INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF GENRE-BASED APPROACH ON SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of the Genre-Based Approach (GBA) on senior high school students’ academic writing skills and identifies which writing aspects contribute most significantly to students’ writing improvement, particularly in writing descriptive texts. Employing a quantitative pre-test–post-test experimental design, the study involved 31 Grade X students at SMK Negeri 15 Samarinda who received GBA-based instruction following the Teaching–Learning Cycle. Students’ writing performance was assessed using an analytic rubric covering originality, content relevance, coherence, word choice, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary use, and mechanics. The results of the paired-sample t-test revealed a statistically significant improvement in students’ overall writing performance after the implementation of GBA (p < .05). Further regression analysis showed that all assessed writing aspects significantly contributed to post-test performance, with word choice, content relevance, and originality emerging as the strongest predictors of improvement. These findings suggest that GBA is particularly effective in enhancing students’ lexical control, content development, and clarity of expression. Pedagogically, the study highlights the importance of explicit modelling, scaffolding, and genre awareness in supporting students’ academic writing development in Indonesian EFL secondary classrooms.