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Thank you Sally for agreeing to join us today
with Bev Derewianka.
This is a really good opportunity for us to hear about
the functional approach to language and the growth
and development of that over time.
Can you start by telling us a little about the
functional approach to language?
Yes, well when we talk about the
functional approach we’re talking about a theory or
a model of language, as well as the practice of
teaching language and language education.
So, when we talk about the model, we’re talking about
systemic functional linguistics or SFL for short
and this model was developed by Professor Michael Halliday,
a leading figure in linguistics more generally,
modern linguistics.
And one of the most exciting things for teachers about the model
is that it deals with language as meaning,
a meaning making resource, if you like, and within a context,
and the context has a powerful influence over the choices
of language that we make, and the choices of language
we make also influence the context.
So, if we think about the context in terms of the broad
overall purposes for which we communicate.
At school, explaining phenomenon for example is a
really important part of knowledge building and
demonstrating knowledge.
Other purposes, you know, instructing and analysing
texts, poetry etc.
These are all purposes and achieving these purposes
results in particular recognisable types of text.
We call these genres, and they’re shaped by the context.
So, apart from the context, apart from that broad purpose,
we’ve also got the more immediate context,
and we call this register.
Register is first of all concerned about the topics
particularly at school — the field knowledge that is
being developed.
So, we explain differently in History than we may in Science.
You know in History we may explain using the past tense.
In Science we may explain using the generalised present tense,
because we’re explaining the natural world and how it is.
So, as well as the topic we’re also concerned with the audience,
the tenor, the roles and relationships that people are playing
in an interaction.
And at school again, as teachers we adopt an expert role
in order to explain phenomenon, and we want to support
our students to adopt that expert role.
But when we go into the staffroom we may adopt another role
with our colleagues; we tend to be a lot more familiar
and use language in very different ways.
And the third variable is the mode, and the mode is the how,
if you like, you know, I’m speaking now, I’m using gesture,
I’m using tone of voice, and those types of things help me
to create the text, not only the words that I’m using.
There are many modes at play in creating text these days.
But again, as students move into the middle years of schooling
we need to sort of support them in developing the written mode
of dense and more abstract meanings.
Thanks Sally for that introduction to the model.
Now, let’s hear from Bev.
When I was at school grammar was taught
by labelling the parts of speech in sentences such as
‘Study lest you fail’, ‘Oh, that he were here.’
Or ‘Robert caught a mouse in a trap.’
While this gave us a rudimentary terminology for talking
about language, research in the 1960s indicated that
traditional school grammars did little to enhance
students’ literacy development.
For the next few decades grammar virtually disappeared
from the curriculum.
In the meantime, however, a great deal of research was
being carried out into developing a model of language
that’s relevant for today’s students.
Rather than fragmenting language into individual words
and learning a set of rules for ‘correct speech’,
Halliday’s functional approach started with the functions
that language performs in our lives.
He identifies three main functions.
The first deals with how we use language to represent
our experience of the world allowing us to express ideas
concerning the doings and the happenings,
the participants in these doings and happenings and
the surrounding details such as when, where and how
the activity is taking place.
Another function of language is to enable us
to interact with others, to take on different roles,
to develop relationships with others, to express our emotions,
opinions and judgements and to engage with alternative
viewpoints and possibilities.
And finally, language functions to organise our ideas
and interactions into texts — spoken texts, written texts,
visual texts and multimodal texts using a range of media.
We can think of each of these functions as forming
a set of resources that we draw on in creating
various kinds of meanings.
We make choices from each of these systems of resources
depending on the particular context.
When composing a persuasive piece of writing, for example,
students would need to draw on resources for expressing and
connecting their ideas about the field or the topic in question;
they would also need to draw on interpersonal resources
to adopt a strong stance and to create an engaging tenor;
and they would need to use certain resources to organise
the argument into a coherent, well-organised text
reflecting control over the written mode.
Such a model connects directly with the kinds of language
that students need in order to succeed in schooling and beyond.
It’s an approach that sees language as a resource for making
meaning and as a dynamic system of choices.
The job of teachers is to make sure that all students
are constantly expanding their repertoire of choices in order
to meet the language demands of schooling.
.
We’ve seen how rich this model of language is.
Can we now have a look at how it might work in practice?
Yes, well in the functional approach you know when we
think about practice, we’re talking about the ways that
we support our students to learn language,
to learn about language and to learn through language.
Now, Halliday was always interested in the role of language
in education and when he came to Australia in the 70s
he organised a language in education conference.
And at that conference was some really powerful linguists
and teachers who came together.
People like Jim Martin and Gunther Kress and Frances Christie
and Joan Rothery, all of whom had a huge impact
on language education.
One of the really central concerns of these people was to
provide equitable outcomes for students from diverse
linguistic and socio economic backgrounds.
Now, research told us that approaches that were used
at this time didn’t support students for learning
the language of power.
The language of schooling, you know, the dense and
written forms of language that aren’t just picked up from home
or picked up from the playground, or even learned from
being immersed in it.
So, the functional model was really relevant to teachers
because it could really make clear the way you use language
in different contexts.
So, let’s listen to Bev tell us a little bit more
about the specifics of classroom practice.
Not only have there been significant changes
in the way we think and talk about language in schools,
there’s also been a huge shift in the way
we teach about language.
Again, in the past students were asked, for example,
to underline the noun or verb in a series of unrelated,
inauthentic sentences.
They would do exercises from grammar books that bore
little relationship to the language that they needed for school
and their daily lives.
And mostly they were bored and saw such activities
as an irrelevant chore.
Over the past few decades, however, researchers and teachers
have been working together to develop an approach that
explicitly teaches students the language they need
in order to operate effectively in educational contexts.
This work has drawn primarily on the Vygotskian theory
of learning, where students learn through collaborative
engagement in tasks, with guidance and input from
more experienced others.
An example of such an approach is the teaching-learning cycle
developed by Dr Joan Rothery and her colleagues.
Within the context of a unit of work the teacher identifies
a relevant purpose for which students will need to use language,
for example; to explain how something works;
to analyse a problem; to respond to a literary text;
or to argue for a position, and so on.
Throughout the cycle the teacher builds up the language
the students need in order to develop their understanding
of the field of knowledge in question.
This might involve, for example, becoming familiar with
key vocabulary or developing technical understandings,
or being supported in reading selected passages from
a textbook, or learning how to take notes.
Students also need to know how to shape their knowledge
of the topic into a well-structured text.
Depending on the genre, students might be guided to observe
how a model text is organised into certain stages and
phases to achieve its purpose.
These observations can be drawn on as the teacher and students
jointly construct a similar text, with the teacher taking
the students’ contributions and demonstrating how to
organise them into a cohesive written text.
During this process, the teacher will be drawing
students’ attention to specific language features
that are relevant to the task.
This might involve language resources for creating
coherent texts, or developing paragraphs, or connecting ideas
in more complex ways, or extending sentences to include
more specific information, or addressing the needs and
interests of the reader.
At the same time, students will be provided with tools
for investigating language and context and will be developing
a shared language for talking about language.
Such classroom practices — where relevant language is taught
explicitly and meaningfully in the context of authentic
classroom tasks — is a far cry from the sterile practices
of many traditional grammar classrooms.
Teachers implementing a functional approach report that
the students are engaged, are reading more confidently,
are developing a greater range of vocabulary and
are writing more successfully.
And above all, they are enjoying having a way of thinking
and talking about language that makes sense to them.
Students’ ability to use language effectively depends on
the teacher’s understanding of how language works.
And this is where PETAA has been at the forefront
internationally in supporting teachers’ professional learning.
.
So, I understand that equity was central
to the thinking around this time and I believe that PETAA
played a central role in this development too.
Yes, during the 1980s and the 1990s,
people like Jim Martin and Joan Rothery worked really closely
with the disadvantaged schools program to investigate
how practices, you know, could be developed from using
the systemic functional linguistics.
And these practices, you know, because of the work with
teachers and students in many schools, not only in Sydney
but more broadly, that the practice is then fed back
into the theory.
So, we went from understandings of grammar at the clause level
to understandings of whole text patterns across whole text.
And then to be looking at multimodal contexts and,
you know, grammar beyond the clause if you like,
the discourse semantics.
So, PETAA’s been influential throughout this whole process
at feeding practice back into theory, theory back into practice.
And I think Bev’s got something interesting
to say about this also.
Australia is recognised as a world leader in its work
on a more relevant, useful and theoretically coherent way
of thinking about language in educational contexts.
For some decades now, researchers and practitioners
have been drawing on the insights of Halliday and
his colleagues to develop a robust theory of language
for the classroom — from the level of the text down
to ‘chunks of meaning’ in a clause.
The role of PETAA has been absolutely central in making
these understandings available to the profession
through its publications and professional learning workshops.
As far back as 1988, PETAA broke new ground with
its publication of ‘English Grammar: A functional approach’
by John Collerson.
Since then it has consistently provided teachers with
the latest in research and practice in the field
of language education.
These publications have informed syllabus development
in all states of Australia and are increasingly in demand
from regions such as Scandinavia, the UK, Southeast Asia,
the USA and South America.
Whenever I work with teachers in such areas,
I am constantly surprised at their familiarity
with PETAA publications.
They often express their admiration for a professional
association that provides so much high quality material
for teachers, and lament the fact that they have no equivalent
in their own country.
For my part, and on behalf of language and literacy educators
in Australia, I would like to express my appreciation
for the support that PETAA has provided over the years
in fostering teachers’ understanding about language
and its role in students’ literacy development.
Would you say then Sally that PETAA provides
something of a scaffolding for the development of this
classroom practice, both nationally and internationally?
Oh yes, yes the challenge with such a rich model
as functional linguistics is that ‘How do we get it
into the classroom?’
And that’s where PETAA’s been a leader and just taking us
to places really that are really exciting,
both within Australia and internationally.
From the beginning Bev Derewianka and John Collerson
were really coming from two ends — Bev’s famous pink book
‘How Texts Work’ looking at genres for learning in classrooms
and looking at how teachers could work with patterns
of language at that level.
Whereas John Collerson’s book on
‘Grammar: A functional approach’ was looking at
the clause level and making that accessible.
And since then, Bev’s green books have really built
teachers’ understandings of the robust nature,
and recontextualised that around meta-functions.
My colleagues Louise Droga and Susan Feez and myself
have been very fortunate to work with PETAA to develop
a workbook that, again, carefully scaffolds
the teachers’ understandings.
The multimodal aspect of the semiotic regime,
Jon Callow has been very influential in taking the work of
Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen into the classroom.
And more recently Lorraine McDonald with literature.
And the list goes on and on, and I couldn’t mention all the work
that PETAA has brought to the classroom in that way.
So, Sally thank you so much for yourself and Bev
giving your time for this today.
We have covered a lot of ground and I’m very grateful
for your input.
You’re welcome.
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