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María Laura Dorado y Alejandra FaríasIntroductionIn this article we report some of our findings as members of a researchgroup ("Análisis de las propiedades estructurales y lingüísticas degéneros textuales frecuentemente incluidos en libros de enseñanza delinglés como lengua extranjera en nivel primario y secundario en nuestromedio"). Our project focuses on genres frequently found in EFL textbooksused in our local context (Mendoza Metropolitan Area) with the aim ofanalyzing the pedagogical treatment the genres receive, that is, whetherthe sample texts selected are good models of the genre and whether theactivities included in the lesson help students master the genre. Ourultimate aim is to enhance the teaching of genres by offering teacherstools to make the central features of genres more explicit.Specifically, we offer our analysis of the appraisal choices that realizethe function evaluating the movie to recommend it or not in authenticmovie reviews. Our objectives are a) to identify the lexico-grammaticalresources that typically realize the evaluation in authentic movie reviews,b) to determine how accurately movie reviews in EFL textbooks reflectthose choices, c) and to offer some suggestions of how to more fullyexploit appraisal resources when teaching movie reviews in the EFLclassroom. Our framework is the Genre Theory (Martin and Rothery,1990; Martin and Christie, 2009, Christie and Derewianka, 2010) andAppraisal Theory (Martin, 2000; Martin and White, 2005; White, 2008).The teaching of genres appears to be a central aim in EFL textbooksso much so that we can find great variety and quantity of genres in mostEFL textbooks. This interest in genres, however, is many times restrictedto the inclusion of the genre as a useful context for the teaching ofgrammar and vocabulary or alternatively, specific functions. Rarely do wefind lessons in which the genre is exploited and taught as a socialproduct itself. More often than not, lessons do not pay attention to thesocial purpose the genre fulfills in the culture, the context of productionof that genre and the contextual variables that have an impact on thelanguage chosen to realize the text. This situation is what motivated themembers of our research group initially. We believe that the way genresare taught in many EFL textbooks leaves room for both research on howto improve the teaching of genres and for informed pedagogicinterventions.In order to carry out our objectives, we chose the framework of SFLbecause it is a theory that views language as a vast set of resources thatenables us to make meanings. This is the basic function of language thatcan be best studied in the context of authentic texts (and not in isolatedsentences). Our main interest in analyzing genres is related to the way inwhich language is used to build texts that fulfill a social function. Martin30 LyCE Estudios 15/2012