Understanding learners and learning in ESP genre-based writing instruction

ESP genre research has generated numerous descriptions and explanations of discipline-specific genre exemplars and has produced various pedagogical proposals. However, what learners learn from these genre descriptions and the resulting pedagogical proposals and how they develop as learners and writers of genres in ESP genre-based writing pedagogy is still a less-developed area of research. In this paper, I first examine previous studies and theoretical debates to argue for the importance of closely examining learners and learning in the ESP genre-based writing classroom. I then uncover two deeper issues that may be holding back this area of research: the need for more attention to the full intricacies of being a learner in ESP genre-oriented classroom and the lack of theories of learning that are sensitive to the unique conceptual framework and pedagogical realities of ESP genre-based writing classroom. I explore, with examples, how these two deeper issues can potentially transmit changes to the current ESP genre-based research agenda.