Indonesian EFL teachers’ portrayal of genre-based teaching practices: perceptions, implementation, and challenges

Many studies indicated a genre-based approach (GBA) as an effective method in English foreign language (EFL) teaching and GBA is also integrated into the English teaching curriculum. However, EFL teachers' portraits of GBA use in teaching practices are little understood. This study aimed to explore EFL teachers' perceptions of GBA, the implementation of GBA in EFL classrooms, and the challenges EFL teachers face when implementing GBA. This case study research involved 28 English teachers from different public high schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The data were obtained from the teachers’ self-reflection sheet adapted from Rustipa et al. (2021) and semi-structured interviews. The data gathered were then examined by utilizing thematic analysis. The findings indicated that most EFL teachers were aware of GBA and positively perceived it, the implementation of GBA in EFL classrooms had not met the standardized implementation, and students' low vocabulary mastery, time allocation, and teachers' abilities in selecting texts and designing tasks were the challenges in the GBA implementation. This study offers pedagogical implications for the stakeholders to take into account that most EFL teachers need training regarding GBA application.


Introduction
Throughout the years, numerous inventions related to the improvement of teaching practice have been discovered by researchers around the globe.One of the findings concerned the growth of teaching approaches and methods.Since the early 19th century, multiple teaching approaches and methodologies have been employed as instruction pedagogies.Pedagogy half a century ago can be called a "traditional" way of teaching.The methods back then were teachercentered; the teacher tended to dominate the class and was less interactive (Braine, 2003;Kassem, 2019;Lasry et al., 2014).As time passed, another pedagogy emerged called the student-centered method, where the students became the subject or the focus of instruction (Emaliana, 2017;Lestari & Widjajakusumah, 2009).
To attract students' attention, English should be taught through meaningful activities.This occurs when a teacher's method is fascinating, engaging, and pertinent to student life (Ali, 2019;Lee & Hannafin, 2016;Taylor, 1983).Many approaches support student-centered learning, and the genre-based approach (GBA) is one of them.GBA has gained interest among scholars.Numerous studies have been conducted on this topic, including the genre-based approach to the teaching of report-writing (Marshall, 1991), genre in the classroom by Johns (2002), and critical issues in the implementation of genre-based teaching by Triastuti and Riazi (2020).This shows GBA is one of the important approaches as there have been lots of studies related to it conducted.Furthermore, GBA was incorporated into the national English curriculum of Indonesian secondary schools in 2004and 2006(Samad & Adnan, 2017).
GBA is an approach that uses text as the basis to develop the teaching program (Arimbawa, 2012).The pedagogy equips students with knowledge of the linguistic and structural elements of various types of writing (Halliday, 1978;Tardy, 2011;Triastuti & Riazi, 2020).It is critical in our daily lives to understand that we cannot carry out even the most fundamental interactions without knowing how to utilize language in proper contexts.One can establish Journal on English as a Foreign Language,13(2), 475-498 p-ISSN 2088475-498 p-ISSN -1657;;e-ISSN 2502-6615 connections, create communities, and accomplish one's aims through genre by applying the right structure to their setting or circumstance.Therefore, it is also important for the teacher to relate theory to practice; this approach has those stages.GBA assists students in producing a variety of texts for specific objectives and audiences (Christie & Derewianka, 2008;Christie & Unsworth, 2005;Knapp & Watkins, 2005).Research studies showed a successful implementation of GBA in different fields of disciplines and different levels of education throughout the world (Marshall, 1991;Mohlabi-Tlaka et al., 2017;Mthembu-Funeka, 2009;Nurlaelawati & Novianti, 2017).Despite GBA being considered an effective approach in TEFL by various studies and it is also integrated into the 2013 curriculum, Dirgeyasa (2016) found out that many students, teachers, studentteachers, and even the university lecturers have not a good understanding and not well-informed about genre.In addition, the implementation of GBA has not met the implementation standard since teachers are reportedly perplexed with the application of GBA in the classroom due to insufficient understanding of how to execute the stages (Kadarisman, 2014).
Perceptions of the teaching ability of genre vary; some people believe that genre is adequately teachable in the classroom because it's fixed and clear enough to be taught in the classroom (Hyland & Tse, 2004).However, despite its high popularity, some people believe this approach is not teachable because the genre is so complex, varied, and unstable.Moreover, some studies indicate that GBA is effective in developing students' language skills, while others do not.Since its adaptation to the curriculum in 2004, the quality of language instruction and learning in Indonesian schools has not improved significantly (Nurlaelawati & Novianti, 2017).The purpose of this investigation is to determine how EFL teachers perceive the implementation of this approach in secondary schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, as little research has been conducted expressly to analyze English teachers' perceptions of the implementation of this approach.It aims to determine the EFL teachers' portrayal of GBA practices in EFL.
Based on the previous implementation of GBA, several studies have determined that it has not substantially improved the quality of language learning and instruction in Indonesia, nor has it enhanced students' oral English communication skills (Samad & Adnan, 2017;Slamet, 2015).The reason underlying this finding has not been resourceful.Therefore, we were interested in the teachers' portrayal of GBA because teachers' perceptions might influence their actions.It would be beneficial to determine how high school EFL teachers view GBA.By encouraging them to reflect on their perceptions and behaviors, this research is anticipated to increase high school EFL teachers' understanding Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 13(2), 475-498 p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 of GBA's various meanings and dimensions.However, we know little about English teachers' perceptions of using GBA.We do not know how well EFL teachers in Yogyakarta city perceive the use of GBA, or how they believe in using it.Previous research has focused more on genre-based instruction to increase student's English skills (Rahayuningsih, 2013;Slamet, 2015), to improve the effectiveness of English lessons using an approach based on text (Pujianto et al., 2014) and to determine the effect of text-based instruction on the ability of learners to write (Arimbawa, 2012).Those studies did not focus on the teachers' thoughts on GBA, whether they find the approach easy to apply or the other way around.One of the goals of research in applied linguistics is to encourage instructors to ponder on what they believe and do to improve language classroom activities.In light of the previous background, this research aims to determine how high school EFL teachers understand and utilize GBA in the classrooms.Therefore, the research questions are as follows: (1) What are the EFL teachers' perceptions of GBA implementation in EFL classrooms?(2) How do EFL teachers implement GBA in their classroom practices?
(3) What are the challenges faced by EFL teachers in implementing GBA?

Genre-based approach in EFL classroom
The genre-based approach (GBA) is founded on Halliday's (1978) theory of language as the tool which people use to make meanings.GBA is a method that grew out of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1978).As the name suggests, GBA develops students' communicative proficiency by requiring them to comprehend various text types.It allows them to use the appropriate spoken and written text within appropriate situations (Arimbawa, 2012).This implies that GBA serves a crucial role in developing learners' communicative competence.Halliday's SFL depends on the hypothesis that language is practical and thus may not be separated from the learner's social context (Halliday, 1978).

Implementation of GBA in language teaching
Several researchers focused on providing the current implementation of genre studies and discussed its possible application to language instruction.Researchers such as Mingsakoon and Srinon (2018), Hyland (2003), Hyland (2004), andAbbaszadeh (2013) proposed genres to be the focus in various areas of the profession.The research indicated several advantages to giving the genre a more central role in language instruction because its instruction concentrates on language as a whole text related to its social and cultural context of use.GBA can enhance communicative competence by developing a curriculum or a textbased syllabus.This type of curriculum specifies explicitly, based on the communication needs of the students, which types of texts are emphasized at each level of education.The researchers mentioned above proposed by Hermansson et al. (2019) learning model be used if a teacher wants to implement GBA in their practice as it can integrate the four language skills by giving the student short functional and procedural texts to read and asking them to write text similar to what they have read.This current study explored how EFL teachers implement GBA in their classroom practices.
Moreover, the research used GBA by Abbaszadeh (2013) discovered that the method effectively improves students' writing abilities.The stages in the GBA gradually reduced the problems in their writing and improved their skills in writing a good text.As we know, GBA teaching consists of multiple stages, each of which contributes to improving students' writing abilities.For example, building knowledge of the field, modeling, and deconstructing the text improved students' vocabulary mastery, understanding of the topic and context of the text, and knowledge of the text type, including the structure and language aspects of the text.The joint and independent text construction stage encourages the students to explore ideas and develop them into good text.Abbaszadeh (2013) also stated that the national curriculum has recommended GBA, but the teachers in the particular school do not employ it; instead, they use the grammartranslation method.This current research aimed to find out teachers' perceptions regarding GBA implementation.
Furthermore, a study regarding the implementation of GBA in Indonesia during the new-normal era was done by Rustipa et al. (2021).They found out that many EFL teachers had implemented GBA in their practice.They opined that GBA is a promising approach for improving students' communicative Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 13(2), 475-498 p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 competence, but its implementation still needs to be revised.They discovered that EFL teachers often encountered challenges in the application of GBA in classroom practice.Their study sought to determine the types of obstacles EFL teachers encounter when incorporating GBA into classrooms.

Adapting GBA to English teaching curriculum
The previous studies showed positive implementation of GBA, but it still gets criticized.Since its adaptation to the curriculum in 2004, language instruction and learning quality in Indonesian schools has remained relatively high (Samad & Adnan, 2017).Moreover, there is another researcher who is still determining GBA's advantages.Slamet (2015) stated that the GBA fails to improve students' oral communication skills in English.It is due to the teachers' lack of comprehension of the concept behind the GBA.Therefore, she suggests that teachers choose the teaching approach not based on their preference for using it but on their understanding of its concept, which is considered more important.
The main distinction between prior research and the present research is that the prior research focused on providing the current implementation of genre studies, discussing its possible application in language instruction, and the efficacy of GBA.We know very little about EFL teachers' perceptions of the use of GBA, so the present study aimed to investigate their perceptions of GBA, how they implement it, and the difficulties they encountered during its implementation.It would be beneficial to explore EFL teachers' perceptions because their perception most likely affects their teaching practices.

Design
The qualitative research with the case study research design was applied in this study.Case study research design was relevant to use in this study to find out why and how the EFL teachers applied the genre-based approach (GBA) in their practice as Yin (2018) stated that a case study is pertinent to get an in-depth description of social phenomenon.Therefore, we constructed the research participants' experiences from in-depth interviews and teachers' self-reflection sheets.According to Miles et al. (2014), a qualitative method focuses on social behavior in a natural setting.In this type of research design, the subject's environment is not affected.The qualitative technique provides an efficient means of describing the subjects' experience.Thus, we traveled to the location to Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 13(2), 475-498 p-ISSN 2088475-498 p-ISSN -1657;;e-ISSN 2502-6615 interview the English teachers.In conclusion, a qualitative method with a case study research design was used to research the phenomenon to comprehend the EFL teachers' perspectives, practices, and challenges concerning GBA in the Indonesian classroom context.

Participants
The settings of the study were 16 public high schools located in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.The schools' settings were chosen based on our accessibility and teachers' consent.The teachers were informed about the research objective, and we provided them with all the information needed to decide whether they wanted to opt in or out of the study.We sent out research permit letters to 35 public high schools.It was because, according to Indonesian Basic Data of Primary and Secondary Education, there are 16 junior high schools, 11 senior high schools, and 8 vocational high schools.The data collection occurred between November and December 2022.The subjects were chosen using purposeful sampling; only the teachers who had taught English for five years and were aware of GBA.The total number of the research subjects was 28 English teachers from 16 public high schools because only 28 English teachers (N=28) were available and decided to take part in this study after we asked them to sign the consent form.The information about the participants is illustrated in Table 1.

Data collection
The data from the teachers' self-reflection (Rustipa et al., 2021) sheet consisted of the EFL teachers' experiences in implementing GBA in their classroom practice.
It was delivered to the teachers to obtain their past experiences regarding applying GBA in their teaching practices.Then, face-to-face semi-structured interviews (Rustipa et al., 2021) were carried out in the participants' school environments to find the data about their perceptions of using GBA, the implementation, and the challenges faced when implementing GBA in EFL classrooms.We interviewed 28 participants with at least five years of experience within two weeks in 16 public junior, senior, and vocational high schools.To facilitate subsequent data analysis, we audiotaped and transcribed verbatim each face-to-face interview.

Data analysis
We applied thematic analysis to the data analysis (Terry et al., 2017).The data were collected through the interview and teachers' self-reflection sheets.We transcribed the data to seek only the relevant and important information for the research.Then, we did coding.Coding in qualitative research typically involves assigning a summary, prominent, essence-capturing, or appealing characteristic to an element of written or graphic data.Coding is divided into two main stages by Saldaña (2013): the first and second cycles.
In the first cycle of coding, we employed the NVivo qualitative data analysis.We coded the data from the participants' spoken answers in the interview section and then placed them in quotation marks.In this section, we coded the first participant as T1, the second participant as T2, and so on.After completing the first cycle coding, we did the second cycle coding to find the most frequent or important codes (the most significant categories) and determine which initial codes generate the most sense.Then, codes were categorized into predetermined themes: EFL teachers' views toward GBA, how they implement GBA in their practices, and the challenges they faced in its implementation.Saldaña (2013) stated that coding is used to categorize coded data based on thematic or conceptual similarity.Thus, we coded the data based on the aforementioned steps to provide data that provided a clear description.
Then, we arranged the data systematically so the result and the findings could be understood to be well-prepared for the conclusion and verification.Consequently, from the display data, we made conclusions related to the teachers' perception of GBA, how they implement GBA in EFL classrooms, and what kind of difficulties they faced in the implementation of GBA in their practice and other important things that appeared during the process of collecting the data.

The rigor and trustworthiness
In a qualitative research design, the validity and readability of the research's data are addressed as trustworthiness, authenticity, or credibility (Creswell & Miller, 2000).Lincoln and Guba (1986) proposed four sets for consideration to establish the validity and reliability of the data: credibility, transferability, dependability, and conformity.In the credibility stage, we looked for similarities in experiences and answers within and across all participants and used their words in the findings and discussion section.Then, in the transferability stage, we did triangulation by utilizing multiple data sources, such as teachers' self-reflection sheets and interviews.We wanted to do the observation to enhance the research's transferability but couldn't do it because the students were having an exam when we did the research.The next stage was dependability.We repeated the research step-by-step to identify similarities in EFL teachers' answers through teachers' self-reflection sheets and interviews.The last stage to establish rigor and trustworthiness was confirmability.To avoid bias in this research, we did not lead the interview but rather followed the direction of the interviews by asking the participants for clarification when needed.

Findings
Twenty-eight English teachers became respondents to this study: seventeen junior high school teachers, five senior high school teachers, and six vocational high school teachers.

What are the EFL teachers' perceptions of the GBA?
This study's first query sought to determine EFL teachers' perceptions regarding using the genre-based approach (GBA) in the EFL classroom.The current study found that out of 28 English teachers that we interviewed, 16 English teachers (T1, T4, T7, T9, T10, T12, T15, T16, T17, T18, T21, T22, T24, T25, T26, T28) know GBA and its teaching cycles, 7 English teachers (T2, T5, T8, T14, T19, T20, T23) know GBA but do not quite understand the teaching cycles of GBA, four teachers (T3, T6, T11, T13) do not know the term GBA and more familiar with the term text-based teaching (TBT) but do not know the teaching cycles either way.There Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 13(2), 475-498 p-ISSN 2088-1657; e-ISSN 2502-6615 was 1 English teacher (T27) who did not know what GBA or TBT is, let alone its teaching cycles.
Despite not all participants knowing about GBA, most of the English teachers (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T9, T10, T12, T15, T18, T20, T21, T22, T23, T24, T25, T26, T27, T28) have positive perceptions regarding GBA after we gave a brief explanation of what GBA is and its teaching cycles.They said that GBA is a good approach to teaching English because it exposes students to numerous genre texts they can utilize in the future.The teachers provide the texts and explain the context surrounding the text to enable the students to use the spoken or written texts in appropriate situations.

Excerpt 1
GBA is an effective approach because it allows the teacher to guide the students from not knowing anything to being able to produce their texts.(T22)

Excerpt 2
Well, if we look at the existing curriculum, the ultimate goal is understanding.It can be for understanding anything that uses English media, so genre-based helps to understand the meaning in texts.So, a variety of existing genres with different characteristics, different goals, different content, and structure will especially help students achieve their learning goals.(T24) Text and context are intrinsically linked.Text is regarded as a meaningful passage of language that serves a particular function, whereas context represents the text's setting.Every text serves a purpose established by its context (Johns, 2002).Consequently, both categories are interconnected because "texts are always produced within a context" (Knapp & Watkins, 2005).People create texts for particular purposes, particularly in social contexts.Some teachers (T1, T5, T6, T7, T12, T15, T17, T18, T21, T22, T25, T26) stated that GBA is an effective approach to teaching texts because its sequence of teaching cycles helps students to understand better the texts' social function, generic structure, and language features.The teachers opined that GBA teaching cycles are well-structured, easy to follow, and practical.Many of them said that teaching cycles in GBA allow them to assist students in improving their communicative competence.The students become more communicative, dare to share their ideas and be more confident in presenting their works.Based on the data obtained, some teachers said that GBA is the most appropriate approach to teaching language compared to other approaches embedded in the 2013 curriculum.One unanticipated finding was that the teachers seemed to misunderstand the 2013 curriculum.The scientific approach is one of the Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 13(2), 475-498 p-ISSN 2088-1657; e-ISSN 2502-6615 recommended approaches, but that does not mean the teachers are only limited to using the scientific approach.The teachers are permitted to choose an appropriate approach to teaching English to achieve learning objectives, but it suggested combining it with a scientific approach.Emilia (2005) stated that GBA is involved in the 2013 curriculum for teaching writing and suggested this approach for teaching other macro skills such as listening, reading, and speaking.So, the teachers are allowed to use GBA or any approach they consider a good approach to improve students' English skills.

How do the EFL teachers implement the GBA in their classroom practice?
The second question in this research was how the EFL teachers implement GBA in their practices.To answer this question, we registered several questions to understand whether or not the teachers have sufficient knowledge of GBA and how they implemented GBA in their classroom.The results of this study showed that there were 16 English teachers (T1, T4, T7, T9, T10, T12, T15, T16, T17, T18, T21, T22, T24, T25, T26, T28) who know about the teaching cycles of GBA but not all of them sufficiently understand what activities should be done in each stage.
Only 11 English teachers (T4, T7, T10, T12, T15, T16, T17, T18, T22, T25, T26) have sufficient knowledge and ability to implement GBA in their teaching practice the fact that they can explain the teaching cycle coherently and the activities done in each cycle.They mentioned that there are four stages in GBA, which are Building Knowledge of the Field (BKOF), Modeling of the Text (MOT), Joint Construction of the Text (JCOT), and Independent Construction of the Text (ICOT).Through teachers' self-reflection that we registered after the interview, we obtained thorough implementation of GBA from the teachers.In the teachers' self-reflection form, we asked them to explain how they implemented GBA in their teaching practice.The teachers' responses led us to find out whether or not they had received training on how to implement GBA appropriately in EFL classrooms.From the obtained data, it was found that only 10 English teachers (T1, T2, T9, T14, T15, T17, T23, T25, T26, T28) had received training specifically discussing GBA, 14 English teachers (T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, T11, T13, T18, T19, T20, T22, T24, T27) had not received training regarding GBA, 3 English teachers (T10, T12, T21)did not remember whether or not they had received training on GBA but at the end, they said perhaps they had received one, 1 English teacher (T16) stated that she did not get training on GBA by the government.Still, she did get training about GBA from her Teacher Certification Program (PPG) at the outstanding university.
Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 13(2), 475-498 p-ISSN 2088-1657;e-ISSN 2502-6615 Excerpt 1 In the building of the knowledge stage, I provide them with films, videos, or pictures to lead them into the material that will be learned.This stage is important because the students will be comfortable with a proper introduction to the material.In the modeling of the text, I gave them examples and explained the social function, generic structures, and language features of the text.After I assured them that they understood the context of the text, I asked them to do joint construction and later on composed their text in the independent construction.(T10)

Excerpt 2
In building knowledge of the text, I directed the students toward the material that would be learned by giving those questions and examples of the text.In the modeling of the text, I gave the students examples of the text.That's the point.Usually, in joint construction, they work in groups, maybe in pairs or groups of more than two.In the independent construction, I asked the students to work individually.(T9) The teachers who received training on GBA have sufficient knowledge and ability to implement GBA in their classroom practice.The teachers who have yet to receive any training on GBA did not have sufficient knowledge regarding the concept of GBA because one of the teachers stated that students need to learn to communicate effectively based on the register.GBA only focuses on students' writing skills.The teacher did not know that GBA already has that purpose in it.Therefore, Ellis et al. (1998) state that practitioners needed comprehensive training in implementing a genre-based approach to overcome a problem that may arise in the teaching process.The teachers also desired comprehensive and sustainable training and workshops on implementing GBA so that they could follow the trends and issues in English education and fully comprehend how to implement the approach in teaching English.

What are the challenges faced by EFL teachers in implementing the GBA?
In the process of implementing a certain approach, the teachers might experience some challenges.Therefore, this study aimed to determine the challenges encountered by English teachers in implementing the GBA in Indonesian EFL classrooms.There were some challenges often faced by the EFL teachers in GBA implementation, starting from the students, time constraints, and the teachers themselves.Students' ability to grasp the text was low because of insufficient vocabulary mastery.

Excerpt 1
Nowadays, I teach about narrative.One of the problems is that sometimes, students misplace the conflict of the text with the orientation of the text.(T14)

Excerpt 2
The challenges in implementing GBA in my classroom practice rely on students' ability to understand text and lack of vocabulary.Those two things in junior high were very, very difficult.Even though there are provisions for the type of text, for example, the narrative uses the simple past tense, and there are regular and irregular verbs, it is difficult due to limited vocabulary.(T17) The first two challenges the EFL teachers faced in implementing GBA were students' low vocabulary mastery, which led to students' low ability to grasp the text.The teachers stated that sometimes it was hard to teach English through texts because students could not understand the meaning of the texts and construct proper sentences.In addition to those two challenges above, EFL teachers also found it difficult to teach students through texts because students were easy to get bored.

Excerpt 3
Implementing GBA in teaching texts is effective because, through the steps, it is easier for the students to understand the texts in terms of their social function, structure, and language features.However, in its implementation, students sometimes find learning about texts boring.(T7) The EFL teachers shared that teaching all English language skills through texts occasionally bored the students.This is comparable to the finding by Rustipa et al. ( 2021) that teaching English through texts with the implementation of the fourphase cycle repeatedly may be tiresome for second language learners.Yet, they remind us that the benefits of the instruction cycle outweigh its drawbacks (Rustipa et al., 2021).To prevent boredom, teachers must take inventive and innovative measures, such as modifying the cycles and employing a variety of multimedia to engage students.Furthermore, the EFL teachers also found it tough to implement GBA because it was time-consuming and they had a hard time selecting appropriate texts and designing tasks.

Excerpt 4
In practice, I feel that the time needed to complete learning with this approach is quite time-consuming.Especially if the basic abilities of students tend to be weak.(T28)

Excerpt 5
The challenges in the teaching process were limited sources of appropriate texts that could be used to teach students context in texts and students' low selfesteem.(T26) Excerpt 6 I do not understand how to use GBA to improve students' listening skills.Because I've been using GBA only for reading and writing.(T12) Other challenges the EFL teachers faced were their ability to manage their time, select appropriate texts, and design tasks.The main goal of teaching English through GBA is to enable students to experience and reflect on the richness of English texts.This requires the EFL teacher to select and sequence texts for instructional purposes to be resourceful in their search for appropriate texts and to maintain a collection of texts.The teacher should consider the level of difficulty and the student's interests when selecting texts and designing tasks (Triastuti & Riazi, 2020).Yet, some EFL teachers (T10, T12, T19, T22, T26) found it hard to select appropriate texts and faced difficulty in designing tasks for certain English language skills.

Discussion
The following section interprets and relates the findings to the empirical context, genre-based approach (GBA) theory, and previous research.

EFL teachers' perception of GBA practices
Most of the participants in this current research had a positive attitude toward GBA.The EFL teachers opined that GBA is an effective approach to teaching English through text.They regard GBA as a simple approach because of its clear teaching cycle.The teaching cycles in GBA facilitate them in teaching English macro skills effectively because the steps let them build students' understanding from scratch by doing a lot of scaffoldings.The finding aligns with the previous study by Yasin and Rozimela (2013), which claimed that GBA is an effective approach to use in Junior and Senior High Schools because it contributes to students' language proficiency.GBA for teaching and learning appears appropriate for students with low skills and motivation (Dirgeyasa, 2016).It effectively guides students from simple or dependent to independent learning steps.Additionally, it encourages and facilitates the student's autonomous learning.Keshavarzi (2012) affirms that all EFL teachers want to equip their students with the understanding they need to better themselves in the future and become contributors to their society rather than burdens.The approach allows the teachers to provide students with various texts with different purposes and characteristics.
However, this result contradicts previous research by Mumba and Mkandawire (2019).The teachers tended to avoid GBA in addition to a lack of knowledge regarding the approach.They had a negative attitude toward GBA.This finding is also at odds with the conclusions of several previous studies, which concluded that the application of GBA was ineffective because fewer than fifty percent of students achieve passing grades in English classes, even though their teachers followed every stage of the genre-based approach (Nainggolan, 2018;Tachia & Loeneto, 2018).To further affirm the previous findings, Slamet (2015) stated the use of genre in teaching English has not been effective yet.This one statement leads us to conduct this study.
After further reading of references, we found that GBA became ineffective because the teachers did not understand the concept of genre and how to teach it to the students.Many university students, instructors, student instructors, and even professors, according to Dirgeyasa (2016), lack a solid understanding and are poorly informed about the genre.In addition, the implementation of GBA has not met its implementation standard because teachers are reported to be confused with the implementation of GBA in the teaching practice due to insufficient knowledge of how to carry out the stages in the classroom (Kadarisman, 2014).The similarities between this current study and some previous studies are even though the EFL teachers positively perceived GBA as an effective approach.They have not met the standardized implementation of GBA due to insufficient knowledge of the approach.

The implementation of GBA in EFL classroom
The current study demonstrates that most teachers utilized the GBA stages for teaching English macro skills and language components, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing, even though it was not 100% developed.This finding contrasts with previous research, which relied primarily on writing instruction stages (Ahn, 2012;Budairi, 2015;Carstens, 2009;Chen & Su, 2012;Emilia, 2005;Firkins et al., 2007;Kongpetch, 2006;Pujianto et al., 2014).Those kinds of previous studies could lead the teachers to think that GBA is used only to promote students' writing skills because one of the teachers we interviewed stated that GBA is only for writing purposes.It does not promote students' communicative competence.Meanwhile, many studies have proved that GBA is used to improve students' communicative competence (Kartika-Ningsih & Gunawan, 2019).
This study indicated that there is a significant gap between what English teachers know and comprehend about GBA and how they utilize this knowledge and understanding in the classroom.Even though most of the English teachers in 16 Public Junior, Senior, and Vocational High Schools perceived GBA as an effective approach and claimed to have implemented GBA in their practice, the way a majority of the EFL teachers taught texts did not reflect the teaching cycle of GBA.The appropriate implementation of GBA should be accompanied by sufficient knowledge about the concepts and the ability to apply the approach in teaching practices (Racelis & Matsuda, 2013;Triastuti & Riazi, 2020).Data analysis indicated that although the teachers have a positive attitude toward the GBA.It did not mean that they implemented the approach appropriately.They know there is an approach called GBA but did not know the embedded teaching cycles and failed to incorporate the stages in their practice.This misunderstanding regarding implementing GBA can result in an inconsistency between GBA theory and practices.This study is in line with research done by Suharyadi and Basthomi (2020).None of the 15 English teachers they observed implemented the full cycle of GBA in their practice.It was likely because teachers were unfamiliar with the GBA teaching cycles or had a limited understanding of them, although they had been teaching for years.Additionally, Arimbawa (2012) stated that the GBA framework is adaptable in that the teachers may begin at any stage, depending on the students' objective and condition, and may return to any stage during the learning process.However, it is essential to pinpoint that each stage has its purpose, such as exploration is done in BKOF and MOT, elaboration is done in JCOT, and confirmation is done in ICOT.
In BKoF, both teachers and students talk about the context of the text and share their experiences with it: the culture's context, the text's shared setting, and its benefits (Chaisiri, 2010;Hermansson et al., 2019;Mingsakoon & Srinon, 2018).BKoF introduces students to various text types and their structural characteristics before learning, especially writing.During the second phase, known as Modeling of Texts (MoT), educators provide students with exemplars of written materials to analyze their social function, general structures, and linguistic qualities.According to Hyland (2007), modeling exposes students to the text's details to be learned.Thus, teachers must have a sufficient supply of model texts (Pujianto et al., 2014).The third stage, known as joint construction, entails a collaborative effort between educators and learners, as well as among learners themselves, to generate the intended written work.Joint Construction of Text (JCoT) can be carried out collaboratively in either group settings involving students or in teacher-student partnerships to generate a unified model or draft of the text (Pujianto et al., 2014).Following group work, students are required to work independently.Therefore, the stage of independent text construction is essential for preparing students to begin working independently by applying what they have learned in previous stages.In this phase, teachers gradually reduce their use of inference (Hyland, 2007).

The challenges in implementing GBA in EFL classroom
The challenges found through this research are familiar.Similar challenges regarding teachers' insufficient knowledge in selecting texts and designing tasks have been found in many studies (Mohlabi-Tlaka, 2016;Rustipa et al., 2021;Triastuti & Riazi, 2020).The purpose of teaching using GBA is to provide students with appropriate texts for them to relate to the texts daily.Therefore, the teachers are expected to be able to select and design tasks properly.In selecting the text, the teachers should consider the students' interests and the level of the complexities of the text.Mickan (2011) affirms that the teacher should be creative to find relevant texts for use to have a stock of texts.
Other challenges faced by the EFL teachers were students' low ability to grasp the text because of their insufficient vocabulary mastery and time constraints.Similar findings were also found in (Daniarti et al., 2020;Yasin & Rozimela, 2013).The teachers have been applying many techniques to overcome the challenges in their classroom practice while implementing GBA.To cope with students' low ability to grasp the knowledge regarding the texts and low vocabulary mastery, the EFL teachers tried to follow students' learning phase or group them with the expectation that peer teaching would occur.Furthermore, the teacher asked them to list unfamiliar words in the text and then write them in a book to make a vocabulary bank.In addition to time constraints, the teachers must have a teaching technique and classroom management to overcome the time limitations.
This study demonstrates the potential for genre-based pedagogy to be further developed in teacher education.Most English teachers believed that GBA could facilitate their students to achieve their learning objectives if they applied the approach properly.To address the aforementioned issues, the following suggestions should be considered.English teachers require more GBA practice (Arimbawa, 2012;Dirgeyasa, 2016).With more experience, English teachers can adapt the GBA in their classroom practice.They will be able to design GBA-based classroom instruction and learning specifically for the situations they encounter.Thus, English teachers will no longer view time constraints, students' knowledge, and their ability to select texts and design tasks as constraints but rather as challenges to be addressed in the classroom.
It can be inferred from this research that the implementation of GBA still becomes a challenge for English teachers due to their insufficient knowledge regarding GBA (Daniarti et al., 2020;Suharyadi & Basthomi, 2020;Mohlabi-Tlaka, 2016;Rustipa et al., 2021).Therefore, the government has to facilitate the teachers with teacher training to help them cope with this challenge.For future researchers interested in this field, many elements can be explored, one of which is conducting an observation in the school regarding the implementation of GBA because the present research was unable to do that due to the unfitted time of conducting the research.

Conclusion
This study aimed to investigate EFL teachers' perception of the genre-based approach (GBA), the implementation, and the challenges they faced in its implementation.This study found that the English teachers in 16 Public Senior High Schools are aware of GBA existence.Most EFL teachers have a positive attitude toward GBA and implement the approach in their teaching practices.However, this study found that only several EFL teachers had implemented GBA properly, and the rest had implemented GBA inappropriately or had yet to apply GBA at all.It was caused by their insufficient knowledge regarding GBA's concept and teaching cycles.Challenges also arise in implementing GBA, such as students' low vocabulary mastery and teachers' inability to select texts, design tasks, and manage the time in the classroom.The teachers claimed that they barely got any training regarding GBA.Therefore, EFL teachers need support from the government in the form of teacher training about GBA implementation.
Sufficient theoretical and practical knowledge regarding GBA will assist in improving EFL students' communicative competence for their bright future as they need the knowledge of register, tenor, field, and mode in communicating daily.The limitation of this study relied on its data collection; future researchers should do classroom observation to get deeper information on how the EFL teachers applied GBA.In conclusion, when considering the difficulties teachers encounter in integrating GBA into the existing EFL curriculum in Indonesia, teachers must engage in targeted training sessions that specifically address GBA.This training should enable teachers to make informed decisions regarding the incorporation of different content categories, substantiate the significance of these categories regarding student needs and learning objectives, and arrange the content categories following societal norms that are appropriate and relevant.
These factors play a critical role in the preparation and empowerment of teachers to deliver enhanced instruction.