Discovering Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge With English Learners and Their Teachers: Applying Systemic Functional Linguistics Concepts Through Design‐Based Research

Abstract

A focus on how language varies in its forms and meanings can help English learners (ELs) in K-12 classrooms engage in disciplinary discourses that enable them to learn both language and content. Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) offers promising ways of talking about language in support of disciplinary learning. SFL's meaningbased metalanguage offers analytical tools for making sense of text, but its description of complex systems in language is not readily accessible to teachers and students. This article offers a case study of how a design-based research (DBR) process yielded findings, materials, and instructional theory over a 3-year project to develop SFLbased approaches to engaging ELs in talk about language. In this study, conducted in an urban school district in the midwestern United States, the authors worked collaboratively with teachers and literacy coaches at six schools with high proportions of ELs, supporting them in using SFL metalanguage to talk about language and meaning as they engaged in grade-appropriate literacy activities: reading and responding to texts and writing subject-specific arguments. This article shares both what the authors learned about the implementation of SFL pedagogies and the affordances of DBR methodology for learning to apply a complex theory to support ELs.

Communicating metaknowledge to L2 learners: A fragile scaffold for participation in subject-related discourse?

“…However, there is also a concern for instrumental approaches to reading strategies, which may limit opportunities for meaningful engagements with texts (Thavenius, 2017;Walldén, 2019b). Similarly, studies have highlighted misalignments between the modelling of metalinguistic knowledge and engagement with subject content (Moore, Schleppegrell & Palincsar, 2018;Walldén, 2019c).…”

Disciplinary Literacy in STEM: A Functional Approach

“…The focus was on understanding how such supports could be integrated while maintaining the integrity of the units’ engineering goals. We chose design-based research because it offers analytic methods to systematically operationalize the development of instructional theories over time and within the context of classroom practice (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; DiSessa & Cobb, 2004; Moore et al, 2018). Our research and instructional team members’ multiple perspectives stemming from expertise in literacy, engineering, and classroom teaching were integral to the research process.…”

“…During teaching, we used tools from participatory action research described above to inform instruction. After teaching, we reviewed data to identify and analyze relevant episodes (Moore et al, 2018) in the classroom talk where language support and engineering reasoning were simultaneously visible. We conducted discourse analysis of these episodes, followed by analysis of students’ written explanations using rubrics informed by SFL (Brisk, 2015; Hodgson-Drysdale, 2014) and mechanistic reasoning (Russ et al, 2008).…”

Mobile-Assisted Writing Instruction: Affordances, Challenges, and Future Directions

“…Relevant research, especially in the traditional classroom, has demonstrated the usefulness of SFL to help students power through challenges in the writing classrooms following the reading to learn cycle (i.e., reading sample texts and then guiding students in understanding meaning-making and constructing their writing) [13], [17], [18], [19]. For example, Moore, Schleppegrel, and Palincsar focused on elementary English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students in the US who were exposed to the teaching of narratives from a functional linguistic perspective [20]. Over two years, the students were able to identify the interrelationships between linguistic resources and meanings in sample narrative texts, such as the identification of processes at the ideational level and appraisal resources at the interpersonal level.…”