A Qualitative Inquiry into Integrating Reading and Writing through Genre-Based Pedagogy at PSDKU Kabupaten Kepulauan Aru
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: First-semester students in the Aru Islands—a geographically isolated archipelago classified as a frontier, outermost, and underdeveloped (3T) region of Indonesia—encounter a profound reality shock upon entering tertiary English education. Their prior learning, heavily reliant on rote memorization and teacher-centered instruction, collides with the academic literacy demands of a university curriculum, a collision exacerbated by the region's infrastructural marginalization. This qualitative case study, conducted at Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, PSDKU Kabupaten Kepulauan Aru, investigates how a Genre-Based Approach (GBA) framework, explicitly designed to integrate reading and writing, can serve as a lifeline for developing students' professional agency. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 first-semester students and 4 faculty members, the study identifies three pivotal mechanisms: (1) simple integrated reading-writing strategies that reduce cognitive load; (2) the contextualization of instruction within Aru's local wisdom traditions; and (3) the scaffolding of learner autonomy within the GBA cycle. Findings reveal that while students initially exhibit acute dependency on unsupervised AI tools—a phenomenon conceptualized here as the AI crisis—structured integration of summarizing, paraphrasing, and the TIDE mnemonic within the GBA cycle progressively fosters authentic authorial voice. Furthermore, embedding Malukan cultural institutions such as Pela Gandong, Sasi, and Kapata into literacy tasks affirms students' ethnolinguistic identity and transforms the multilingual environment from a perceived deficit into a pedagogical resource. The study contributes to the literature on reading-writing integration and culturally responsive pedagogy in remote EFL contexts, offering actionable recommendations for offline-first infrastructure and localized curriculum development.
Authors: Parjolo Aritonang, Siti Rahmawati Kahar
Institution: Universitas Pattimura
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7219084096