Parry is one of the proponents of the view that “discipline-specific writing norms and conventions are learned by tacit means” (Parry, 1998, 273). As teaching all the norms and conventions explicitly is unrealistic, Parry’s statement is partly true for EFL learners as well. Teachers’ responsibility then is mainly to make students attentive to the genres they intend to learn. In a way, students should become “genre theorists in the true sense” (Johns, 2002b, 239; also in Clark & Ivanič, 1997; Harwood & Hadley, 2004) and be open to the complexity of text production and comprehension, while being flexible in approaching a variety of genres to be able to fulfill a variety of academic requirements. From the students’ perspective, many of their difficulties are due to teachers’ not being explicit about their requirements (Hyland, 2000; Lea & Street, 1998). As genre knowledge is in part tacit, therefore, many teachers find it difficult to state exactly how a particular paper lacks structure, they can only identify whether a piece of writing is successful or not (Lea & Street, 1998).

Findings of genre theory and research are difficult to apply; they do not claim to provide either templates or stability required in a traditional EAP teaching situation (Johns, 2002b). For a first-hand experience, target language texts from the target genre may be used in a classroom as sources of information about form or content, as models, as a basis for discussions or even as an object of study (in student research). Whichever use is opted for, they are not authentic anymore in a classroom context: deprived of their communicative purpose, they become “artifacts for study, rather than tools for achieving ‘repeated social action’” (Miller, 1984, as cited in Johns, 2002b, 238). For enhancing authenticity in this sense, teachers might use disciplinary content from the field of academic writing: this way, both language (form) and content of L2 texts become relevant in the classroom situation (Adam & Artemeva, 2002).

The Sydney School considers application of genre theory and research in pedagogy as an effective instructional approach. Through modelling and discussion of text features, instructors assist learners through the exploration of a genre’s social purposes (Johns, 2002b). Henry and Roseberry (1998), on the basis of their empirical research, arrive at the conclusion that a genre-based approach to EAP/ESP instruction focusing on rhetorical organization is significantly more efficient than a traditional course. Alongside a number of researchers in the field (Grabe, 2002; O’Neill, 2001; Pea, 1992), who see genre as an expertise, or genre as a part of a skilled writers’ background knowledge of the typical structure of a genre, they claim that raising advanced learners’ awareness of the conventions of a genre makes it easier for the writer to concentrate more on achieving their communicative goals, and helps them organize their ideas more effectively. If novice writers are made familiar with common rhetorical strategies used in EAP, they can “make intelligent choices as they select a form for their ‘discovered ideas’” (Reid, 1984, 150). The application of findings from research in written discourse analysis, or contrastive rhetorical studies, need not be done in a prescriptive way. Instead of “imitating” patterns, which is a frequent criticism of the application of theory to practice (Leki, 1991, 123), individual learners or novice writers might observe expert EAP writing to seek ideas for further development in their language use, acquire writing strategies or ways of structuring their papers. Students may also find it helpful to understand that their problems in writing are not only a matter of language proficiency, but also part of the process of learning about the target discourse community.