SFL and Genre

The following report has been commissioned by the International Baccalaureate Organisation to investigate literature related to professional learning practices in language education. It comprises of a systematic review to highlight critical aspects and successful modelling of professional learning (PL) programs in elementary and early years settings. In this report ‘elementary and early years is defined as classroom teaching and learning with students between the approximate ages of 5 to 12.

The overarching research question for this report is:

What current research on teacher professional learning provides evidence of successful implementation of social-semiotically informed social- interactionist approaches to language learning in multi-, bi- and monolingual contexts in elementary and early years classrooms?

While we review literature from a range of theoretical perspectives, we focus on pedagogic practices and professional learning that are informed by socio-cultural orientations to literacy, and especially those underpinned and informed by the social-semiotic theories of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). The overall aim of this report is to identify, select, and synthesise the available literature relating to best practices in implementing social constructivist approaches in teacher professional learning. These findings then inform design principles for professional learning for IB’s diverse language learning contexts.

This paper reports on the use of teacher-led collaborative writing to support tertiary students’ academic literacy. It draws on data from a pilot study of writing development within an MA of Applied Linguistics program at the University of Sydney during 2009. The process of collaborative writing, known as ‘Joint Construction’ in Sydney School genre pedagogy (Rothery & Stenglin, 1995), is analysed in order to reveal a sequence of supportive steps or ‘stages’ which the teacher and students move through. The authors argue for the value of maintaining pedagogic space for teacher-led joint construction of texts in order to effectively support tertiary students towards independent and creative control of genre.

Education reforms in the United States have placed new demands on English language learners (ELLs) and their teachers in K-12 public schools. In response, many teachers, teacher educators, and literacy scholars are reexamining genre theory and genrebased pedagogy as a way of supporting the academic literacy development of the growing number of ELLs attending primary and secondary schools in the United States. In this article, we briefly describe the impact of federal reforms such as No Child Left Behind legislation on L2 literacy practices in K-12 schools. Next, we outline some core epistemological and methodological assumptions informing different perspectives of genre and genre-based pedagogy and how these concepts and methods have relevance for supporting L2 academic literacy development in K-12 contexts. We conclude by outlining the components of a research agenda aimed at supporting K-12 teachers in critically using genre-based pedagogy to support the academic literacy development of ELLs over time. #

Most universities in English-dominant countries have been competing to attract multilingual learners for some time, inspired by the dual need for brain power and income generation (Lee, Maldonado-Maldonado, & Rhodes, 2006). In the Canadian context, this has resulted in rising international student populations (Anderson, 2015) and the expansion of increasingly sophisticated academic language programs (Fox, Cheng, & Zumbo, 2014). Despite this, external research into the effectiveness and appropriateness of these programs from the perspectives of the students enrolled remains scarce (Keefe & Shi, 2017).

This multiple case study involves six multilingual learners enrolled in a newly-designed academic language program in a Canadian university. This first-year program provided content and academic language courses in two disciplinary areas (Arts and Sciences), which upon successful completion, qualified students for their second year in the university mainstream. In this study, I investigate how students responded to program design features and academic writing instruction. I incorporate multiple interviews with students, collection of their written assignments and feedback, observations of classrooms and other educational events, interviews with other program stakeholders, and collection of program documents.

Of the six student participants in this study, four were successful and two were less successful. For the four successful students, participation in the sheltered program was perceived as an overall beneficial experience that helped them make a positive transition to mainstream studies. However, responses to academic writing instruction and practice were highly variable and influenced by students’ backgrounds and their educational or disciplinary beliefs. For two less successful students, notions of agency, identity, and appropriation became influential in their transitions as they increasingly reported confusion, frustration, and conflict in meeting academic expectations. Results suggest there are several opportunities and challenges involved in the integration of sophisticated theoretical and pedagogical approaches, some of which may not be realized for some time after instruction has ceased. The study highlights an ongoing need to: 1) (re)consider the time needed and the degree of complexity involved in academic writing instruction and, 2) maximize alignment of pedagogical objectives with multilingual learners’ backgrounds as well as their perceived academic and disciplinary writing needs.

The aim of the chapter is to draw connections between Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and L2 pragmatics and demonstrate how SFL can contribute to the study of L2 language learning and use as meaning making in context. Taking the focus on meaning, function, and context as the point of departure, the chapter discusses the commonalities between SFL and L2 pragmatics. It then moves on to point out how our understanding of L2 pragmatics as the study of language ‘as seen in relation to its users’ (Mey, 1993, p. 5) can benefit from the SFL framework. The discussion of the benefits from the theoretical perspective is followed by a review of empirical SFL-based studies of L2 performance and development that aims to show precisely what SFL can reveal about pragmatic L2 use and L2 learning and how this framework can be helpful in fostering pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence in instruction.

Keywords: systemic functional linguistics, genre theory, L2 meaning making, L2 pragmatics, genre-based instruction

This chapter examines the development of teachers’ knowledge about language and metalanguage in an Australian secondary school serving students from low SES and indigenous backgrounds. The central research question addressed is whether a professional learning program to build teachers’ knowledge of the language and literacies of their curricular areas enables them to more effectively integrate language and literacy into discipline instruction and into feedback on students’ written texts. The metalanguage designed for this particular professional learning program draws on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) model of language, which informs the recently developed national curriculum for English in Australia. Using surveys, written feedback and examples from the KLA of Technology and Applied Sciences, the focus is on how resources within the discourse semantic stratum of SFL have been recontextualised to effectively integrate literacy instruction with what teachers recognise as core business content learning.

My particular project is to incorporate Project Based Learning (PBL) and appropriate technology into a largely art/music/pop culture-based curriculum unit infused with the spirit of John Dewey’s "Art as Experience" and aimed at social/environmental justice...

Education reforms in the United States have placed new demands on English language learners (ELLs) and their teachers in K-12 public schools. In response, many teachers, teacher educators, and literacy scholars are reexamining genre theory and genre-based pedagogy as a way of supporting the academic literacy development of the growing number of ELLs attending primary and secondary schools in the United States. In this article, we briefly describe the impact of federal reforms such as No Child Left Behind legislation on L2 literacy practices in K-12 schools. Next, we outline some core epistemological and methodological assumptions informing different perspectives of genre and genre-based pedagogy and how these concepts and methods have relevance for supporting L2 academic literacy development in K-12 contexts. We conclude by outlining the components of a research agenda aimed at supporting K-12 teachers in critically using genre-based pedagogy to support the academic literacy development of ELLs over time.► Implications of No Child Left Behind legislation for L2 literacy. ► Relevance of different genre theories for K-12 literacy practices. ► Critical genre-based research agenda to support L2 literacy in K-12 schools.

This thesis explores the interpersonal landscape of senior high school humanities subjects. It investigates the humanities’ humanity, that is, the values and attitudes which underlie different subjects and how these differ in texts written for examination purposes in modern and ancient history, society and culture and community and family studies. Both linguistic and sociological analyses of highly graded student writing are used to demonstrate differences in the ways that ‘objective evaluation’ is achieved in each subject, the types of extended writing valued in each, and corresponding opportunities for students to engage with more uncommon-sense meanings and to build cumulative knowledge. While the humanities are generally categorised as a knower code, the subjects occupy relative spaces within this categorical space, some more strongly knower oriented than others. The study contributes to the development of visible pedagogies supporting more democratic educational outcomes in a previously underexplored transitional stage between junior high school and academic contexts.

The current study examines the teaching of report writing from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade through the lens of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory. Teachers were part of a university and public school collaboration that included professional development on teaching genres, text organization, and language features. Grounded in this knowledge, teachers explicitly taught students to write reports. Results indicate that students understood the purpose of reports. Although report writing was challenging, students at all levels, supported by their teachers, presented the topic in an organized way, showed awareness of audience and voice, and used language that resulted in coherent writing.

The concept of a theory of genre continues to be elusive. The criterion used for the generic classification of texts (both spoken and written) as belonging to given genres seems to continue to be clouded in ambivalence. Current scholarship in its divergence implicates criterion based on either communicative purpose (Swales, 1990: Chandler, 1997) or purpose and audience/discourse community. Other scholarship argues for a content based approach - often including the context as well - (Bhatia, 1981: Chandler, 1997) whereas others argue for a classification based on linguistic structure. On the other hand, recent scholarship has taken a more stylistic approach that adopts a features discrimination (Widdowson, 1998: Bhatia, 1981, Halliday 1994). This paper examines the weaknesses of these approaches working independent of each other and proposes an approach that
synthesises tenets from mainstream genre analysis, discourse analysis and linguistic stylistics to create a holistic and more concrete approach to generic segmentation of texts. It argues that the creation of a theory should be based on an established/establishable ‘general bundle of tenets’ that explicate the primary concerns of the theory and that these should be concrete. It therefore adopts a discourse analysis – mainstream genre analysis – linguistic stylistics dialectic approach to suggest a possible ‘bundle’ of basic tenets for use in the generic discrimination of texts within a theory of genre. It suggests that ‘genre’ theorisation from the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective offers a possible way out of the theoretical conflicts with ‘genre’ theory.

Typically, high volume text processing has been based on representations of the texts such as Parts of Speech (POS), parsed formalizations or bag of words. This paper proposes an alternative representation of the text based on linguistic analysis. Drawing on systemic functional theory and its application to stylistics, we will develop a text 'phase portrait' comprised of the patterns of systemic features that are foregrounded in each text. We will only focus on computationally tractable features to ensure that textual phase portraits are easily identifiable by machine learner technology, a method that has proved successful in previous similar research .

After four decades of contemporary genre research, genre scholars still do not agree on what genre is and how it should be studied. This chapter shows that genre is a multidimensional variety of language in context and that a fuller conceptualisation of genre must be placed within a general meta-theory of language. The chapter uses the architecture of language provided by systemic functional meta-theory to shed light on current debates on genre and on approaches developed for genre research since the 1980s. The chapter first provides an overview of the theoretical landscape of genre studies. It then discusses genre as a variety of language in context, using insights from different schools of genre studies. In addition, it conceptualises genre as a hierarchy of meaning relations, showing that it is a social semiotic process that permeates all layers of language, comprising context, semantics, lexicogrammar, and phonology. Finally, it examines genre in relation to different systemic orders of analysis, characterising it as a semiotic construct that is socially motivated, biologically activated, and physically realised. The chapter reveals that whereas genre research has contributed to our knowledge of the interaction between language and social context, little attention has been given to the semantic structure of texts.

The Appraisal Theory intends to study how the stance, the opinion and the attitude of language users are realized in discourses. This paper discusses the attitudinal meanings of Judgement in the inaugural addresses by the US presidents during the Cold War under the framework laid down by Martin and White. It has been found that the attitudinal meanings of Judgement account for the most part of all the attitudinal meanings in all the 11 addresses, and that the positive Judgements are fore-grounded by its high percentage in all the atti-tudinal meanings of Judgement. The features in the use of attitudinal meanings of Judgement serve the purpose of the presidential inaugural addresses very well, i.e. to convey a new admin-istration's commitment to their future work and to win support from the audience.

Typically, high volume text processing has been based on representations of the texts such as Parts of Speech (POS), parsed formalizations or bag of words. This paper proposes an alternative representation of the text based on linguistic analysis. Drawing on systemic ...

The current study examines the teaching of report writing from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade through the lens of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory. Teachers were part of a university and public school collaboration that included professional development on teaching genres, text organization, and language features. Grounded in this knowledge, teachers explicitly taught students to write reports. Results indicate that students understood the purpose of reports. Although report writing was challenging, students at all levels, supported by their teachers, presented the topic in an organized way, showed awareness of audience and voice, and used language that resulted in coherent writing.

This chapter examines the development of teachers’ knowledge about language and metalanguage in an Australian secondary school serving students from low SES and indigenous backgrounds. The central research question addressed is whether a professional learning program to build teachers’ knowledge of the language and literacies of their curricular areas enables them to more effectively integrate language and literacy into discipline instruction and into feedback on students’ written texts. The metalanguage designed for this particular professional learning program draws on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) model of language, which informs the recently developed national curriculum for English in Australia. Using surveys, written feedback and examples from the KLA of Technology and Applied Sciences, the focus is on how resources within the discourse semantic stratum of SFL have been recontextualised to effectively integrate literacy instruction with what teachers recognise as core business content learning.

In this article the authors report on the use of a scaffolding pedagogy (Gibbons, 2009), informed by systemic functional linguistics, to support the writing of English language learners in middle years curriculum learning. They focus on the work of one teacher and her English class across the first 18 months of a longitudinal design-based literacy research project, Embedding Literacies in the Key Learning Areas (ELK). This 3-year project was conducted in an Australian urban secondary school with 97.5% of students from language backgrounds other than English. A core aspect of the pedagogy implemented through the ELK project is the use of a shared metalanguage to make visible the patterns of language valued for discipline learning. Analysis of instructional materials, classroom discourse, and data on students' achievement on standardized external and formative internal assessments of writing over 18 months indicates that growth in writing is related to pedagogical practices that include consistent use of a functional metalanguage in classroom modeling of exemplar texts and in feedback on students' writing.

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In teacher education, an underlying assumption is that engagement with theory will inform and improve students’ current and future practice. Accordingly, assessment tasks typically expect students to relate concrete events and experiences to concepts from lectures and course readings. Such connections are one way to reflect on and demonstrate understanding of theory, as often specified in learning outcomes and marking criteria. This chapter examines how the concept of semantic gravity – from the dimension of Semantics in Legitimation Code Theory – is used to make the expectations of writing academic reflections more visible to students. Examples of teaching practices are from the very first semester of a Bachelor of Education program. Analysis identifies reoccurring pedagogic strategies and relates these to the broad principle scaffolding, and specifically to teaching about academic writing prior to assignment submission. The pedagogic strategies identified in this chapter contribute to illuminating how concepts in LCT can be adapted and repurposed in classroom metalanguage for discipline-specific academic writing instruction. The findings are of particular relevance to practitioners responsible for, or contributing to, the planning and teaching of academic literacy development in tertiary contexts.

The importance of teacher-student collaboration in text production is well established in education literature (Cazden 1996; Green 1988; Mehan 1979). Teacher-student collaboration is a key feature of Sydney School Genre pedagogy, particularly in the Joint Construction stage of the ...

This study deals with the functions of the illustrating example in three pre-graduate final oral exams: Chemistry and Pharmacy, Linguistics and Design. The theoretical and methodological perspective of this study is based on the concept of example as Genre (Martin and Rose, 2008) as well as of Intersemiosis (Iedema, 2001, 2003). The methodology is qualitative and makes use of both microanalysis and a dynamic concept of context to explain the complexity of the oral interaction. The results show the ways in which the candidate-by means of the intersemiotically -worked out illustrating example- builds ideational and interpersonal meanings which are well appraised by the board of examiners (van Leeuwen, 2008). It is concluded that each of the illustrating strategies analized contributes to the discursive construction of the macrogenre final oral exam to obtain the graduate certificate-Bachelor’s degree. This fact highlights the importance of the pragmatic weight of the example in shaping the different intersemiotic activities (verbal and visual) which are interwoven at the presentation stage of the oral examen, and, in turn, they allow the student/researcher to show his experienced audience that he can not only deal with knowledge in the field of his discipline, but is also aware of text elaboration and up-dated ways of discursive organization in the microgenesis of the interaction.
KEY WORDS: Illustrating example - Academic oral encounters – Genre – Macrogenre- The presentation stage- Intersemiotic activities- Legitimacy