Mary J. Schleppegrell

Linguistic Features of the Language of Schooling

Abstract This article provides an analysis of some linguistic features of school-based texts, relating the grammatical and lexical choices of the speaker/writer to the functions that language performs in school contexts. Broadly speaking, the context of schooling requires that students read and write texts that present information authoritatively in conventionally structured ways. This article describes some of the lexical and grammatical resources—the register features—that realize this context of schooling. It shows that the presentation of information typically requires technical and specific lexis and explicitly stated logical relations. Authoritativeness is reflected in the choice of declarative mood and the use of grammatical and lexical resources instead of intonation to convey speaker/writer stance or attitude toward what is said. A high degree of structure is expected in school-based language, realized through elaboration of noun phrases, sentence rather than prosodic segmentation, and clause-structuring strategies of nominalization and embedding. These features are functional for creating the texts students read and are expected to write at school.

THE LINGUISTIC CHALLENGES OF MATHEMATICS TEACHING AND LEARNING: A RESEARCH REVIEW

This article synthesizes research by applied linguists and mathematics educators to highlight the linguistic challenges of mathematics and suggest pedagogical practices to help learners in mathematics classrooms. The linguistic challenges include the multi-semiotic formations of mathematics, its dense noun phrases that participate in relational processes, and the precise meanings of conjunctions and implicit logical relationships that link elements in mathematics discourse. Research on pedagogical practices supports developing mathematics knowledge through attention to the way language is used, suggesting strategies for moving students from informal, everyday ways of talking about mathematics into the registers that construe more technical and precise meanings.

The Grammar of History: Enhancing Content-Based Instruction Through a Functional Focus on Language

In K-12 contexts, the teaching of English language learners (ELLs) has been greatly influenced by the theory and practice of content-based instruction (CBI). A focus on content can help students achieve grade-level standards in school subjects while they develop English proficiency, but CBI practices have focused primarily on vocabulary and the use of graphic organizers along with cooperative learning activities. This article reports the results of a project intended to enhance CBI through activities that focus on the role of language in constructing knowledge. The strategies we present are based on identification and analysis of the challenges presented by grade-level textbooks in middle school history classrooms. By engaging in functional linguistic analysis, ELLs and their teachers can deconstruct the language of their textbooks, enabling students to develop academic language by focusing on the meaning-making potential of the historians language choices.

Academic Language in Teaching and Learning

Success in school calls for using language in new ways to accomplish increasingly challenging discursive tasks across grade levels and school subjects. As children develop new knowledge, they also need support in using language in new ways. This introduction to the special issue offers insights into the challenges and affordances of developing academic language and suggests implications for pedagogy, teacher education, and further research.

Teaching Academic Language in L2 Secondary Settings

Research on instruction in academic language in second language (L2) secondary settings is currently emerging as a focus in applied linguistics. Academic language refers to the disciplinary registers that students encounter in the secondary years, and using academic language calls for advanced proficiency in complex language across subject areas, posing challenges for teacher preparation. In this article we summarize recommendations from syntheses of research on adolescent L2 learners and then present reports of recent studies that describe instructional approaches that illuminate the recommended practices in contexts where students who speak languages other than English are learning school subjects in English. Three key instructional dimensions are highlighted: that teachers need knowledge about how language works in their subject areas, that academic language development calls for careful planning across a unit of instruction, and that students need support for engagement in classroom activities that promote the simultaneous learning of language and content. To prepare teachers for this work, secondary teacher education needs to incorporate a focus on language–content relationships in each disciplinary area. More research is needed to better understand and support academic language development, and we call for collaboration and dialogue between educational researchers and applied linguists concerned with these issues.

A Naturalistic Inquiry Into the Cultures of Two Divergent MA-TESOL Programs: Implications for TESOL

This article reports on a naturalistic inquiry into the cultures of two MA-TESOL programs in different parts of the United States, highlighting how their identities have been shaped by factors in their respective local environments that in turn affect what is taught in each program. The study explored how and why the two programs stress certain language teaching skills. The findings detail the divergent realities of the two programs with a view to raising consciousness and debate about the implications of such differences for the field of TESOL. T o what extent is an MA-TESOL program governed by local exigencies, constraints, and conditions that influence its general direction? This question guides the present study, in which we offer an account of a naturalistic inquiry into the cultures of two MA-TESOL programs in different parts of the United States. We highlight how their identities are contingent upon factors in their local environments that in turn shape the curriculum of each program. The study sheds light on at least two key issues: (a) how and why particular MA-TESOL programs stress the language teaching skills they do and (b) what the implications and consequences are for the TESOL field of having teachers graduate from divergent MA-TESOL programs. Our stance toward the programs is not intended to be judgmental; instead, our aim is to present the differences between these two programs by focusing on their institutional contexts, thereby raising consciousness about the implications of these differences for TESOL.

Content-based language teaching with functional grammar in the elementary school

Today many second language (L2) teachers work with school-aged learners who need to be supported in their language development at the same time they learn school subjects. Applied linguists and researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) have much to contribute to those teachers, but to do so in more powerful ways calls for an orientation toward the goals of the content classroom. This plenary describes a project in which the theory of systemic functional linguistics is providing useful metalanguage for exploring language and meaning in curricular activities that also support disciplinary learning. It illustrates how language-based content teaching can provide the support children need.

Functional grammar analysis in support of dialogic instruction with text: scaffolding purposeful, cumulative dialogue with English learners

Abstract For children learning English as an additional language, dialogic teaching supports both learning content and learning language. Engaging language learners in dialogue offers special challenges, however. This article describes an instructional approach that focused on engendering purposeful and cumulative talk, supported by metalanguage from functional grammar. The metalanguage enabled pupils’ exploration of an author’s language choices to examine how the feelings of a character in a story are presented. Records of talk were captured in writing to serve as resources for fostering further talk and to support pupils in a final written task that responded to a key question in focus throughout. We illustrate the dialogic engagement with and about text, supported by a focus on language choices, that, in turn, supported the kind of collaborative talk that is often hard to achieve with language learners.

Linguistic Tools for Exploring Issues of Equity

This chapter describes linguistics tools that researchers have used to explore and illuminate equity issues in the mathematics classroom. Drawing primarily from research using a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) framework, it illustrates how close attention to language forms and the meanings they present can inform questions about the nature of the mathematics that is offered to students through classroom discourse, the views of mathematics activity that students develop, and how students are positioned as learners through classroom and pedagogical discourses. Analysis of thematic patterns, process/participant configurations, modality, and mood/speech function enables researchers to explore the integrity of the mathematics that is taught, how concepts are developed over time, and the processes through which knowledge is developed. In focus are issues such as the agency of students and the authoritativeness of the teacher as well as the role of the teacher as mediator of learning.

Linguistic Tools for Supporting Emergent Critical Language Awareness in the Elementary School

In a design-based professional development initiative, language-focused activities supported by SFL metalanguage enabled primary school children who were learning English as an additional language to begin to develop awareness of themselves as readers in dialogue with authors and as readers positioned in particular ways by what they read. Professional development prepared their teachers to support discussion about interpersonal meaning in the language of stories and informational texts. By exploring, interpreting, and evaluating attitudes in texts, and then presenting their own views in writing, the children began to develop the critical and evaluative perspectives needed for success in secondary and tertiary contexts.