA’s effectiveness in writing pedagogy at a Colombian state university (Giraldo, 2019) (details in Appendix A). Participant analyses indicate that most were tertiary students; moreover, some research focused on master’s and doctoral students, thereby indicating that the GBA is now widely used in teaching writing courses in higher education.

Scientometric Analysis

During scientometric analysis, the 43 Scopus articles were reviewed in order to visualize bibliometric networks for mapping the GBA’s trend in writing pedagogy studies during the last 19 years (2003–2021). CiteSpace, the information visualization software, was used to analyze and display the more extensive network from Scopus, which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, thus ensuring an in-depth search (Molecular oncology covered in SCOPUS, the largest abstracting and citation database, 2007) (details illustrated in Figure 6).

Figure 6.

Science mapping analysis process.

Network map by country/region

This study mapped the distribution network of papers pertinent to the GBA in writing pedagogy studies during the past 19 years (2003–2021). As in Figure 7, this network contained nine nodes and two links. Each node’s size represents the number of articles published in the country from 2003 to 2021, indicating that the nations making critical contributions were the United States, Australia, China, Sweden, and England (Abdel-Malek, 2020; Crane & Malloy, 2021; Heron & Corradini, 2020; Kindenberg, 2022; Shi et al., 2017).The United States produced the most significant number of publications (Abdel-Malek, 2020), but very few papers were published worldwide in the past 19 years.

Figure 7.

Country/region network.

Furthermore, these countries had fragile collaborative connections; even so, some pooled connections revealed international collaborations: cooperative networks between China and the United States, between England and Sweden, between the Netherlands and Belgium, and between Australia and Hong Kong (Dong & Lu, 2020; Kuiper et al., 2017; Mahboob, 2014; Negretti, 2021). Earlier published articles (De Oliveira & Richardson, 2001; Rezaeian, 2015) have suggested that cooperation between native and nonnative English speaking educators, researchers, and authors can enhance the quality of publications in English (details in Figure 7). Therefore, this field requires a considerable number of collaborative networks.

Network map of keyword co-occurrence and evolution analysis

Keywords can identify a research article’s topic, and keyword co-occurrence networks can help investigate hot topics in a specific field during a specific period (Su & Lee, 2010 ). Moreover, an evolution network can demonstrate the knowledge area’s development during a specific period. Figure 8 shows that the keyword co-occurrence network of research on the GBA in the writing pedagogy studies includes 162 nodes and 485 links. Moreover, keyword occurrence frequency identifies the node’s size. The top 11 keywords in frequency were: genre pedagogy (11), academic writing (8), genre analysis (5), genre (5), genre-based pedagogy (5), systemic functional linguistics (4), student (5), writing (4), writing pedagogy (3), GBAs (3), and narrative (2). This indicates that numerous scholars paid attention to genre pedagogy and writing studies and that most studies were from a systematic functional linguistics perspective. Finally, keywords with high betweenness centrality reveal hot topics. In this SLR, three keywords received relatively high betweenness centrality scores, specifically, “academic writing” (0.51), “English for research publication purpose” (0.44), and “genre awareness” (0.34) (details in Figure 8).

Figure 8.

Co-occurring keyword network for GBA studies.

Using keywords to detect “citation bursts” not only identifies the research focus but also makes the research frontier visible (Wu et al., 2020). Citation bursts in publications are generally indicative of noteworthy increases in a research field. Keyword citation bursts can reveal emerging topics in a field during a specific period (Wu et al., 2020).We identified the 25 most strengthened keywords from 2003 to 2021. A list of 25 keywords (Table 5) with high citation bursts in different periods and research topics and changes, is also shown in Figure 9. When each keyword first appeared and their durations of influence on the research area were observed (Wu et al., 2020). In Figure 9, the blue line denotes the entire study period (2003–2021), and the red line denotes the citation burst (Wu et al., 2020). We divided the development period into two phases (i.e., 2003–2013 and 2014–2021) to precisely detect research topics within the “genre-based approach” and identify the trend in their development in L2 writing between 2003 and 2021.

Table 5.

Keywords with Stronger Citation Bursts in Different Periods.

Period	Keyword
2003–2013	1.writing pedagogy (burst strength = 1.2136, 2003–2009)
	2.genre (burst strength = 0.7412, 2003–2016)
	3.process-writing (burst strength = 0.679, 2003–2006)
	4.social literacy (burst strength = 0.679, 2003–2006)
	5.engagement (burst strength = 0.6742, 2004–2008)
	6.motivation (burst strength = 0.6742, 2004–2008)
	7.social cultural context (burst strength = 0.6742, 2004–2008)
	8.young writer (burst strength = 0.6742, 2004–2008)
	9.action research (burst strength = 0.6742, 2004–2008)
	10.genre-based approach (burst strength = 1.1705, 2008–2010)
	11.systemic functional grammar (burst strength = 0.6742, 2008–2009)
	12.discourse analysis (burst strength = 0.6742, 2008–2009)
	13.esl writing (burst strength = 0.6742, 2008–2009)
	14.genre-based writing instruction (burst strength = 0.8434, 2011–2017)
	15.second language writing pedagogy (burst strength = 0.6837, 2011–2012)
2014–2021	1.mainstream teacher (burst strength = 0.6553, 2014–2015)
	2.English medium university (burst strength = 0.6553, 2014–2015)
	3.slate project (burst strength = 0.6553, 2014–2015)
	4.science writing (burst strength = 0.6553, 2014–2015)
	5.appliable linguistics (burst strength = 0.6553, 2014–2015)
	6.elementary classroom (burst strength = 0.6553, 2014–2015)
	7.academic writing (burst strength = 0.8783, 2015–2019)
	8.English for academic purpose (burst strength = 0.9768, 2017–2018)
	9.EAP (burst strength = 0.9768, 2017–2018)
	10.genre-analysis (burst strength = 0.7898, 2017–2019)

Figure 9.

Top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.

2003 to 2013: Responding to process-based writing instruction

As is shown, most of the keywords in the period 2003 to 2013, such as “writing pedagogy” (1.2136), “genre-based approach” (1.1705), “genre-based writing instruction” (0.8434), “genre” (0.7412), “second language writing pedagogy” (0.6837), and “process-writing” (0.679) had a longer burst duration than the keywords in the second research period. During this first period, the focus of research on writing instructions shifted from a process-based approach to a GBAs informed by systemic functional linguistics (SFL), which may explain this phenomenon. Moreover, the interest in genre pedagogy in L2 writing increased because of the improved understanding of how language is structured to accomplish social purposes (Hyland, 2003). Studies related to these keywords may be considered pioneering in the GBA. They have provided important, fundamental sources for the use of GBAs in L2 writing as well as new research directions.

Specifically, Hyland’s seminal article published in 2003 compared genre-based and process-based writing instruction in L2 writing classrooms and thus promoted the development of GBAs in L2 writing. Articles, books, and book chapters on the use of GBAs in L2 writing were published during the studied period (e.g., Carstens, 2009; Emilia, 2005; Firkins et al., 2007; Humphries & Takeuchi, 2004).Furthermore, findings indicated the emerging research focus of GBAs might be its use in L2 writing for teachers from nonnative English speaking countries worldwide (Cheng, 2021).

Subsequently, other key words, such as “social literacy” (0.679), “engagement” (0.6742), “motivation” (0.6742), “social cultural context” (0.674, ) “young writer” (0.6742) “action research” (0.6742), “systemic functional grammar” (0.6742), “discourse analysis” (0.6742), and “esl writing” (0.6742) were also hot topics for GBA scholars in this period. The findings reveal that most GBA scholars conducted action research to examine GBAs’ interactions with students in L2 writing classes (Cheng, 2021). Furthermore, these findings reflect that GBAs aim to examine the social function of language and linguistic features of genres that assist in this function (Cheng, 2021; Hyland, 2003, 2007).

2014 to 2021: Flourishing in EAP/ESP field

As shown, most of the keywords in the period 2014 to 2021, such as “English for academic purposes” (0.9768), “EAP” (0.9768), “academic writing” (0.8783), and “genre analysis” (0.7898), could be viewed as hot topics during this period, even a major frontier of GBAs, because their burst duration has lasted until now. As a result of the findings, the second stage is called “Flourishing in EAP/ESP.” According to Liu and Hu (2021), the 2000s-present period can be considered the flourishing period for the development of English for Specific Purposes/English for Academic Purposes. It seems that the findings are consistent with those made by prominent figures in the study of GBAs, including Cheng (2021), Hyland (2015, 2007), Swales (2019), and Tardy et al. (2022). It was found that genre-based writing instruction was very popular in EAP/ESP classrooms. The phenomenon might be caused by the fact that most L2 teachers are familiar with ESP/EAP’s GBAs (Cheng, 2021).As these findings demonstrate, John Swales’ seminal work Genre Analysis has had an enormous impact on EAP genre-based pedagogies.

Subsequently, other key words, such as “mainstream teacher” (0.6553), “English medium university” (0.6553), “slate project” (0.6553), “science writing” (0.6553), “appliable linguistics” (0.6553), and “elementary classroom” (0.6553) are also hot topics for GBAs’ scholars in this period. Regarding the aforementioned findings, they support Hyland and Jiang’s (2021) findings that internationalization and globalization in higher education institutions have encouraged the development of scientific writing in EAP/ESP classrooms, thereby stimulating the increasing development of genre-based writing instruction.

Consequently, these findings highlight an urgent need for effective EAP/ESP GBAs teaching methods in L2 writing classrooms. The CARS model by Swales (1990) and the teaching learning cycle developed by the Sydney School (Feez & Joyce, 1998) were Western-created approaches and unlikely to be appropriate for L2 teachers outside of Western contexts (Cheng, 2021). Nevertheless, these studies demonstrate that the two models have had a significant influence on L2 writing, and we should acknowledge the great contributions these leading figures have made.

Next, we identified research hotspots’ evolution by period of keywords through co-occurrence links (Figure 11). Lines connect nodes that depict co-occurrences between keywords, and colors associated with these lines indicate when new connections were established. Considering the transition of GBAs from native English speaking to nonnative English speaking settings, keywords have migrated away from “social literacy” to “academic literacy,” “academic biliteracy,” and “biliteracy.” A growing number of researchers have become interested in “writing pedagogy,” “genre-based approaches,” and “academic writing” since 2015. By contrast, this field witnessed many frequently emerging concepts: in 2016 “English for research publication purpose,” “scientific writing,” “English for academic purpose,” “second language writing,” and “academic writing” indicated increased scholarly attention; in 2017, “corpus” signaled integration of other theories with GBA; in 2018, “English as a lingua franca” showed GBA’s acceptance and use worldwide; in 2019, “college English” indicated its use in tertiary writing courses; in 2020, “EAP materials and task design” indicated its practical approach in EAP writing courses; in 2021, the dominant keyword was “writing performance.” In brief, during the last 19 years, the GBA has been increasingly developed to improve English writing pedagogy and student performance (details in Figure 10). The findings indicate that scholars have devoted the most attention to EAP and genre pedagogy studies. Therefore, scholars from the EAP field have made significant contributions to the development of GBA in writing pedagogy; furthermore, an increasing number of scholars have focused on its application in TESOL. However, further research is necessary.

Figure 10.

Timeline of the keyword co-occurrence network: 2003 to 2021.

Implications for Future Research and Practice

The research results of our triple-approach systematic review provide certain theoretical and pedagogical implications as well as recommendations for future research on GBAs in the L2 writing field. From theoretical perspectives, this study reaffirms Lu et al.’s assumption that there is a new trend of integrating related theories, including data-driven learning (Mizumoto et al., 2017), self-efficacy (Zhang, 2018), and corpus analysis (Lu et al., 2020), into genre analysis theory in GBA studies. Particularly, this study confirms that other theories can be integrated into the EAP writing classroom, especially in the ESL/EFL setting. Hence, we suggest further research on the effectiveness of hybridizing GBAs in L2 writing classrooms to provide alternative strategies for L2 writing teachers. From pedagogical perspectives, this systematic review allows L2 teachers to identify, for example, which authors have provided the most effective writing instruction in L2 writing, which country produces the most GBAs, and the most innovative GBA writing instructions.

For future research, we suggest that researchers should pay more attention to this field because English academic writing competence is becoming increasingly significant for ESL/EFL learners at the tertiary/graduate levels because students from nonnative English speaking countries increasingly need to pursue higher degrees in English (Carstens, 2008; Mehar Singh, 2018). However, research remains scarce for instruction at the tertiary/graduate level. For this reason, much research in the academic writing field has been conducted to help improve ESL/EFL learners’ English writing competence in scholarly research articles (Corcoran & Englander, 2016; Li & Flowerdew, 2020). Still, more research is needed on GBA applications in English academic writing to sustain development of ESL/EFL tertiary/graduate students’ skills. The few existing studies focus mainly on students in the sciences, with very little attention to students in the social sciences (Dovey, 2010; Hasyim et al., 2020; Hsu & Liu, 2019; Li & Flowerdew, 2020; Lu, 2021).Consequently, more robust research and empirical support in social science disciplines are needed in future studies.

To maintain minimal bias, this study employed an SLR with a triple analysis (i.e., bibliometric, content, and scientometric). However, the research has some limitations, primarily in inclusion/exclusion criteria for the SLR process. Further investigations could include books and/or non-peer-reviewed articles to showcase a more comprehensive picture of the GBA in writing pedagogy. In contrast, future scholars could narrow the research scope by focusing on the GBA in English academic research articles to provide support for improved English academic writing competence. Furthermore, the period for selecting articles could be extended to include 1979 to the present to provide a view of GBAs’ development and better identify its trends. Overall, the current research serves as a basis for further investigation.

Conclusion and Final Notes

To our knowledge, this is the first review to use triple-approach analysis to capture the status quo and identify trends in GBA research in L2 writing classrooms. This study’s research objective was, first, to map GBA research and, second, to identify its trends in writing pedagogy in the ESL/EFL context during the period 2003 to 2021. To achieve these objectives, we performed a triple analysis SLR to review selected articles from the domains of country/region distributions, authors, research disciplines, writing tasks, research design/processes, research participants, annual publication trends, keyword bursts, and co-occurrences of keywords to demonstrate research trends (details in Figure 11).

Figure 11.

Triple analysis of the GBA status quo and trends.

To achieve the first objective, findings indicated that GBAs are now worldwide used, specifically, the top six countries publishing GBA writing pedagogy studies were China, the United States, Japan, Thailand, Sweden, and Hong Kong. Analysis of research disciplines showed that although most studies were produced in the social sciences and arts and humanities, some contributions were from psychology, business management and accounting, computer science, and engineering. In other words, the GBA is now widely used in a variety of disciplines. Meanwhile, analysis of writing tasks revealed that the GBA could be used to teach recounts, research articles, narratives, critical literacy, and professional reflective writing, as well as for test purposes with positive outcomes. Analysis of research designs and methods identifies a wave of the GBA in writing pedagogy studies. The quasi-experimental research design dominates this field by focusing on the GBA’s effectiveness in writing pedagogy from the perspectives of teachers, students, and scholars. It is evident from participant analysis that the majority of students in the GBA were tertiary students, with some research focusing on master’s and doctoral students, showing that the GBA is now widely used in higher education institutions for teaching writing.

To achieve the second objective, we performed triple analysis to review articles from the perspectives of annual publication trends, keyword bursts, and keywords’ co-occurrence. Findings from bibliometric research on annual publication trends indicated the GBA’s equal distribution of publications and positive, sustainable development for the last 5 years (2017–2021). Furthermore, we performed a scientometric-assisted review of 43 articles from the Scopus database by using CiteSpace to visualize GBA research trends via keyword burst and keywords’ co-occurrence. Keywords were also utilized to establish the occurrence network to reveal hot topics from 2003 to 2021. Additionally, the time factor was studied to identify keyword evolution, revealing that the three most frequently used keywords were “academic writing,” “English for research publication purpose,” and “genre awareness.” In scientometric analysis, CiteSpace software crystallized GBA related research’s significant research findings. In this regard, however, we call for more publications on the GBA in writing pedagogy studies, especially in ESL/EFL.

In this SLR, we traced the history of genre-based pedagogy (e.g., 2003–2021) for teaching ESL/EFL writing through crucial and influential work in its development. The majority of the work included is practical, focusing on introducing and teaching multiple genres. However, a few theoretical articles contribute to the notion of how to think about genre and how to conduct research on genre. Because this study is mainly concerned with ESL/EFL writing, it refers particularly to ESP and Australian SFL genre studies. North American New Rhetoric Studies is also included. However, the focus was originally on L1 writing studies. More recently, it has expanded to include academic writing as well, as demonstrated by the SLR entries.

Because we focused mainly on empirical research in ESL/EFL settings, in closing, we apologize for omission of some noteworthy books, reviews, and articles related to GBAs. Furthermore, SLR allows only a limited number of entries, making it difficult to include fully comprehensive materials.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix A.

Overview of Selected Studies.

No.	Timeline	Document type/journal name/rank index	Citations	Author year [Ref]	Context/participants	Genre-type	Research method/design	Major findings
1	2003	Journal Article Journal of Second Language Writing Q1 SSCI Indexed	291	Hyland (2003).	L2 writing teachers L2 writing learners	Multiple genres	Commentary article	According to genre pedagogies, it is necessary that students understand what target discourses look like in order for writing instruction to be effective.
2	2004	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	1	Humphries and Takeuchi (2004).	L2 writers in Japan	Essay	Research and development method	In order to implement genre-based approaches for teaching writing in EFL, model essays should be carefully selected according to students’ English skills.
3	2005	Doctoral Thesis Google-scholar Indexed	223	Emilia (2005)	Tertiary-level students in Indonesia	Argumentative genre Academic writing	Qualitative study Interviews	In order for genre-based teaching to be implemented successfully, teachers need to be trained.
4	2006	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	108	Kongpetch (2006).	Thai university students	Expositions	A qualitative, ethnographic case study	Study results indicate that students’ writing skills were significantly improved through the use of genre-based instruction.
5	2007	Journal Article ELT Journal Q1 SSCI Indexed	27	Firkins et al. (2007).	Students with learning disabilities at a secondary college, Hong Kong	Information report genre	Classroom-based research	This study determined that the genre approach provided an explicit teaching methodology that was appropriate for students with learning disabilities or low proficiency in English.The genre approach would be more effective if other instructional methods were integrated to support it.
6	2007	Journal Article Journal of Second Language Writing Q1 SSCI Indexed	389	Hyland (2007)	L2 writing teachers L2 writing learners	Multiple genres	Commentary article	Students’ creative and expressive abilities should be unleashed through effective writing instruction, enabling them to access greater life opportunities. It is specifically designed to produce better writers rather than simply better texts by allowing students to explore key lexical, grammar, and rhetorical features and to apply this knowledge to create their own examples of the genre.
7	2008	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	21	Carstens (2008)	Tertiary-level L2 students.	Academic writing	Conceptual paper	English academic writing competence can be enhanced through genre-based instruction for both L1 and L2 students.
8	2009	Doctoral Thesis Google-scholar Indexed	57	Carstens (2009)	Students at the University of Pretoria, South Africa	Historical Writing	Quasi-experimental research Survey questionnaires	A genre-based approach can increase students’ genre awareness and improve their writing skills.
9	2009	Journal ArticleELT Journal Q1 SSCI Indexed	23	Myskow and Gordon (2009)	Japanese EFL High school students	University application letters	Classroom-based research Follow-up interviews	If using a genre approach in the classroom, it is vital that attention be focused on the dynamic interaction between social contexts and genres, rather than merely teaching learners to reproduce oversimplified rhetorical patterns.
10	2009	Journal Article RELC Q1 SSCI Indexed	1	Cullip (2009)	ESL learners in Malaysia	argument text	Case study	The Sydney School’s genre-based curriculum cycle may help undergraduate students develop the ability to write in a genre-related way.
11	2010	Journal Article Journal of English for Academic Purposes Q1 SSCI Indexed	35	Dovey (2010).	Postgraduate L2 students	Literature-based information reports	Reflections	In genre-based writing classrooms, attention should also be paid to the writing process.
12	2010	Journal Article International Journal of Learning Q4 Scopus Indexed	6	Chaisiri and Chaisiri (2010).	Thai university students	L2 English writing	Questionnaire Semi-structured interviews Action research	Thai universities could benefit from teaching and learning English writing using a genre-based approach.
13	2011	Journal Article Journal of Second Language Writing Q1 SSCI Indexed	67	Johns (2011).	L2 writers	Essay	Survey	Most investigators focus on integrating genre-based approaches with corpus analysis, and use qualitative research techniques to investigate graduate students’ perspectives on genre-based approaches in graduate writing.
14	2012	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	22	Changpueng (2012).	40 fourth-year engineering students in Thailand	Emails	Experimental research Questionnaire Interview	Using the GBA as a method to teach email writing, the study found a statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores for each group of Thai engineering students. This indicated that the GBA could be an effective method for teaching email writing.
15	2013	Journal Article English for Specific Purposes Q1 SSCI Indexed	27	Kuteeva (2013).	Master students from four disciplines at a Swedish University	Dissertation and research article	Exploratory study	It is believed that a genre-based approach to teaching could help master students gain a better understanding of genre and improve their academic writing skills.
16	2014	Journal Article IRAL International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Q3 SSCI Indexed	8	Mahboob (2014).	University students from a biology program in Hong Kong	Academic writing in tertiary-level	Research and development method.	The Sydney School’s use of Teaching Learning Cycle (Rothery, 1996) to teach English as a foreign language students in an online environment has been shown to help their academic literacy development.
17	2014	Journal Article Journal of Second Language Writing Q1 SSCI Indexed	64	de Oliveira and Lan (2014).	Fourth grade elementary school students in Indiana,USA	Procedural recounts	Case study	This study found that systemic functional linguistics is a useful analytical and pedagogical tool that can support science writing instruction in elementary classrooms. SFL is a valuable way to help teachers address language and genre, and researchers are able to identify changes in how students write.
18	2014	Journal Article Language Teaching Q1 SSCI Indexed	29	Paltridge (2014).	Review selected articles/Books focusing on genre-theories or genre-based teaching approach in L2 academic writing in university settings.	Academic writing	Review	In L2 academic writing settings, genre-based approaches are widely used, and systemic functional genre work (the Sydney School) has more recently been integrated into academic writing.
19	2015	Journal Article College Composition and Communication Q1 Scopus Indexed	7	Read and Michaud (2015).	University students in USA	Professional writing	Research and development method.	Professional writing training can be enhanced by a genre-based approach.
20	2016	Journal Article English for Specific Purposes Q1 SSCI Indexed	23	Flowerdew (2016)	Science and engineering postgraduate students in Hong Kong	Research grant proposals	Research and development method.	Students can develop their writing skills and genre awareness by using genre-based approaches when writing grant proposal abstracts.
21	2016	Journal Article Publications Q1 ESCI Indexed	10	Corcoran and Englander (2016).	Postgraduate students in Mexico	Academic writing	Individual-Interviews Focus group Interviews Post-Course Survey Classroom Observations	There are genre-specific expectations regarding research article writing and/or developing social networks to facilitate the research publication process.
22	2017	Journal Article Language Learning Q1 Scopus Indexed	24	Mizumoto et al. (2017).	eight L2 writers in Japan -six undergraduate students -two graduate students	Research Article	-Qualitative analysis -pilot study	This study shows that an online writing support tool using the bundle–move connection approach is practical in a genre-based writing pedagogy.
23	2017	Journal Article Journal of Writing Research Q2 ESCI Indexed	7	Kuiper et al. (2017)	Thirteen students in the Netherlands	Subject-genre Event proposal	Mixed research method	Genre-based writing instruction (GBWI) could effectively enhance students’ writing competence in subject-genre (event proposal) writing. The researchers posit that subject lecturers’ participation in a subject-genre writing training class plays a significant role in tertiary-level writing classes.
24	2017	Journal Article Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics Q2 Scopus Indexed	0	(Jodairi et al., 2017)	Twenty-six students from a university in Iran	Information report genre	Quasi-experimental research with one group pretest-posttest research method	All the students stated a general improvement in their academic writing ability after taking the academic writing courses that use the GBA.
25	2017	Journal Article Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics Q2 Scopus Indexed	1	Jodairi Pineh (2017)	Fifteen volunteered undergraduates at a university in Iran	Exposition Discussion writing	Mixed research method with narrative analysis and one group pretest-posttest research method	The GBA could help enhance students’ writing competence in argumentative writing. Students need considerable practice to be familiar with rhetorical strategies.
26	2017	Journal Article Journal of English for Academic Purposes Q1 SSCI Indexed	26	Tribble (2017)	Students at the Queen Mary, University of London	Disciplinary writing	Qualitative research method	The researcher posited that the GBA could help students be familiar with the target genre. The GBA could improve students’ ability in making research topics and creating text meanings.
27	2017	Journal Article RELC Q1 SSCI Indexed	8	(Shi et al., 2017)	Chinese college English teachers in an academic training workshop that used GBA for writing development	Test-purpose genres	Mixed research method with questionnaires and follow-up interviews and observations	All six teachers held the strong belief that genre pedagogy could help to improve their students’ writing proficiency in CE classes and the academic achievement of the CECR goals.
28	2017	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	5	Truong (2017)	Sixty participants at a university in Vietnam	Letter	Action research	Most of the participants could improve their awareness of the context, their ability to select the appropriate conventions, and their ability to organize ideas and the paralinguistic features after 30 hours of classroom time.
29	2018	Journal Article South African Journal of African Languages Q1 Scopus Indexed	0	Xeketwana (2018)	Preservice teachers in South African schools	Academic literacy	Qualitative research method with the content analysis research method	It showed that the GBA is a practical teaching approach in teaching language knowledge to preservice teachers in South Africa.
30	2018	Book Chapter Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton Scopus Indexed	0	Pérez-Llantada (2018).	Postgraduate students at a Spanish research university’s PhD program	Academic literacy	Mixed research method	In their academic writing courses, students showed a strong desire to integrate genre-based approaches with technology, or to use genre-based approaches coupled with corpus-based approaches.
31	2018	Journal Article Journal of Second Language Writing Q1 Scopus Indexed	26	Negretti and McGrath (2018)	Eight L2 English doctoral students at a Swedish technical university	Research articles	Qualitative research method with interviews and observations	Genre pedagogy could increase doctoral students’ writing interests. A genre-map helped make students understand the structures of their targeted genres more clearly and supported them to better understand the structure of their target genres.
32	2018	Journal Article Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics Q2 Scopus Indexed	1	Almacıoğlu and Okan (2018)	Ninety-three first year English language and literature undergraduate students from a state university in Turkey	Academic texts	Qualitative case study with classroom observation, interviews, teacher’s journal, students’ written texts (portfolios), and students’ diaries	The application of GBA in a writing course could help enhance students’ academic writing ability. It showed that there was an obvious improvement in their writing performance.
33	2018	Journal Article Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics Q3 Scopus Indexed	2	Liu (2018)	Two Taiwanese freshmen Shine and Pin	Comparison contrast essay	Case study with written texts and interviews	The explicit genre instructions could support EFL students to effectively negotiate the genre power of the academic discourse community. The participants of the current study showed positive feedback toward the GBA in academic writing courses.
34	2018	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	22	Zhang (2018)	A total of 59 first year graduate students at a Chinese university	Research articles in the science disciplines	Mixed research method	Students improved their confidence in writing research articles with the comparison to their writing before the experiment.
35	2018	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	34	Nagao (2018)	Fourteen foreign language learners at a university in Japan	Discussion essay	Action research	The majority of the students who participated in the GBA language training and accepted timed, instructed writing tasks believed that reading research papers and books and writing similar essays could help improve their ability to write discussion essays.
36	2018	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	6	Mingsakoon and Srinon (2018)	Students at a Thai upper secondary school	Personal experience recounts	Case study	Most of the students’ personal experience recounts could be effectively improved with a higher degree of generic structure construction in terms of conformity by using the GBA in writing class.
37	2019	Journal Article Publications Q1 ESCI Indexed	2	Morell and Pastor Cesteros (2019)	Graduate students in Spain	Research articles	Mixed research method with a survey and interviews	All students believed that the GBA could foster their ability in research article writing and enhance their ability in making decisions on selecting research topics.
38	2020	Journal Article Teaching in Higher Education Q1 Scopus Indexed	0	Heron and Corradini (2020)	Seventy-two case studies from two UK universities	Professional reflective writing	Qualitative case study	The genre pedagogy could help improve novice writers’ writing competence in professional reflective writing.
39	2020	Book Chapter Publisher: Springer, Cham Scopus Indexed	0	Arnbjörnsdóttir (2020)	1,100 university students in Iceland	Academic writing	surveys	There is a need of widely-using genre-based instructional approach in secondary level to help better prepare for academic English writing in university study for EFL students.
40	2020	Journal Article Ampersand Q1 Scopus Indexed	3	Ye (2020)	Undergraduate science and engineering students at a research university in mainland, China	Scientific genres	Mixed research method with a questionnaire survey,interviews,focus group discussion, and reflective feedback	Students have positive feedback toward GBA in academic writing.This course enhanced students’ genre awareness in academic writing and increased students’ motivation and confidence in academic writing in the English language.
41	2020	Journal Article Language Teaching Research Q1 Scopus Indexed	3	Allen and Paesani (2022)	Three participants at a U.S. university	Audio-recorded personal descriptions Written travel recounts In-person oral sales pitches Opinion blog posts	Quantitative research method videotaped-observations, teacher interviews, and a collection of classroom artifacts	Explicit instructions based on the GBA could help enhance students’ writing ability and increase their writing confidence when learning a foreign language.
42	2020	Journal Article DELTA Documentacao de Estudos em Linguistica Teorica e Aplicada Q3 Scopus Indexed	0	Guerra-Lyons and Mendinueta (2020).	University students in Colombia	Critical literacy	Collaborative Action Research	Integrated GBA can enhance students’ knowledge of genres and their ability to write critically.
43	2020	Journal Article System Q1 SSCI Indexed	4	Abdel-Malek (2020)	Fourteen undergraduate students and one graduate student at a U.S. university	Recount	Natural class-based longitudinal study	The GBA could help empower Assessment for Learning (AFL) students’ recount writing competence for social-cultural communication purposes.
44	2020	Journal Article Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Q4 SSCI Indexed	1	Mauludin (2020)	Grade-11 students from a public senior high school in Indonesia	Narrative texts	Experimental research	The GBA could help improve students’ writing competence with or without a joint construction process.
45	2020	Journal Article IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Q2 Scopus Indexed	2	Khaw and Tan (2020)	Twenty-nine engineering Ph.D. students in Australia	Research article introduction	Natural class-based longitudinal study	Explicit teaching instructions based on the GBA in an academic writing class can help foster students’ ability in creating contexts.
46	2020	Journal Articl English for Specific Purposes Q1 SSCI Indexed	14	Dong and Lu (2020)	Thirty electrical engineering (EE) or mechanical engineering (ME) master’s students at a public research university in China	English research articles	Mixed research method with pre- and post-instruction questionnaires, interviews, and students’ reflective journals	The integrated GBA could help increase students’ genre knowledge and improve their academic writing skills.
47	2020	Journal Article International Journal of Inclusive Education Q1 Scopus Indexed Eric Indexed	0	McKnight (2020).	School teachers in Australia	English composition	Email survey Semi-structured interviews	Explicit genre-based strategies are vital for students, as well as teachers who have the freedom to experiment with differentiated pedagogy which meets the needs of diverse students in their classrooms.
48	2020	Journal Article Google-scholar Indexed	2	Phan and Ganapathy (2020)	Students at a Malaysian secondary school	Descriptive writing	Quasi-experimental research	The GBA could be considered as a practical teaching approach to improve low proficiency students’ English writing competence.
49	2021	Journal Article Ikala Q2 Scopus Indexed	0	Maturana Araneda and Gálvez Fredes (2021).	Second grade of elementary school in Santiago de Chile	Descriptive Report genre	A qualitative analysis based on a pretest and a posttest	Results show that a multimodal approach to teaching and learning led to a greater level of autonomy in writing.
50	2021	Journal Article Sustainability Q1 SSCI Indexed	2	Zhang and Zhang (2021)	EFL tertiary students at a Chinese university	Argumentative writing	Mixed research method Quasi-experimental research Stimulated recall interviews Open-ended questionnaires	Explicit instructions could help effectively improve L2 learners’ argumentative genre writing abilities.
51	2021	Journal Article System Q1 SSCI Indexed	2	Crane and Malloy (2021)	ESL tertiary students at a U.S. university	Personal recounts	Quasi-experimental research with one group pretest-posttest design	Explicit instructions could help effectively improve novice L2 learners’ writing skills.
52	2021	Journal Article Written Communication Q2 SSCI Indexed	0	Negretti (2021)	Doctoral students at a Swedish university	Scientific writing Research articles in science field	Qualitative research method with interviews	The GBA could help increase learners’ genre awareness that can enhance the ability of these cohorts of student participants’ to make deliberate selections in recurrent, socially recognized communicative contexts.
53	2021	Journal Article Journal of Curriculum Studies Q1 SSCI Indexed Eric Indexed	0	Kindenberg (2022)	Thirteen selected history texts were examined at a school in Stockholm, Sweden.	Historical recount genres	Qualitative case study	GBA could help students have a deeper understanding of the history.
54	2021	Journal Article International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching Q3 ESCI Indexed Eric Indexed	3	Lu, Casal et al. (2021)	Reviewing the published articles focusing on genre-based approach and corpus-based approach in EAP writing studies.	Academic writing	Research Agenda	Academic writing research and pedagogy can benefit from an integration of corpus- and genre-based approaches.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our great appreciation to Professor Dr. Ken Hyland for his valuable and constructive suggestions during the revision of this systematic literature review article. His willingness to generously give his valuable time has been very much appreciated. We conducted this study to understand better Genre Based Approaches (GBAs) development in recent 19 years. We are also extremely grateful to the reviewers for reading and providing constructive feedback on earlier articles.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to several aspects of the study, specifically, conceptualization, X.W.Z.; methodology, X.W.Z. and A.B.R.; validation, X.W.Z. and A.B.R.; formal analysis, X.W.Z. and A.B.R; investigation, X.W.Z. and A.B.R.; resources, X.W.Z. and A.B.R.; data curation, X.W.Z. and A.B.R.; writing—original draft preparation, X.W.Z. and A.B.R.; writing—review and editing, X.W.Z. and A.B.R.; supervision, A.B.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Xiuwen Zhai

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Triple Method Approach to Development of a Genre-Based Approach to Teaching ESL/EFL Writing: A Systematic Literature Review by Bibliometric,Content,and Scientometric Analyses

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Research Methodology

Systematic Literature Reviews

Systematic Literature Review in this Study

Identification

Screening

Eligibility

Data abstraction and analysis

Triple-approach Analysis in this Study

Bibliometric Analysis in this Study

Content Analysis in this Study

Scientometric Analysis in this Study

Results and Discussion

Bibliometric Analysis

Publication year map and trend

Publication distribution by country/region map and trend

Research discipline map and trend

Author map and trend

Content Analysis

Map and trend of types of writing tasks

Research design map and trend

Participant map and trend

Scientometric Analysis

Network map by country/region

Network map of keyword co-occurrence and evolution analysis

2003 to 2013: Responding to process-based writing instruction

2014 to 2021: Flourishing in EAP/ESP field

Implications for Future Research and Practice

Conclusion and Final Notes

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

Author Contributions

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References