New challenges for literature study in primary school English : Building teacher knowledge and know-how through systemic functional theory

Australian primary school teachers face two major challenges in their implementation of the national curriculum for English: literary study and multimodality. Whilst teachers and students frequently engage with texts like literary picture books, the requirement that teachers build children’s understandings of texts as patterned, aesthetic constructs is new. And it is especially demanding for teachers without specialized training in either literature or multimodality. They must learn to manage the expanded ‘reservoir’ of meaning in school English and develop ‘repertoires’ of semiotic understanding in the course of fulltime teaching (Bernstein, 2000). This paper emerges from a larger study that aimed to meet the challenge of literary study in English by introducing practicing teachers to a semiotic toolkit inspired by systemic functional grammatics. Grammatics, as Halliday (2002) interprets it, distinguishes the theory from the practice of grammar, the metalanguage from language in use. In our project, systemic functional grammatics included study not just of clause-level choices in language but their role in larger discourse frames and, via analogy, in images and multimodal texts. We made use of the ‘resemblance’ between focalization in print narratives and in bi-modal narratives picture books. Adapting semiotic principles like stratification and metafunction to national curriculum notions of ‘levels of analysis’ and ‘threads of meaning’, we used systemic functional (SF) theory to open up the potential of literature study for English teachers in NSW and Victoria, attempting to build understanding about the ‘uses’ of grammatics for a relatively uninformed group of ‘users’ (Martin et al., 2013). Because of the need to manage the theory-practice nexus in professional learning, we attempted to characterize ‘knowledge about’ images in narrative in accessible and systematic ways and to relate this to pedagogic ‘know-how’ in primary teaching and assessment of narrative. The paper introduces the analytical framework we developed to represent and develop knowledge and know-how in primary school literature study. It shows how we used the framework to benchmark teacher starting-points as they commented on students’ responses to a picture book called The Great Bear by Armin Greder and Libby Gleeson (1999). It overviews input provided to teachers in workshops based on SF principles such as system, stratification and metafunctions. Finally, it overviews our initial findings based on our analysis of follow-up interviews with two teachers as they reflected on students’ responses to The Tunnel, by Anthony Browne (1989). Changes are arrayed on clines produced to account for shifts in teacher knowledge and know-how. Early results of our project are very encouraging, providing evidence of significant if varied growth in teachers’ orientations to narrative meaning and increased levels of meta-semiotic awareness. The paper concludes with reflections on the use of SF grammatics for meeting the challenges of literature study in primary school English in an era of multimodality

The Effects of a Morphological Intervention on Children's Spelling Performance and Understanding: Toward a Relational Approach

Spelling is a very complex process, yet mastering the intricacies and inconsistencies of English spelling is considered a basic skill children must learn from the earliest years at school. Throughout their education, however, many children struggle with spelling, a struggle that can continue into adulthood. In response to the apparently insurmountable challenge spelling poses to so many children, this study proposes a re-conceptualization of children's spelling development incorporating both a cognitive and a linguistic perspective. To this end, a multifaceted methodology was used in the study, first, to investigate children's reasoning about spelling, the cognitive view, and, second, to track the development of spelling performance, the linguistic view

Adolescent literacies for critical social and community engagement

This thesis aims to describe the literacy practices of adolescents who are engaged actively and critically with their communities. In particular it is concerned to make explicit the semiotic resources adolescents deploy to persuade their multiple audiences to effect social change and to build solidarity within the social spaces they inhabit. The study aims to interpret these semiotic resources within their wider social, socio-political and cultural contexts and to respond to concerns by literacy educators and wider social and political theorists to celebrate and make visible the processes and practices of adolescent active citizenship. Data for the study include texts produced by six adolescents involved in two social movements during 2004 and 2005. These texts represent a range of modalities including speeches and radio interviews, print newspaper commentaries, published essays and online weblogs and magazines. The social contexts of texts were analysed using theories from systemic functional linguistics and new literacy studies. The linguistic construal of persuasion was examined using genre theory and the discourse semantic theories of negotiation and appraisal. These theories were enriched with complementary perspectives from new rhetorical studies. The study found that adolescents draw on a wide range of semiotic resources to persuade multiple audiences in the civic domain. The activists deployed rhetorical strategies valued by mainstream politicians, social commentators and activists as well as those valued within the academic and personal domains of their lives. The choice of semiotic resources was found to be motivated by the complex roles, relationships and social positioning of the young activists in relation to their audiences as well as by the constraints and freedoms of the modalities in which the texts were situated. The intertextual positioning of the texts within larger social semiotic affiliations and sociopolitical environments was also found to have a considerable impact on the reading of the texts

Using Readers' Theatre to Promote Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the use of Readers' Theatre for enhancing intercultural language teaching and learning (ILTL) with a group of international students preparing to study at an Australian university. ILTL is gaining increasing recognition as a powerful orientation to second languages education. It emphasises the need for learners to look beyond their own worldviews and to develop the capacity to negotiate meaning across and between languages and cultures in order to participate successfully within a multicultural and globalised world. ILTL also underpins the 'Australian Curriculum: Languages', consistent with the nationally agreed goals of education, and is a core curriculum priority across all subjects in the Australian Curriculum. Readers' Theatre (RT) is a type of process drama that assists learners in exploring language and culture through engagement with authentic texts in performances that help them to understand other worldviews. Sometimes referred to as 'Theatre of the Imagination', it makes minimal use of sets, props and costumes; the performers act their parts while holding their scripts, thus embodying the script through vocal expression and physical movements. Learning occurs through participation in, and observation of, verbal and non-verbal behaviour. A key affordance of RT lies in use of whole class discussions in relation to ideas and themes presented in performances, which provide important opportunities for intercultural language teaching and learning

From dot points to disciplinarity: the theory and practice of disciplinary literacies in secondary schooling

This thesis explores the disciplinary literacies of Business Studies and Music, with a focus on the written component of the HSC examination in the final year of schooling in New South Wales. The syllabus contains dot points of topics to be covered in the course but these offer little guidance for teachers or students in how to compose an answer to an HSC examination question and they obscure relations between different aspects of disciplinary knowledge. To help teachers move beyond syllabus dot points, this thesis aims to illuminate the distinctive literacy demands of Business Studies and Music. This is achieved by using analytical frameworks from Systemic Functional Linguistics and Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis to explore the features of successful HSC writing in these two subjects. Analysis reveals that successful writing in Business Studies explains patterns of cause and effect with profit as the main motive. In contrast, successful HSC writing in Music describes musical events in terms of concepts of music and principles of musical composition. In the analysis, concepts of music are systematised as networks and taxonomies to reveal the relations within and between concepts. The analysis also includes a typology of images (graphic notation and non-traditional notation) used to represent music to enable an investigation of how image and written text are interrelated in successful HSC responses

Developing Students' Knowledge About Language in the Early Years: A Games-Based Pedagogical Approach

A games-based pedagogical approach to developing students' knowledge about language in the early years of primary schooling is the focus of this study. New perspectives about the potential for teaching and learning about grammar to support students' development as expert users of language have emerged in recent literature and these studies have offered insights into how educators might unlock this potential in their classrooms. Recognising the potential of knowledge about grammar to support language and literature development has been aligned with the use in the classroom of a more functionally-oriented pedagogical grammar, one derived from M.A.K Halliday's systemic functional linguistics. Recent curriculum changes in Anglophone countries, including Australia, have foregrounded explicit functionally-oriented grammar instruction. To enact this aspect of the curriculum effectively, teachers, particularly those working with very young students, need more knowledge about grammar and more pedagogical 'know-how'. To contribute to building this 'know-how', the study presented in this thesis explores the use of games-based pedagogy to teach young students about grammar. Specifically, the affordances of dialogic pedagogy, metalinguistic understanding and multimodality were applied to the design of grammar games to teach Year 1 students about clause structure and the functional parts of the clause. In this single embedded case study, the students were video-recorded as they played the games. This enabled an analysis of the students' use of multiple semiotic resources, including gestural and dialogic interaction, colour and movement, to reveal the complex interplay between interactive mediating tools and interactions in games purposefully designed to support these young students learning about grammar. The study findings suggest that the type of student dialogic interaction that supports learning can emerge when students are engaged in games-based learning activities. Moreover, this kind of student dialogic interaction, scaffolded by multiple semiotic resources, can support young students' gradual development of knowledge about language and their developing metalinguistic understanding. A refined framework for how the young students in this study appeared to develop their metalinguistic understanding is proposed. The thesis suggests that further research into the possibilities afforded by a games-based approach to developing students' knowledge about language is warranted

Pre-service teachers linking their metalinguistic knowledge to their practice: A functional approach

Existing work in Anglophone countries has raised concerns regarding teachers’ knowledge about language (KAL); this may well be an issue in other countries also, with notable exceptions such as Finland. In Australia, with the introduction of the new Australian Curriculum, the question of teacher KAL has become crucial. Teachers, both practising and pre-service, generally have some knowledge about language as an object, usually including the text structures of particular school genres and information about sentence structure and word classes. This knowledge may be based on traditional grammar and may not be well applied above the sentence level. Teachers may also have an intuitive knowledge of discourse structures and are beginning to reflect on their own discourse using understandings of dialogic teaching. This paper provides an example of how first-year pre-service teachers (PSTs) were introduced to KAL at both the grammatical and the discourse levels, as part of an introductory unit on spoken language. A range of approaches was used, including a functional view of discourse. The PSTs then applied their KAL by putting it into a context that was meaningful for them: discussing their own practice. The paper gives an illustration of some of the work they produced that demonstrates their emerging understandings

Becoming an English language teacher:linguistic knowledge, anxieties and the shifting sense of identity

English Language is a fast growing and popular subject at A level but the majority of qualified secondary teachers in the UK have subject expertise and backgrounds in literature. This paper reports on interviews with seven secondary English teachers who discuss the strategies they used when taking on the responsibility of A level English Language teaching for the first time. It highlights the shifting sense of identity that these teachers felt they went through, and as such, explores some emerging issues related to identity from a narrative/personal history perspective. The study reveals that despite feelings of anxiety and low self-confidence, teachers felt that the experience had been a positive one in terms of their own developing identity as an English teacher and had impacted on other aspects of their teaching. The paper raises questions about the value of language-based work for English teachers and has implications for UK initial and continuing teacher education in English

Supporting Less-Proficent Writers through Linguistically-Aware Teaching

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.Whilst historically there has been a widespread consensus that teaching grammar has no impact on students’ attainment in writing, more recent research suggests that where a functionally-oriented approach to grammar is meaningfully embedded within the teaching of writing, significant improvements in writing can be secured. A recent study ((Myhill et al 2012), using a functionally-oriented approach, which found a statistically significant positive effect of such an approach, also found that the approach appeared to benefit higher-attaining writers more than lower-attaining writers. The study reported here set out to investigate specifically whether functionally-oriented approach to teaching grammar in the context of writing might support less proficient writers. A quasi-experimental design was adopted, repeating the principles of the parent study but with the intervention adapted to meet the identified writing needs of less proficient writers. The statistical analysis indicated a positive effect for the intervention group (p<0.05), and an effect size of 0.33 on students’ sentence structure and punctuation. The study demonstrates that explicit attention to grammar within the teaching of writing can support learners in developing their writing, but taken with the parent study, it also highlights that pedagogical choices need to be well-matched to writers’ needs.This parent study referred to in this article was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.Funding Agency under Grant ES/FO15313/1. The study reported in this article was funded by Pearson