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Systemic Functional Grammar Fostering Critical Thinking in Teaching and Learning Language

The crucial role of language in man’s life in this era of globalization, multiculturalism, knowledge explosion, or modern technology prodded several professionals, academicians, and graduate-school students to conduct research studies on language teaching and learning, specifically, on language theories and pedagogical practices related to communicative approach and functional grammar.[9] One modern grammar theory this study assumed as the theoretical underpinning of any language teaching and learning methodology that zeroes in on critical thinking, a higher-order thinking strategy that every nation in this contemporary world needs to progress economically and politically, is the SFG or Systemic Functional Grammar. Several research studies have been conducted about the strong link between these two major topics of this paper. One study showed the use of systemic functional grammar in criticizing or evaluating intellectual and emotional traits of people in society.[4] Another reveale...

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This paper focuses on the application of systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) to language study. By providing a sample of text analysis from the systemic functional point of view, the paper illustrates how this approach can be helpful to language teaching.

This study attempted to sketch critical thinking as an applicable concept in foreign language education. The researcher employed a number of critical thinking techniques in an academic Basic Grammar TEFL course of 25 students at Amman Arab University, during the first semester of 2016/2017. Interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation were the critical thinking skills adopted through group work, consisting of real life situations, watching silent movies, songs, T.V programs, presentations, planning for the future, interviews, role-playing and problem solving procedures. A debate session was used for the evaluation of both language and critical thinking skills.

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This paper reports on a teaching program for the Functional Grammar (FG) unit at an English Education Study Program of a state university in West Java Indonesia in 2020-2022. Three cohorts of pre-service teachers in semester six were involved in the program (38 students in 2020, 26 in 2021, and 36 in 2022). The teaching program was conducted online due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The report focuses on exploring students’ understanding of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) – FG in particular, and their ability to use SFL in text analysis. The study also addresses students’ opinions on learning SFL through FG unit. The study used a qualitative case study design and the data were obtained from participant observations, a questionnaire distributed at the end of the teaching program, and analysis of students’ essays on text analyses. In the interest of space, the paper will only present and discuss data from the questionnaire and three samples of student essays. The questionnaire dat...

As globalization spreads investigation of the teaching of English grammar in the ESL/EFL context is of critical interest to learners. This comparative study examined the place of grammar in the ESL context; described the kind of grammar that is used by teachers to design teaching activities in ESL classes; and discusses the implications for English grammar teaching with regards to the investigator " s own experiences. Data was collected by recording observations of teaching methods during ESL Cookery lessons, using a notebook and pen. The two teachers of the class were also interviewed. The results showed that the chosen grammatical teaching strategies were effective in this classroom in that they engaged students in interactive and contextual learning.

Rina Astuti. 14121310347: Exploring Students‟ Descriptive Text at Second Year Students of MA An-Nur Kota Cirebon (A Systemic Functional Grammar Perspective) In the process of learning language, there are four skills that must be mastered by the learning. It is including reading, writing, speaking and listening. Writing is one of the important skills in language learning and teaching to accelerate the process receiving and comprehending knowledge or information. Writing is one of difficult thing that mostly students feel. It is usually happen in senior high school students, especially for students at MA An-Nur Kota Cirebon. The second year students at MA An-Nur Kota Cirebon still confuse in writing and producing a good and coherent text. Based on the phenomenon, this research aims s to find out the text features realized in the students‟ descriptive text represented the Ideational Metafunction used Transitivity of Functional Grammar developed by Halliday (1994). The analysis process ...

This paper is to describe the Systemic Functional Linguistics based on Halliday’s theory. This paper applies descriptive method to explain all about SFL. This paper aims at definite the SFL and metafunction; to describe the register systems include text and context, register, and lexicogrammatical; to know the contribution of SFL in language teaching. The conclusion of this paper shows that the approach of language teaching consists of 2 grammars. There are systemic grammar and functional grammar. Functional grammar is how to use language for metafunction. Language means text. Halliday states that different meaning in language is influenced by situation and culture. Every language appears is register. Field (action/activity), Mode (participants), Tenor (function). Register appears because of configuration that appears from these three points. Language teaching of Systemic Functional Linguistics: Grammar in SFL not only talks about the structure but also talk about language features of e genre. So that is why the contribution of SFL is GBA that used in teaching (procedure, recount, narrative, etc.). Genre based is focuses on models and key features of texts written for a particular purpose.

Grammatical theories called " systemic grammar " and " systemic functional linguistics " are more or less the same. In the most concrete terms, the language functions, as Halliday, Matthiessen, and many other linguists put it, are specific to culture. Systemic grammar is the grammatical school that deliberates on the functional accountability of systems in practical context, in a particular speech community. Unlike other grammatical schools that do speculation on the syntactic analysis of a language, systemic grammar is deeply bothered about language's practical applicability. It actually predicts the possible number of " choices " according to the context. Every utterance is a selection from the number of choices a language practitioner can make in an available linguistic environment. A speaker makes the selection of a particular choice according to the meaning potential of it in a particular context. The collection of available choices of usage is called the " grammar " of the language. The grammar itself takes the form of a series of system networks and hence the title " systemic grammar. " The aim of systemic grammar is not only to characterize our actual use of language but also to predict the choices that we make and how these choices are contextually conditioned. The most remarkable outcome of Hallidayan linguistic theories is his linking of language with society and humanity as a whole. He always considered language as a social asset to be transferred to generations. In that sense, Halliday is the most democratic of all linguists, who abhorred arm chair deliberations in modern linguistics.

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Applied-linguists study language use in context such as the contexts associated with specialized registers (e.g., business or academic), contexts for language learning (e.g., classrooms and study abroad programs), and contexts for language assessment (e.g., speaking and writing tests). As a result, many of them are interested in linguistic theory that takes into account the contextual dimensions of language. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) views language as a social semiotic resource people use to accomplish their purposes by expressing meanings in context (Halliday, 1985). This perspective is refreshing to applied linguists since it offers a framework for their work. In SFL, language must be studied in contexts such as professional settings, classrooms, and language tests.

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TEACHING ENGLISH FOR CRITICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: INVESTIGATING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A CRITICAL CYCLE OF TASKS IN THE CONTEXT OF BASIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION, 2018

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Systemic Functional Grammar Fostering Critical Thinking in Teaching and Learning Language

• Esther L. Baraceros
• Published 2013
• Linguistics, Education

15 References

Critical thinking for psychology: a student guide, an introduction to systemic functional linguistics, thinking creatively; thinking critically, critical thinking and learning, the pocket guide to critical thinking, group work in large classes of foreign language teaching, thinking and reasoning: an introduction to the psychology of reason, judgment and decision making, techniques and principles in language teach-ing, the functional analysis of english : a hallidayan approach, related papers.

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• Published: 06 November 2018

Developing a systemic functional approach to teach multimodal literacy

• Fei Victor Lim   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3046-1011 1  

Functional Linguistics volume  5 , Article number:  13 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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This article argues for the importance of teaching multimodal literacy in schools so as to adequately equip students to navigate the multimodal communicative landscape. Developing multimodal literacy in students is about developing in them the ability to view multimodal texts critically and for them to represent their ideas through the production of effective multimodal texts. This article describes an instructional approach developed to teach multimodal texts and describes the trial of the approach in a secondary school in Singapore. The approach is informed by Systemic Functional Theory and is aligned to the Learning by Design Framework widely used in multiliteracies. The systemic functional approach provides scaffolds for students to access the meanings made in multimodal texts by introducing the features and typical functions of the text, as well as highlighting the common strategies used in these multimodal texts to make meaning.

Multimodal literacy

The changing nature of the communicative landscape wrought by new technologies is accentuating the need to broaden our definition of literacy. Kress ( 2003 : 1) argues that literacy in the new media age will involve “human, cognitive/affective, cultural and bodily engagement with the world and on the forms and shapes of knowledge”. He proposes a shift away from an alphabetic literacy and to explore the new forms of literacy needed in today’s world. To be considered literate in this day and age is to be able to effectively communicate multimodally. The “multimodal turn” (Jewitt 2009 : 4) is a recognition that language is usually co-deployed with other semiotic resources and meaning is made multimodally as a result of the orchestration of these resources. Language has come to be understood “not as some discreetly independent entity, but rather as part of complex sets of interconnecting forms of human semiosis” (Christie 2002 : 3). Communication, especially with multimedia and social media, involves not just language, but also the use of multimodal resources, such as images, videos, embodied action, and three-dimensional objects to make meanings in different contexts (Smith et al. 2014 ). As such, students need to develop complementary competencies not only in traditional domains, such as literacy and numeracy, which remain foundational, but also develop a fluency in multimodal literacy (Lim & Hung, 2016). In this light, the literacy curriculum today cannot remain as a language-focused curriculum. The literacy curriculum must evolve beyond just the teaching and learning of reading in print to reading both in print and on screen; from that of reading of books to that of reading of books and viewing of multimodal texts critically; from writing to writing and typing; from speaking to speaking and representing.

Multimodal literacy (Jewitt and Kress 2003 ; O’Halloran and Lim 2011 ; van Leeuwen 2017 ) is about students learning to view multimodal texts critically and to communicate effectively through multimodal representations. Multimodal literacy focuses on the distinct “epistemological commitment” and functional specialisation of each meaning-making resource (Kress 2003 : 55). The unique affordances of the semiotic resources bring about their functional specialisations, for instance, “writing is better for representing events in sequence, and image is better for representing relation of elements in space” (Kress 2003 : 46). Multimodal literacy is about understanding the affordances, that is the potentials and limitations, of the different meaning-making resources, as well as how they work together to produce a coherent and cohesive multimodal text.

In order to view multimodal texts critically, students must understand how meanings are made across the semiotic resources and be able to cite textual evidence to support their interpretation of the multimodal texts. In order to communicate effectively through multimodal representations, students must also have an awareness of the affordances of various semiotic resources and how they can work together effectively to make meaning. The importance of developing multimodal literacy in our students is increasing gaining recognition by policy makers and curriculum planners internationally. Singapore, in particular, has introduced the viewing and representing of multimodal texts as new areas of language learning in the Ministry of Education English Language Syllabus as early as in 2010. With the recognition of the importance of multimodal literacy, the next question to be answered is how to effectively develop multimodal literacy in students. With the inclusion of viewing and representing as part of students’ literacy development, there is a corresponding need to build competencies in teachers to be able to teach multimodal literacy. This article describes an instructional approach with content informed by systemic functional theory, and pedagogy aligned to the Learning by Design framework widely used in multiliteracies (Cope and Kalantzis 2015 ). The aim of the approach is to provide teachers with the meta-language, pedagogical scaffolds, and resources to effectively teach the viewing and representing of multimodal texts.

Systemic functional approach to teaching multimodal literacy

Given that students are to appreciate the affordances of various semiotic resources and how they work together in a multimodal text so as to view critically, a way to develop multimodal literacy is to have students perform analyses of multimodal texts. Through their evaluation, students learn to identify the choices made in the multimodal texts and can explore the ways in which the meanings are made. Within the field of multimodal research, there have been many approaches to the analysis of multimodal discourse developed over the years. Jewitt et al. ( 2016 ) survey the landscape of multimodal research and identify the three main approaches to multimodality as systemic functional linguistics (O’Toole 2011 ; Bateman 2014 ; O’Halloran and Lim 2014 ), social semiotics (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001 , 2006 ; Adami 2009 ; Kress 2010a , 2010b ) and conversation analysis (Goodwin 2000 ; Antaki 2011 ; Broth and Mondada 2013 ).

Both the systemic functional linguistics and social semiotics approaches to multimodality are inspired by the work of Michael Halliday ( 1978 ) who viewed language as social semiotic and developed systemic functional theory as an approach to study language. The systemic functional approach linguistics approach, described in this article, as systemic functional approach, adopts a genre-based orientation towards multimodality and is organised around the metafunctional meanings, that is the experiential meanings (happenings through processes, participants, and circumstances), interpersonal meanings (engagement and expression of modality), and textual meaning (organisation of parts). The systemic functional approach focuses on the ‘grammar’ of multimodal texts by studying how each semiotic resource contributes to the emergent meaning through ‘system networks’, as well as the interaction and integration of these resources as a multimodal whole. Notwithstanding, the systemic functional approach could be criticised for holding up language as a reference, in which the principles of meaning-making by other semiotic resources are made. This, however, can be useful in the case of teaching multimodal literacy, in the context of introducing English Language teachers to the principles of meaning-making in other semiotic resources by referencing language which they already familiar with.

The social semiotic approach to multimodality focuses on the ‘agency’ and ‘interest’ of the meaning-maker as well as the ‘design’ of multimodal text through studying the ‘affordances’ of each mode, that is the culturally shaped and socially organised set of semiotic resources for meaning -making. The social semiotics approach is driven by the aim to “explore the common principles behind multimodal communication” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001 : 2). Criticisms of the social semiotic approach include that its’ principles could be overgeneralised by not being sufficiently contextually nuanced and that it seem not to address the hybridised nature of contemporary communication (Prior 2005 ). Notwithstanding, the social semiotic approach has been productively advanced as a theory of learning (Kress and Bezemer 2016 ) and invites possibilities for application as a pedagogy for the teaching of multimodal literacy which presents opportunities for future study.

The conversation analysis approach to multimodality stems from the study of talk in social interaction. It focuses on the analysis and transcription of videos to study human action, recognising that multimodal resources are situated and made relevant by the participants of the discourse themselves (Mondada 2018 ). Criticisms of the conversation analysis approach centres on the question of how the ‘relevance’ of the data analysed is determined (Blommaert 2005 ) as well as a limited focus on how the multimodal ensemble work together to make meaning in combination. Given that a focus of the conversation analysis approach is on human interaction through video analyses and transcriptions, it appears less relevant for the instruction of multimodal literacy in students.

Of the three main approaches, the systemic functional approach is applied to inform the development of the instructional approach described in this article. It is deemed best fit for purpose because the functional linguistic approaches to literacy are familiar to teachers in Singapore, and that they have used genres, described as ‘text-types’, as a way to orientate and organise students’ learning of language. The systemic functional approach to develop multimodal literacy leverages teachers’ existing knowledge of teaching language and references the principles in the introduction of the other semiotic resources. This is more relatable and accessible for teachers, especially since the teaching of multimodal literacy in Singapore is intended to take place in the English Language classroom. The systemic functional approach has also been productive in its applications across educational-related domains such as “educational semiotics, computational multimodal studies, multimodal translation and multimodal literacy” (Jewitt et al. 2016 : 55).

While first, and most famously, applied to describe language, it must be emphasised that systemic functional theory is not just a theory of language. Rather, as Halliday ( 1978 ) elucidates, systemic functional theory is a theory of meaning; a semiotic theory, that has been most extensively applied to language. The central perspective offered by systemic functional theory is that meaning-making is a result of choice. This choice is “not a conscious decision made in real time but a set of possible alternatives” (Halliday 1994 : xiv–xxvi) in the design and composition of a text. The principles extrapolated from the systemic functional theory to the other semiotic resources stem from the premise of metafunctional meanings made through semiotic selections within a system network. The systemic functional approach emphasises explicit teaching of the generic features of these texts and introduces the strategies used to engage viewers. The systemic functional approach also offers a meta-language for students to discuss and describe the modes and meanings in multimodal texts. In the study and analysis of modes beyond language, a meta-language is necessary to “describe meaning in various realms” (Cope and Kalantzis 2000 : 24). Unsworth ( 2014 : 13) argues that “teachers and students need this kind of metalanguage for talking about language, images, sound, and so forth, and for their meaning-making interactions”. The meta-language introduced in the systemic functional approach stems from the theoretical view of genre and multimodality. It organises the student’s viewing around the meaning potential in the multimodal texts to achieve specific purposes - that is how the textual features fulfil typical functions. It also orientates the students towards the semiotic choices made in the multimodal texts – that is the media strategies and typical effects of these selections on the engagement of the viewer. With the meta-language, students are empowered to describe and discuss the representations made in the texts. The approach thus aims to equip “students with the understanding to know where to look and what to look out for in a [multimodal] text” (Lim and Tan 2017 : 182).

Pedagogical features of the systemic functional approach

The pioneering work in broadening the traditional definition of literacy to a more encompassing understanding is attributed to the New London Group’s work on multiliteracies (Cope and Kalantzis 2000 ). The ‘multi’ stands for the “enormous and significant differences in contexts and patterns of communication… and the ‘multi-’ of multimodality” (Cope and Kalantzis 2015 : 3). The distinction between multiliteracies and multimodal literacy is subtle. It has been observed that multiliteracies, notwithstanding its plural form, along with the new emergent literacies, tend to be “strongly focused on competencies and written lettered representation” (Jewitt 2007 : 245). Multimodal literacy, on the other hand, draws attention to the other modes of meaning-making beyond language and focuses on the specific meanings made in the viewing and representing of multimodal text as well as how semiotic resources are co-deployed to package information in the text.

For the teaching of multiliteracies, Cope and Kalantzis ( 2015 ) have developed a Learning by Design framework where they introduce the knowledge processes of Experiencing, Conceptualising, Analyzing and Applying in multiliteracies, summarised in Table  1 . The pedagogical features of the systemic functional approach, introduced in this article, is aligned to Cope and Kalantzis’ ( 2015 ) Learning by Design Framework and adopts the “reflexive pedagogy” described by them. Reflexive pedagogy combines insights and practices from both didactic and authentic pedagogy and is positioned as a pedagogy of communication and knowledge representations. The reflexive pedagogy recognises that “knowledge is not (just) the stuff that ends up in our minds. It is what we do and make. Learning is a consequence of a series of knowledge actions, using multimodal media to externalize our thinking… Learning is also very social, as we rely on the artifacts of collective memory, and work with others in the essentially collaborative task of knowledge making” (Cope and Kalantzis 2015 : 39).

The essence of multimodal literacy is the ability for students to be able to view multimodal texts critically and to make multimodal representations effectively. The pedagogical features of the systemic functional approach, represented in Fig.  1 , are to introduce students to the texts by their genres , that is the social purpose of the texts, and guiding them to identify specific features in the text-types, as well to use a corpus of authentic texts, rather than artificially constructed ones. Lessons are designed for students to engage in collaborative learning inquiry as they experience and evaluate the carefully selected multimodal texts that exemplify the genre. Teachers also engage in explicit teaching of the features of the texts as well as the media strategies used to realise specific meanings, such as prominence, power, address, and distance, in the multimodal texts. Through the ‘reflexive pedagogy’ of blending both inquiry-based learning and didactic teaching, an inductive learning approach is achieved, where students are to make meaning from the texts collaboratively even as they are taught the meta-language to describe and discuss multimodal texts. The systemic functional approach also harnesses the use of educational technology (EdTech) to facilitate the collaborative annotation and joint meaning-making of students, as well as support the making of artefacts, through appropriate digital creation platforms. The experience of artefact making is integral to the development of multimodal literacy, as it not only provide students to represent their learning, but also provide an opportunity for students to learn through making. The pedagogical features of the systemic functional approach to develop multimodal literacy in students are also correspondingly related to the dimensions and knowledge processes in the Learning by Design Framework in Table  2 .

Pedagogical Features in the Systemic Functional Approach to Teaching Multimodal Literacy

Situated practice

The focus in the dimension of Situated Practice is on the immersion of learners in the everyday world and helping them make connections across the domains of education and daily life. As such, the pedagogical features of the systemic functional approach proposed are that authentic multimodal texts are used and are introduced according to their genre, such as print advertisements, films, and online news. Based on their genres, there are specific features and typical functions that these features serve. Students are also taught to recognise the obligatory and optional features of the various text-types. This foregrounds the communicative purpose of the multimodal texts and how the semiotic choices are organised towards fulfilling the purpose. Authentic text that students encounter in their daily lives are used to strengthen the connection between theory and practice so that students can see the application of what they are learning in the classroom.

Students also learn together with their peers through joint meaning-making. Collaborative learning inquiry can be done though whole class discussion, small group discussions as well as collaborative annotations and discussions enabled through educational technology platforms. Through collective negotiation of meaning, argumentation and citation of evidence to defend their interpretation, students develop a more robust analysis of the multimodal texts they view and a deeper appreciation of the multimodal composition.

Overt instruction

Following the reflexive pedagogy, where useful practices from didactic pedagogy are applied, the explicit teaching of the terms and concepts through the introduction of the meta-language for the specific multimodal text is a feature of the systemic functional approach. The focus in the dimension of overt instruction is for students to “learn to use abstract, generalising terms through drawing distinctions, identifying similarities and differences, and categorizing with labels” (Cope and Kalantzis 2015 : 19). As such, explicit teaching provides students with a guided understanding of the textual features and engagement strategies used in the multimodal text to persuade viewers. Overt instruction can take the form of questioning by the teacher to prompt evidence-based interpretations from the students. Through the use of questioning, teachers guide students in making explicit the students’ tacit understanding of the visual texts. Having been taught the terms and concepts, students are empowered to identify textual features, describe the semiotic choices and discuss the meanings made in the multimodal texts as well as cite textual evidence to support their interpretation of the multimodal text.

Critical framing

Critical framing is achieved through inductive learning, where students are guided in the viewing and analysis of multimodal texts so as to identity features and patterns that are later consolidated and explicitly taught by the teachers as concepts. Students work across a selection of teacher-curated multimodal texts, and are guided through an inductive process to identify and relate the textual features to the typical functions they serve, as well as surface and associate the multimodal strategies to the typical effects they realise. The process where students interrogate the texts and “examine cause and effect, structure and function” helps them to “develop chains of reasoning and explain patterns” (Cope and Kalantzis 2015 : 20) which is later affirmed and reinforced through the explicit teaching by the teacher. Through this inductive learning, students are guided to view the multimodal text critically and are empowered to interrogate the “world of subjectivity (human agency, interest and intent)” (Cope and Kalantzis 2015 : 20).

Transformed practice

The dimension of Transformed Practice is about students “learning by applying experiential, conceptual or critical knowledge” (Cope and Kalantzis 2015 : 21). This involves the students making artefacts as a way of learning and a demonstration of their learning. The effective composition of a multimodal representation indicates that students have understood how the semiotic choices work together in organising the text and orientating the viewer to specific communicative intent. The systemic functional approach also harnesses educational technology to facilitate students’ making of multimodal representations. The annotation and analysis of multimodal texts are performed through the use of educational technology platforms, such as those with collaborative input features.

Instructional content in the systemic functional approach

As the instructional content in the systemic functional approach has been described in Lim and Tan ( 2017 ) for the genre of print advertisements, and in Lim and Tan ( 2018 ) for the genre of film text, the description of the instructional content in this article is brief. The instruction content is the meta-language suggested for the teachers to use for specific genres of texts. In this article, the instructional content for the teaching of print advertisement is represented in Fig.  2 . The instructional content is designed to be implemented across a series of lessons, which is reinforced each time with the introduction of a new genre of multimodal texts. In other words, each time a new text-type is introduced, the similar concepts learnt in the previous series are revisited, with additional features pertinent to the specific genre added.

Instructional Content of Lessons for the Viewing of Print Advertisments

The instructional content for the teaching of multimodal literacy are organised in the specific lessons on 1) Form, 2) Engagement, 3) Message, and 4) Integration (Fig. 2 ). Thereafter, the students may continue with the analysis and evaluation of more texts, and begin creating their multimodal representations.

Lesson on form

The lesson on Form is about helping students acquire knowledge of the genre of the text through the textual features and the typical functions they serve. For instance, the teacher may show that in an image, the Main Visual Display is the largest and most prominent part of the visual text, the Focus of Attention stands out the most and the Logo is the graphic representation of company. Linguistic features include Slogan, as a memorable catch phrase, the Call and Visit information, which provides the contact details, as well as features such as the Brand and Product names and the Call to Action (Tan et al. 2012 ).

Lesson on engagement

The lesson on engagement is about helping students to develop a sensitivity to the multimodal strategies and their typical effects. The teacher may introduce the common media strategies so as to understand why they are used to achieve specific purposes. For instance, in realising address, students learn that the subjects’ type of gaze—looking directly at or away from the viewer—changes the way the viewer interacts with them. In realising power, students also learn to recognise media strategies, such as the use of vertical angles to realise power (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006 ).

Lesson on message

The lesson on Message is about helping students to understanding literal and inferential representations in the text as well as how the text presents its ideas. Teachers build on what students have learnt in Form and Engagement, and guide them in identifying the types of persuasion used to appeal to the viewer as well as discuss the literal and inferential meanings made in the multimodal texts. Students learn to recognise how appeals are made through authority, reason, and emotion (Halmari and Virtanen 2005 ). Students also discuss the literal and inferential meanings in the multimodal texts and consider the interest(s) of the text producers as well as the context of production and reception of the multimodal text.

Lesson on integration

In the lesson on integration, students examine the relationship between the language and the visuals in terms of similar or different meanings made by the various semiotic resources. They consider the similar meanings made across language and images to reinforce the message, as well as the apparently contradictory meanings made across language and images to infuse a layer of irony and play in the multimodal texts (Lim and O’Hallloran 2012 ). Students are led to appreciate the interaction between form and content in multimodal texts, and how the integration of the linguistic and visual elements can lead to a coherent emergent meaning (Lim 2004 ) and thereby achieving the intended purpose(s).

Trial of the systemic functional approach

The systemic functional approach to the teaching of multimodal literacy was trialled in a secondary school in Singapore. The government (public) secondary school is located in the western part of Singapore, in a typical neighbourhood surrounded by public housing. Three classes of secondary one students (13 year old students) were involved in the trial, with one class serving as the control class. The students from the three classes are considered to be of general average ability by national standards as they are in the Express stream, where students are on a four-year course learning up to the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level examination. Notwithstanding, in the context of this school, a more granular distinction based on their grades from the national assessment (Primary School Leaving Examinations) is made across students from the 3 classes - with class 1E1 comprising students with relatively higher grades; class 1E2 comprising students of slightly lower grades than students from 1E1; and class 1E3 comprising students with slightly lower grades than students from 1E3.

The researchers worked with two teachers, Clarice and Sharon (pseudonyms), from the school to implement the systemic functional approach to teach multimodal literacy. Clarice taught 1E1, a class of 40 students, and Sharon taught 1E3, a class of 40 students. The control class, 1E2, with 42 students, continued with the regular lesson activity and were not introduced to the systemic functional approach. The research instruments used included 1) pre and post-tests, 2) students’ survey, 3) students’ free response questions, 4) students’ artefacts, and 5) teachers’ reflections. Students from all three classes took a pre-test and a post-test, but only students from the two intervention classes were surveyed and had the students’ artefacts collected by the researchers for analysis.

In the discussion with the researchers, Clarice and Sharon were keen to explore how they could achieve the syllabus outcomes through the use of the systemic functional approach to develop multimodal literacy in their students. The teachers also wanted to better guide their students in identifying and describing the features in multimodal texts so that they would be able to evaluate the texts and support their interpretations with textual evidence. Print advertisements were identified to be the genre of multimodal texts to be taught. This was, in part, motivated by the national English Language examinations, where students’ understanding of print advertisements were assessed.

The researchers worked with Clarice and Sharon to co-design the teaching resources based on the systemic functional approach. The researchers also conducted consultation sessions with the teachers to help them understand the pedagogical features and the instructional content of the lessons. The teachers then conducted the four one-hour lessons, described earlier, for their classes, and assigned the production of students’ artefacts, as an assignment to be completed during the one-week school holidays.

Pre and post tests

For the pre and post-tests, students were to answer four questions based on the print advertisement shown in Fig.  3 . They were 1) What is the purpose of the advertisement? 2) Who is the target audience? 3) What is the main message in the advertisement? 4) What are the strategies used to convey the message? The teachers marked the students’ responses and analysed the students’ scores. It was noted that while students generally were able to answer the first two questions well, many students had difficulties with question 3, where they had to infer the main idea in the advertisement, and most students had difficulties with identifying the media strategies used in the advertisements. This was consistent in both pre-test and post-test, although there was improvements in the intervention classes in the post-test. The results of the pre and post-test are in Table  3 .

Print Advertisements Used in Pre and Post Tests

While the improvement in the intervention classes was not great, likely due to the short nature of the intervention of only four lessons, there improvement was discernible. What is of interest is the decline in the mean scores of students from the control class in the post-test. While the reason for this is uncertain, the researcher speculated that while efforts have been taken to ensure that the print advertisements were similar and that the questions asked were the same, it was possible that students in all three classes found the print advertisement used in the post-test more challenging to understand.

Students’ survey

The students were also given the following statements in a survey, in which they were to indicate whether they strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed.

I enjoyed the lessons on understanding visual texts (advertisements).

I am interested to learn more about how advertisements are designed.

I pay more attention to advertisements now.

I am able to identify the techniques used in visual texts to achieve a variety of purposes.

I am able to gather evidences to support my interpretation of the visual texts.

The results of the students’ survey are presented in Table  4 . The first three statements are related to the design of their learning experience, that is the pedagogical features in the systemic functional approach. Most students (92.3% from 1E1 and 92.29% from 1E3) indicated that they have enjoyed the lesson series and a slightly smaller group, though still a majority, of students (84.6% from 1E1 and 87.23% from 1E3) reported that the lessons have piqued their interests to learn more about how advertisements are designed. It is noted, however, that the number of students who strongly agreed that they are interested to learn more about how advertisements are designed are much lower at 5.13% from 1E3, as compared to 33.3% from 1E1.

Most students (84.6% of students from 1E1 and 61.53% of students from 1E3) also indicated that they will pay more attention to advertisements now, although the number of students disagreeing from 1E3 at 38.5%, as compared to 15.4% from 1E1, is notably high. This could suggest that the connection and transfer of what they have learnt to what they experience in their daily lives can still be strengthened. The last two questions are related to the instructional content in the systemic functional approach and provide insights into the students’ development as critical viewers. Most students (94.9% from 1E1 and 92.29% from 1E3) indicated that they have learnt to identify the techniques used in visual texts to achieve a variety of purposes and a slightly smaller group, but still a majority, of students (89.7% from 1E1 and 89.8% from 1E3) reported that they were able to gather evidences to support their interpretation of the visual texts. The results were similar across both intervention classes, with the higher ability students from 1E1 reporting a marginally higher positive response in strongly agreeing and agreeing with the statements. It is useful to note that while most students have reported that they have enjoyed and have learnt through the lessons, and that their application of learning could be observed in the artefacts they designed, there were also a minority of students who disagreed. This suggests that the instructional approach implemented could still be improved. As the survey was anonymous to encourage honest feedback, it was not possible to follow up with the students who disagreed to have a deeper understanding of their reasons, which would otherwise have been illuminating. In later studies, an additional question eliciting for suggestions for improvements from students were added.

In the free response questions at the end of the survey, students were asked what they had learnt. Examples of responses include being able to “uncover deeper meanings”, learning to “identify techniques used to achieve a variety of purpose”, knowing “how to make a good and interesting advertisement”, and that “every single information on the poster is important and contributes greatly to the advertisement”. Students were also asked in what ways their learning would be useful in examinations. Examples of responses included understanding “what the questions are asking and the requirements of the questions”, knowing “how to read an advertisements”, and scoring “higher marks”. Finally, students were asked in what ways their learning would be useful in life. Examples of responses included, being “more discerning”, knowing “what information to look out for and where to look”, and – our favourite response - “I will not be tricked”.

For the production of students’ artefacts, students were tasked to work in groups to produce a print advertisement on the theme of travel. Examples of their products are shown in Fig.  4 below. The students’ design of the travel advertisement showed an application of their learning. For instance, the use of size and positioning to realise the prominence of the globe, and the inclusion of the Call and Visit Information as part of the feature of print advertisements, are evident in Fig. 4 .1. The use of reason as an appeal is evident is Fig. 4 .2, where again size and positioning of the text box are used effectively to direct the viewers’ attention. Fig. 4 .3 shows an advertisement for luggage and uses an image of Justin Bieber, a popular celebrity with youths, as endorsement to realise an appeal to authority. It also uses a secondary appeal to reason by offering discount and a description of the positive attributes of the luggage as being “light and strong”. Overall, the students’ design of the artefacts displayed an understanding of the features and strategies used in print advertisements. In retrospect, what would have been useful, but was not done in the trial, was to have the students also present, either orally or in the written mode, their rationale for their design choices. This was also done in later studies where students completed an additional worksheet explaining their design choices.

Examples of Students’ Artefacts

Teachers’ reflections

In the teacher’s written reflections after the lessons, both Clarice and Sharon felt that the systemic functional approach was a useful way to teach visual texts. Clarice shared that “it was really eye-opening for everyone to actually realise that there is so much thought and meaning behind making a simple advertisement.” She felt that “exposing the students to different kinds of advertisements generally strengthened their interest too as people generally response better to visuals, especially with the use of images and colour.” Sharon shared that she had concerns initially with “the terminology (i.e. words like “function”) as well as the application of the techniques and students’ receptiveness to the various systems” and wondered if was “too much of an information overload for the students”, especially for her students in 1E3. However, she noted that “after simplifying the systems and their terms, [she] was confident that the students would be able to understand”.

The teachers also felt that the lessons also involved just the right degree of challenge for the students – overall, they felt that the lessons were neither too easy nor difficult. Sharon observed that “the series of lessons were well-received by the students and based on verbal feedback, [the] majority of students found the lessons stimulating and refreshing.”

In terms of improvement, Clarice felt that “it might be better if the advertisements chosen as well as the questions formed in the worksheets were geared more towards the exam syllabus, as the advertisements [used in the lessons] tend to be slightly more pictorial and some of the tougher questions may not actually come out for exams.” Nonetheless, she noted that “what’s best [was] that the students actually learned life skills. They generally understand that there is more to advertisements than just learning about them for examinations.”

From their reflections, both teachers expressed positive sentiments about the systemic functional approach, both in its utility and effectiveness. While there were initially concerned with the extent of meta-language, they were heartened that the students were able to cope with them during the lessons and that most students found the lessons enjoyable. They also noted that what was taught in the lessons was probably more advanced and beyond what was required in the syllabus and what would be tested in the examinations. However, the teachers also saw the need and value of developing multimodal literacy in students, as part of the life-skills students would need to thrive in the contemporary digital environment.

This article describes the development of a pedagogical approach, that is informed by systemic functional theory, to develop multimodal literacy in secondary school students in Singapore. The pedagogical features of the approach is aligned to the Learning by Design framework, used widely within the field of multiliteracies. The pilot trial to implement the systemic functional approach with two teachers in two classes is also described in the article. The trial was productive in refining the systemic functional approach to develop multimodal literacy in students. The instructional content was worked through with the teachers, who identified and curated relevant lesson materials, such as examples of visual texts that would be of interest to their students. The pedagogical features of the approach were discussed and negotiated with the teachers into what were practicable within the constraints of a tight curriculum. To prevent an overload of terminology, the meta-language to be introduced through the approach was scrutinised and deliberated, and where possible, aligned to terms already used in the teaching of language, to ensure that each new term introduced was necessary and helpful for the students to use for their description and discussion of multimodal texts. Admittedly, it can be difficult to teach secondary school students multimodal grammar. As such, in our discussion and negotiation with the teachers on the extent of meta-language to be introduced and used, we have decided not to bring in visual transitivity at this stage. There was a greater focus on the interpersonal meanings relative to ideational and textual meanings made multimodally. Nonetheless, we have attempted to introduce the main ideas behind salience and information value by discussing the media strategies used to realise them in a print advertisement. The article reports on what has been developed and used to teach students on multimodal literacy in a pilot trial. The work continues and we are exploring how aspects of systems of the multimodal grammar realising ideational and textual meanings can be introduced more effectively in the future.

The positive findings from the trial affirm that multimodal literacy can be taught and that the systemic functional approach described in this article offers a way to design for its learning. Following this pilot trial, the approach has been further refined and implemented in a number of secondary schools in Singapore. With every implementation, iterations were made to instructional strategies and the lesson resources co-created with the teachers involved. Results of the trials with schools, over the years, and well as the description of the approach have been reported in Lim et al. ( 2015 ), Lim and Tan ( 2017 , 2018 ). Starting from the multimodal genre of print advertisements, the approach has been extended to films, and more recently to online news. Workshops have also been conducted to train Singapore teachers in this instructional approach, with lesson resources made available for them to adopt and adapt accordingly. Lim et al. ( in press ) also describe a networked learning community formed by teachers who have trialled this instructional approach and are united by their common interest in developing multimodal literacy in their students.

The work on developing an approach, informed by systemic functional theory, for the teaching of multimodal literacy, is inspired by Michael Halliday’s clarion call towards an ‘appliable linguistics’ (Mahboob and Knight 2010 ), where “the value of a theory lies in the use that can be made of it”. (Halliday 2006 : 192). In light of the changing communicative landscape which our students today inhabit and the need to equip them with the literacy needed to make meaning from multimodal texts and make multimodal texts, the literacy curriculum needs to be expanded to include multimodal literacy. Teachers, at the frontline of equipping our students in the classrooms, need to be supported with theoretically-grounded instructional strategies to develop multimodal literacy in our students. Advances made in the field of multimodality present fertile understandings that could potentially be cascaded into the classrooms. The systemic functional approach described in this article represents an attempt to translate these concepts into an instructional approach for the teaching of multimodal literacy.

Almost two decades ago, Kress ( 2000 : 161) had declared that “it would be an unforgivable dereliction of the responsibilities of intellectuals if the potentials of representation and communication— of literacy in a very broad and metaphoric sense— offered by current developments were not fully explored, and a concerted attempt made to shape their direction”. As described earlier in this article, much progress has been made in the field of multimodality in recent years. Research in multimodality presents exciting possibilities, with promises to influence pedagogy, inform a forward-looking literacy curriculum and develop multimodal literacy in our students. The development of the systemic functional approach for the teaching of multimodal literacy, described in this article, represents an attempt to contribute to the ongoing conversation on how best to prepare students for this digital age.

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Article contents

Systemic functional linguistics in teacher education.

• Luciana C. de Oliveira Luciana C. de Oliveira University of Miami
• , and  Sharon L. Smith Sharon L. Smith University of Miami
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.494
• Published online: 29 July 2019

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL), a meaning-based theory of language, has been used throughout the world as a discourse analytic approach and, more recently, as a framework for implementing pedagogy in the classroom. SFL has much to offer teachers as a pedagogical approach. The integration of SFL into teacher education and continuing professional learning has been shown to have a positive impact on developing teachers’ knowledge about language, their ability to instruct students by focusing on language and literacy development, and their focus on critical components of language for diverse learners. SFL theory does not provide teacher educators with a developed curriculum for implementation; therefore, the ways in which it has been used across teacher education have varied depending on teachers’ level of instruction (elementary, secondary, or tertiary), familiarity with SFL concepts, and preservice or in-service status. There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to SFL inclusion in teacher education, but some principles derived from SFL in teacher education literature may enable teacher educators to consider how this theory of language and pedagogical framework can be used in teacher education programs.

• systemic functional linguistics
• teacher education
• knowledge about language
• literacy education
• genre-based pedagogy
• teaching and learning cycle

Introduction

Repeated calls for greater attention to Halliday’s (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ) meaning-based theory of language, systemic functional linguistics (SFL), emphasize the need to support teachers to focus on understanding how academic language works across the curriculum and grade levels with students (Mohan, Leung, & Davison, 2001 ; Schleppegrell, 2004 ). Hyland ( 2007 ) argues that teacher education programs, particularly in the United States, have not attended to an SFL perspective of genre theory and genre-based pedagogy and calls for such emphasis. Integrating SFL into teacher education and continuing professional learning can have a significant impact on developing teachers’ knowledge about language and positively affect educators’ ability to design instruction that supports critical language and literacy development for diverse learners (Brisk, 2014 ; Gebhard, Chen, Graham, & Gunawan, 2013 ; Harman, 2018 ; Schleppegrell, 2002 ; Schulze, 2015 ).

Language plays a crucial role in one’s social, educational, and occupational lives, and with our increasingly global world, the mastery of reading and writing skills has become essential. Literacy is directly impacted by language, as the texts that one reads, and in turn produces, are elements of a linguistic system (Sebba, 2015 ). Language is a crucial tool to effectively participate in society, allowing one to communicate ideas, to develop knowledge, and to solve problems across numerous, diverse circumstances (National Commission on Writing, 2018 ); in the arena of education, the impact of language and literacy on student academic success and learning across content areas has been widely documented and acknowledged by countries all over the world (e.g., European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2012 ; Graham & Perin, 2007 ; Matthews, Kizzie, Rowley, & Cortina, 2010 ; Purpura, Logan, Hassinger-Das, & Napoli, 2017 ; Rose & Martin, 2012 ; Sverdlov, Aram, & Levin, 2014 ; US Department of Education, 2017 ).

In order to facilitate learning, teachers need to hold a broad and extensive understanding of language and the specific academic language demands of their respective content areas (Schulze, 2015 ). Globalization and the increasingly diverse learning environments around the world have drawn attention to the need for educators to be prepared in linguistic competences (Lucas & Villegas, 2013 ). Teachers need to be prepared to work with a wide variety of students in ways that facilitate their knowledge about language (KAL; de Oliveira & Ma, 2018 ). KAL, a concept common in various parts of the world, encompasses both an understanding of the nature of language and functional language skills (de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ; Derewianka, 2012 ). Especially in multilingual contexts, educators need to be knowledgeable about the language in and through which they are teaching (Daniello, Turgut, & Brisk, 2014 ), as they are faced with an additional task of scaffolding students’ learning about not only content and the language that supports different genres, but also students’ knowledge about a new language. A comprehensive KAL can help teachers scaffold diverse students in content and language learning (Fenwick, Humphrey, Quinn, & Endicott, 2014 ; Schleppegrell, 2012 ). Their knowledge and ideas about learning—in this specific context, their knowledge about and conceptualization of language—play a central role on shaping student learning outcomes (Arthur-Kelly, 2017 ).

However, many teachers do not have the necessary KAL and understanding of how meaning is construed through texts, and the concern with the quality of literacy instruction and students’ literacy abilities has been brought to the spotlight (Daniello et al., 2014 ; Gilbert & Graham, 2010 ; Macken-Horarik, Love, & Unsworth, 2011 ). Teacher education and professional development programs often do not focus on explicitly teaching the language and structure of texts (de Oliveira, 2011 ; Gebhard, Demers, & Castillo-Rosenthal, 2008 ), contributing to this limited KAL (Ogle & Lang, 2007 ; Allington, 2005 ). As the responsibility of teacher education programs to prepare future educators for teaching literacy is brought to the spotlight, one emerging approach that has shown promise to develop this crucial KAL across multiple contexts is the use of pedagogies that draw on SFL to develop a deeper knowledge of language and to facilitate literacy instruction.

This article provides a systematic overview of SFL and teacher education. It begins by providing a brief history of SFL, from its origins as a discourse analysis tool for researchers to its numerous applicabilities that currently exist, including an approach that educators can use to teach students literacy. Next, it highlights the foundational concepts of SFL, including the three metafunctions that serve to develop meanings in text, genre, and the teaching–learning cycle (TLC). This article outlines and synthesizes research all around the globe on SFL and teacher education. The objective of this article is not only to highlight the impact of SFL-informed KAL teacher education on pre- and in-service teachers, their teaching, and their students but also to provide teacher educators with some considerations for practice, and teacher education researchers with some considerations and possible directions for future investigation vis-à-vis SFL and teacher education. The article concludes with a discussion of principles of SFL in teacher education and highlights the need for further work in this area.

History and Foundations of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ) is a meaning-based theory of language that sees language as the realization of meaning in context. A language is a resource for making meaning, and meaning resides in systemic patterns of choice. According to SFL, the grammar of a language represents system networks, not an inventory of structures (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ). Texts are instances of the systemic choices being made, and writers make meaning choices that serve particular functions.

Genre , or the realization of the context of culture, is represented by the culturally expected structure of types of texts and the ways in which register variables are realized (Eggins, 2004 ; Martin & Rose, 2007 , 2008 ). Register , or the realization of the context of situation, is represented by choices of field, tenor , and mode (Eggins, 2004 ; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ). The field concerns what the language is being used to talk about. The mode concerns “the role language plays in the interaction,” whether it is written or spoken. Finally, the tenor concerns the “role relationships [play] between the interactants” (Eggins, 2004 , p. 90). These three variables determine what Halliday calls the three metafunctions in language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ).

The three metafunctions are the ideational, interpersonal , and textual . These three metafunctions characterize the lexicogrammatical resources of every language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ). These three kinds of meanings are realized as instances in the lexicogrammatical patterns that are seen in a text. These meanings correspond to the register variables field, tenor, and mode and lie behind the various functional approaches to language. Thus, we can look at the contextual factors behind a composition—genre and register in Martin and Rose’s ( 2007 , 2008 ) terms—but we also should understand the language features that realize the specific registers and genres under consideration, viewing language from the roles they play across and within metafunctions.

Metafunctions

The ideational metafunction realizes the ways in which the clause represents the experiences an author or speaker expresses (Eggins, 2004 ; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ) and is connected to the register variable field . Lexicogrammatically speaking, we are concerned here with the Participants (typically expressed through nouns) engaged in some kinds of Processes (typically expressed through verbs) under certain Circumstances (typically expressed through prepositional and adverbial phrases) (Eggins, 2004 ; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ). There are four major process types: doing (realized by action verbs such as participate and run ), sensing (realized by thinking and feeling verbs such as think and know ), being (realized by relating verbs such as be and have ), and saying (realized by verbal verbs like say and tell ). Participants are the entities involved in the process, typically realized in noun groups (e.g., the dog, they, the Industrial Revolution, photosynthesis ), and these participants take on different semantic roles in different process types. Participants in material processes can be Actors (the one who does the action); Goal (the one who is affected by the action); Recipient (the one who receives something); and Beneficiary (the one for whom something is done) (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ). Participants in sensing processes include Senser (the one who does the sensing) and Phenomenon (what is perceived, thought, or appreciated). Participants in being processes carry several roles, depending on the kind of clause in which the being process is used: (a) Carrier, an entity being described, and Attribute, the description of the entity; (b) Possessor, the one owning or containing something, and Possessed, the thing owned or contained; and (c) Token, an entity being equated with another, and Value, the other description. Participants in saying processes include Sayer (the one who communicates), Addressee (the one receiving the message), and Verbiage or Message (what is said). Processes also take place around circumstances (of time, space, conditions, purpose, etc.), typically realized in adverbs (e.g., finally, separately ) or prepositional phrases (e.g., around the corner, with a fork ). Transitivity analysis of participants, processes, and circumstances in clauses reveals how content is presented.

The interpersonal metafunction refers to how a clause is represented as an exchange between speaker and listener or reader and writer (Eggins, 2004 ; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ) and is connected to the register variable tenor . Lexicogrammatically, one aspect that we analyze is related to the presence or absence of the subject and finite elements of the clauses and in what order they occur with respect to one another (Eggins, 2004 ; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ). These are important because they realize the grammatical choice of the mood of a clause: either declarative, interrogative, or imperative. The mood system allows us to make statements (typically expressed in declarative mood), ask questions (typically expressed in interrogative mood), and declare commands (typically expressed in imperative mood). Another aspect is modality , an area that concerns the different ways in which someone expresses evaluation, attitudes, and judgments of various kinds. The modality system allows us to express possibility, certainty, normality, usuality, necessity, and obligation. This system includes modal verbs (e.g., should, might, could ), modal adjectives (e.g., frequent, usual ), modal adverbs (e.g., probably, certainly, typically ), and modal nouns (e.g., condition, necessity ). Evaluative vocabulary enables the construction of stance and judgment. Mood, modality, and evaluative vocabulary express interpersonal meanings that enact a relationship between reader and listener and writer and speaker.

The textual metafunction realizes how the clause is expressed as a message (Eggins, 2004 ; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ) and is connected to the register variable mode . Lexicogrammatically, we analyze the text related to the ways in which the Theme and the New are instantiated in each clause. The Theme is the first experiential element of the clause and the New encompasses the remaining bit of the clause (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ). Additionally, it is useful to track the thematic development through texts, which, in part, helps organize the overall text as it moves from stage to stage and within the stage. We also can discuss hyper-Themes and macro-Themes, where hyper-Themes serve as organizers of paragraphs, typically called topic sentences, and macro-Themes are referred to as “higher-level Themes” that “predict hyper-Themes” (Martin & Rose, 2007 , p. 197). Movements within stages are also called phases (Martin & Rose, 2008 ). Another important area of textual meaning is cohesion, the way a text hangs together with the support of cohesive devices such as pronouns (e.g., they, that, her ), synonyms and substitutes (e.g., exemplar-ideal ; The Declaration of Independence—this document ), and connectors (e.g., and, despite, if ).

Figure 1. The SFL genre strata model (adapted from Martin & Rose, 2008 , p. 17).

The relationships between genre, register, and language can be visually represented via a figure such as the one adapted here from Martin and Rose ( 2008 , p. 17) and presented as Figure 1 . This figure presents a series of three co-tangential circles, with genre as the largest circle, register (field, mode, and tenor) as the next largest, and the three metafunction variables as the smallest circle. This figure illustrates that genre is realized by choices in the register variables: field, mode, and tenor. In turn, register is realized as choices among the three metafunction variables: interpersonal, textual, and ideational. The crisscrossed line in the middle of the figure represents the interrelationship among each of these different levels of linguistic analysis and the metaredundancy (Martin & Rose, 2007 ) across each of the levels. For example, the interpersonal language choices are realizations of the tenor that the writer and speaker are expressing, which is also a realization of the genre in which the writer and speaker are constructing their text.

SFL as a model of language was elaborated through the 1980s and 1990s by Martin and his students as they developed discourse semantics resources for analyzing meaning beyond the clause. A level of genre was added to the model with the goal of specifying how a given culture organizes meaning potentials into recurrent configurations of meaning and through stages in each genre. The idea of stages comes from the notion that we have to move in steps to achieve overall goals within a written text or spoken interaction.

Genre is a recurrent configuration of meanings, described as a staged goal-oriented social process (Martin, 2009 , p. 13). It is

staged: because it usually takes us more than one phase of meaning to work through a genre,

goal-oriented: because unfolding phases are designed to accomplish something and we feel a sense of frustration or incompleteness if we are stopped, and

social: because we undertake genres interactively with others.

For the past 40 years, since the 1980s, teachers and functional linguists in Australia have collaborated to apply a genre-based approach designed to enhance literacy teaching and learning across grade levels. The first phase of this work started at the primary school level in the 1980s and the second phase moved to the secondary level in the 1990s (Rose & Martin, 2012 ). These efforts included mapping school subject matter as families of genres. Models of the role played by language and other communicative modes in knowledge construction were therefore developed as part of these efforts (Martin, 2009 ). The third phase has focused on designing a methodology for integrating reading and writing with curriculum knowledge in primary, secondary, and tertiary education, known as reading to learn (Rose, 2011 ; Rose & Martin, 2012 ). This genre work, initially developed in Australia, made it possible to be explicit about what had to be taught and learned across the curriculum in schooling contexts.

Teaching–Learning Cycle

Over time, genre theory developed applications to pedagogy, initially drawing on insights into spoken language development in the home (Painter, 1991 , 1998 ). Drawing on the notion that effective teaching involves providing learners with explicit knowledge about language, the teaching–learning cycle (TLC) was first developed by Rothery for application of a genre-based approach to writing instruction (Rothery, 1989 , 1994 ). The TLC applies the principle “guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience” (Martin & Rose, 2005 , p. 253). This principle refers to the guidance provided by teachers in talking, reading, and writing about a specific text in the context of a shared experience—a common text, movie, or reading. This means that students write about something that they shared as an activity.

Though the TLC has gone through modifications over time (e.g., Derewianka & Jones, 2012 ; Martin & Rose, 2005 ), the focus of the model has remained constant. The TLC takes writers through the phases of deconstructing mentor texts, joint construction, and independent construction, allowing students different points of entry and enabling teachers to start at any one of these phases. This process can be recursive and repeated as students become more familiar with specific genres. Setting context is important to build with students as they think of the specific context for writing a specific genre within other possible contexts. The notion of building field at all phases is key, as students develop their knowledge of the content and context of particular texts. Students also build a critical orientation to text by not just learning about the genre, but by being critical of its usage. Starting with the deconstruction phase, the TLC aims to provide students with teacher interaction, guidance, and support as students go through these phases. Most recently, after their work in K–5 classrooms, both Brisk ( 2014 ) and de Oliveira ( 2017 ) included an additional, optional phase entitled collaborative construction , to be explained.

Figure 2. Teaching–learning cycle.

Deconstruction

Teachers introduce mentor texts in a specific genre that students are expected to read and write (e.g., imaginative recount, procedural recount, biographical recount); guide students to deconstruct model texts through demonstration, modeling, and discussions about their purpose, text structures (stages), and language features typical of a specific genre; and build up students’ knowledge of the content information (i.e., building field). As Figure 2 shows, this is when a detailed reading of the text helps teachers and students to discuss the content, interpretation, and organization of the text, using the questions provided as a guide.

Joint Construction

Teachers and students work together to write a text in the same genre. In this phase, the teacher and students co-construct texts that are similar to the mentor texts that they already learned in the deconstruction phase. Students start using the language features of the specific genre about which they are learning. In co-constructing texts, teachers are expected to provide a bridge for students between their everyday language and the academic language of school so attention will be directed to text organizational issues such as purpose, stages, and language features. The teacher is typically in front of the room scribing while everyone is writing together.

Collaborative Construction

This phase was added as a bridge between the joint construction and independent construction phases, especially for students in grades K–2 who are novice writers. Students work with other students in pairs or small groups to construct a text together, brainstorming and negotiating ideas, writing, revising, etc. Teachers continue to support collaborative pairs or groups as needed.

Independent Construction

After completing the aforementioned phases, students are ready to work independently to construct their own texts in the specific genre. Teachers are expected to minimize their support, scaffolding, and guidance so students have more opportunities for their independent writing of the specific genre.

These phases of the TLC start with the whole text as the unit in focus rather than individual sentences. Thus these phases enable teachers to support their students in developing their knowledge and control of school genres across disciplines.

Reading to Learn

The teaching–learning cycle (TLC) applied to writing was modified and further developed to focus on reading (see Martin & Rose [ 2005 ] for a complete description). The reading-to-learn cycle (see Figure 3 ) is concerned with three basic questions: (a) which language features will be focused on at each step, (b) how the teacher will prepare students to identify linguistic features, and (c) how teachers will elaborate on linguistic features. A scaffolding interaction cycle—a three-move cycle of prepare, identify, and elaborate—includes a sequence of activities to intensify and extend the support provided by genre-based pedagogy (Martin & Rose, 2005 ).

Figure 3. Reading-to-learn cycle (based on Martin & Rose, 2005 , p. 261).

Comprehending a text first involves learners recognizing its genre and field and having enough experience to interpret the field as it unfolds through the text. However, some learners may have less familiarity with or little background knowledge of a specific genre required to comprehend academic texts in schooling. As Figure 3 shows, the reading-to-learn cycle begins with “Prepare before Reading.” In this phase, in order for learners to start comprehending a text, teachers provide students with the background students need to understand the sequences of events that will unfold in the text. Through discussions of what the text is about, teachers support students to build up their knowledge of the field—or the content presented in the text. Drawing on their general understanding of the text, students will be able to follow the reading of the text without struggling to work out what is taking place, to recognize letter patterns, or to decode unfamiliar words.

Figure 3 shows the six phases of the reading-to-learn cycle in a circle. Starting from the top, this cycle begins with “Prepare before Reading” and then goes clockwise to “Detailed Reading,” “Sentence or Note Making,” “Joint Rewriting,” “Individual Rewriting,” and “Independent Writing.” Finishing the last phase, the reading-to-learn cycle starts again on the first phase, “Prepare before Reading.” These six phases of the cycle give teachers a framework to provide students with more intensive scaffolding support in reading and making sense of the text, co-constructing another example of the same genre, and independently writing in the same genre on their own.

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory has existed for around 50 years (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ), and it has been applied by educational linguists in academic settings for around 30 years (Colombi, 2009 ; Gebhard, 2010 ; Hasan, 2011 ); however, only recently has a body of literature emerged that focuses on how SFL has been used in teacher education programs. Although SFL theory is utilized by academics all over the world (McCabe, 2017 ; Oteiza, 2006 ; Vian, Anglada, Moyano, & Romero, 2009 ), the majority of the research that has been carried out specifically on SFL in teacher education is situated in Australia (e.g., Fenwick et al., 2014 ; Humphrey, 2018 ; Macnaught, Maton, Martin, & Matruglio, 2013 ; Martin, 2009 ; Rose & Martin, 2012 ; Thwaite, 2015 ) and in North America (e.g., Accurso, Gebhard, & Purington, 2017 ; Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; Achugar, Schleppegrell, & Oteiza, 2007 ; Aguirre-Muñoz, Park, Amabisca, & Boscardin, 2008 ; Berg & Huang, 2015 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Brisk & Zisselsberger, 2011 ; Carpenter, Achugar, Walter, & Earhart, 2015 ; Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006 ; Daniello, 2012 ; Daniello et al., 2014 ; de Oliveira, 2011 ; de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ; Fang, 2013 ; Gebhard, Harman, & Seger, 2007 ; Gebhard, Willett, Jimenez, & Piedra, 2011 ; Gebhard et al., 2013 ; Macken-Horarik, Devereux, Trimingham-Jack, & Wilson, 2006 ; O’Hallaron, 2014 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ). This article now provides a review of literature on SFL in teacher education, focusing on two main categories of findings that emerged from the literature: (a) teacher preparation to implement SFL-based pedagogies, and (b) teacher implementation of SFL-based pedagogies.

Teacher Preparation to Implement SFL-Based Pedagogies

SFL has been used in the education and professional development of both in-service (e.g., Aguirre-Muñoz et al., 2008 ; Achugar et al., 2007 ; de Oliveira, 2011 ; Berg & Huang, 2015 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ) and preservice teachers (e.g., Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ; Fenwick et al., 2014 ; Gebhard et al., 2013 ; Macken-Horarik et al., 2006 ) across a wide variety of contexts. This pedagogical approach has been used with teachers across grade levels, including a range of elementary (e.g., Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Gebhard et al., 2007 ) and secondary educators (e.g., Accurso et al., 2017 ; Achugar et al., 2007 ; Carpenter et al., 2015 ). Since language plays a part in every academic subject, SFL has been used to educate teachers in content areas, focusing on teaching functional language-based pedagogies in English language arts (ELA) (e.g., Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Gebhard et al., 2007 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ), social studies (e.g., Achugar et al., 2007 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Carpenter et al., 2015 ; Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006 ), science (e.g., Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ), mathematics (e.g., de Oliveira, Sembiante, & Ramirez, 2018 ; O’Hallaron, 2007 ), and other areas such as visual arts, computing and technology, family and consumer sciences, theater and drama, health, music, special education, and world languages (e.g., Berg & Huang, 2015 ). Because of the affordances of SFL to teach knowledge about language (KAL), it lends itself to second-language (L2) teaching (McCabe, 2017 ), and a large portion of the literature on SFL in teacher education has focused on working with teachers to use SFL-grounded pedagogies in multilingual contexts to support linguistically diverse learners with varying levels of language proficiency.

Pre-service Teacher Education

This emerging body of literature shows how many teacher educators have worked with first-year undergraduate through master’s-level preservice teachers to develop their KAL in various disciplines (Fenwick et al., 2014 ; Gebhard et al., 2013 ; Macken-Horarik et al., 2006 ; Thwaite, 2015 ). Researchers in this area have worked to develop conceptual tools to engage future educators, to foster their KAL across disciplines, and to facilitate these pre-service teachers’ own praxis. Education students were exposed to KAL at both the grammatical and discourse levels (Christie & Derewianka, 2008 ; Thwaite, 2015 ); the key concepts taught included functions of grammar, text structures (e.g., the ways that different genres are organized), language features (e.g., grammatical metaphor, nominalization, elaboration, Theme and new progression), academic language, metalanguage (de Oliveira & Ma, 2018 ), and authentic language use (Fenwick et al., 2014 ), or what Achugar and Carpenter ( 2018 ) call “grammar in the wild.” These activities incorporated elements of the teaching–learning cycle (TLC) (e.g., building the field or knowledge of content, deconstruction, co-construction and independent construction of text), critical analysis, reflection, conceptualization, and application of language.

These studies show how teacher candidates first had the opportunity to learn about SFL constructs and strategies, activities, and methods to apply these concepts. Fenwick et al. ( 2014 ) discuss how they taught functional grammar after teaching traditional grammar in order to demonstrate how SFL “often extends ideas and concepts so that language use in context can be identified and discussed” (p. 9). After seeing SFL constructs in action, pre-service teachers then had the opportunity to practice engaging with these conceptual tools and apply their KAL in a discipline context (e.g., math; Accurso et al., 2017 ). Thwaite ( 2015 ) shows how students applied this KAL through discussing their own practice, and other studies demonstrate students’ application of KAL through analyzing texts and teaching a lesson informed by SFL pedagogy, all while receiving scaffolding from teacher educators (Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ; Fenwick et al., 2014 ).

The aim of developing teacher candidates’ KAL is (a) to enable them to analyze texts across a variety of disciplines in order to recognize meaning and content and to identify power relationships embedded in language, (b) to provide them with a way to talk about language and how meaning is created in texts (de Oliveira & Schleppegrell, 2015 ), and (c) to supply them with a way to scaffold students’ learning about and through language (de Oliveira & Ma, 2018 ; Gebhard et al., 2013 ). Developing this KAL based on critical SFL pedagogies is also focused on changing deficit views of emerging bilinguals (EBs) and highlighting critical issues for these students (de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ; Harman & Simmons, 2014 ). While these teacher education programs had numerous positive impacts (outlined in “ In-Service Teacher Education ”), it does not mean that they were without complications. de Oliveira and Avalos ( 2018 ) discuss the challenges teacher educators face when trying to prepare preservice teachers for real-world teaching while at the same time working to develop these future educators’ KAL and how it works.

In-Service Teacher Education

Teacher education does not end with graduation, and this body of work shows how multiple teacher educators have implemented SFL-based professional development initiatives for in-service teachers (Aguirre-Muñoz et al., 2008 ; de Oliveira, 2011 ; Daniello, 2012 ; Gebhard et al., 2007 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ). In the United States, Brisk and colleagues (e.g., Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Brisk & Zisselsberger, 2011 ) have developed a school–university partnership to facilitate an in-service teacher professional development initiative in Massachusetts. Over a 7-year span, this professional development program based out of Boston College has focused on educating monolingual elementary teachers on SFL-based pedagogies to prepare them to teach writing across disciplinary texts (e.g., ELA, science, social studies) to EB K–5 students (Brisk & Parra, 2018 ). During annual summer institutes, Brisk and colleagues introduced teachers to key SFL concepts to facilitate KAL, focusing on the elements of genre-based pedagogy, and provided them with strategies for teaching the different genres common at the elementary level, specifically the TLC (Brisk, 2014 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ). They also held monthly meetings with grade-level teacher teams and conducted weekly classroom observations to support learning and application. As the partnership progressed, the Boston College team also helped teachers develop writing content grounded in KAL and genre-based pedagogy. These SFL pedagogies facilitated elementary EBs’ classroom participation, and their writing samples began to show improvement after teachers implemented SFL-based pedagogies into their writing lessons (Brisk & Zisselsberger, 2011 ). Since the initiation of the collaboration with Brisk and colleagues, the elementary school in which they are carrying out in-service teacher education has earned the highest rating in the state due to EB’s sustained improvement in English language proficiency (Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Harman, 2018 ).

Another SFL-based teacher education initiative, the ACCELA Alliance (Access to Critical Content and English Language Acquisition), is led by Gebhard and colleagues (e.g., Gebhard, 2010 ; Gebhard et al., 2011 ; Gebhard et al., 2013 ; Shin, Gebhard, & Seger, 2010 ). These researchers and teacher educators work with in-service teachers to design academic literacy interventions using SFL tools (Gebhard, 2010 ). EBs were able to analyze and produce more coherent academic texts as a result of SFL-based classroom pedagogy (e.g., Gebhard, 2010 ; Gebhard & Martin, 2010 ; Gebhard et al., 2007 ).

Schleppegrell and colleagues (e.g., O’Hallaron, 2014 ; Palincsar & Schleppegrell, 2014 , Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ), based out of California, have also worked with implementing SFL-informed professional development in school contexts. Studies that have looked at the impact of the California History Project have also shown that EBs appeared to greatly benefit from their teachers’ SFL-based professional development (Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006 ), evidenced by their scores on state exams (Achugar et al., 2007 ).

Schleppegrell has continued this initial SFL-based work in Michigan (e.g., Palincsar & Schleppegrell, 2014 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ). This three-year project drew on design-based research (DBR) (diSessa & Cobb, 2004 ; Design-Based Research Collective, 2003 ) to promote teachers’ use of SFL metalanguage in order to facilitate meaningful interactions and learning through and about language, using SFL conceptual tools to demonstrate the meaning making affordances found within ELA and science texts. During this DBR project, identification of instructional needs to design lessons and reading and writing units for ELA and science to guide teachers (O’Hallaron, 2014 ; Palincsar & Schleppegrell, 2014 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ). Schleppegrell and colleagues have also carried out other professional development initiatives, such as the California History Project. This in-service teacher education (e.g., Achugar et al., 2007 ; Carpenter et al., 2015 ; Fang, Schleppegrell, & Cox, 2006 ; Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006 ) provided history teachers with SFL tools to deconstruct the meaning in history texts. Other in-service teacher education initiatives using SFL pedagogies that are documented in literature have similar characteristics to these three larger aforementioned professional learning efforts in the United States (e.g., Aguirre-Muñoz et al., 2008 ; de Oliveira, 2011 ; Berg & Huang, 2015 ).

In Australia, Rose and Martin ( 2012 ) and Humphrey and colleagues (e.g., Humphrey, 2013 , 2015 , 2018 ; Humphrey & Robinson, 2012 ) also provided SFL-informed professional development to in-service teachers, including workshops, team teaching, and program development. Some of this took place at the whole school level, while other mentoring (observing, co-teaching, providing feedback) took place with available and willing individual teachers (Humphrey, 2018 ).

Teacher Implementation of SFL-Based Instruction

The studies highlighted in the previous section on preparing teachers to implement SFL-based pedagogies focus on developing knowledge about language (KAL) at the grammatical and discourse levels and demonstrating strategies, such as the teaching–learning cycle (TLC), to provide teachers with specific resources to develop students’ literacy and language in a variety of contexts. Research shows that this approach can have a positive impact on pre- and in-service teachers’ KAL and their ability to design and implement instruction that supports diverse students’ KAL and literacy development (Schulze, 2015 ). Three categories of impacts of SFL in teacher education emerged from the literature: (a) impact on teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about language, which can sometimes result in (b) an impact on teachers’ instruction, which can in turn (c) impact student learning.

Impact on Teachers’ Knowledge About and Attitudes Toward Language

The use of SFL in teacher education resulted in pre- and in-service teachers’ development of KAL (e.g., Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Fenwick et al., 2014 ; Macnaught et al., 2013 ; Thwaite, 2015 ), shifting their conceptions of grammar (Gebhard et al., 2013 ) and their attitudes toward language (e.g., Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Fenwick et al., 2014 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ).

Knowledge About Language

Teachers were able to develop an awareness of the importance of language across content areas (Aguirre-Muñoz et al., 2008 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ), a deep KAL (e.g., Berg & Huang, 2015 ; Carpenter et al., 2015 ; Gebhard & Martin, 2010 ), and understand grammar and how it is intertwined with register and genre in a more functional way (Gebhard et al., 2013 ). Throughout education programs, teachers learned how to “use grammar to think” (Halliday, 2002 ), allowing them to focus on and critically analyze the different meaning-making choices authors chose to include in their texts (Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; Berg & Huang, 2015 ). Studies showed that teachers developed KAL in the following areas: genre, register, tenor, functions of discourse moves, dynamic aspects of discourse, knowledge construction, and word classes in context (e.g., Carpenter et al., 2015 ; Daniello, 2012 ; Daniello et al., 2014 ; Macken-Horarik et al., 2006 ; Thwaite, 2015 ).

Fenwick et al. ( 2014 ) discuss that after receiving SFL instruction, 79% of pre-service teachers demonstrated deep knowledge, contrasting with 54% who did not. A deep KAL and precise theoretical understandings allowed students to make informed generalizations and explanations about the text and authors’ specific language choices, such as nominalization (Fenwick et al., 2014 ; Macnaught et al., 2013 ). Nominalization refers to the expression as a noun or nominal group of what would in everyday language be presented as a verb, an adjective, or a conjunction. Such grammatical metaphors are typical of academic discourse.

In addition to a deep KAL, teachers also developed a more intuitive KAL that allowed them to quickly assess students’ depth of understanding through language patterns in student texts (Macnaught et al., 2013 ). De Oliveira and Avalos ( 2018 ) argue that developing a shared KAL among teachers through SFL pedagogies can support their literacy instruction, especially critical KAL instruction (Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; Carpenter et al., 2015 ). While most of the studies only reported positive results, a couple mention challenges vis-à-vis teachers acquiring a complete deep knowledge due to the brevity of the implementation, such as teachers not being able to move between levels of the language theory (e.g., Fenwick et al., 2014 ).

Attitudes Toward Language

This approach had the benefit of positioning teachers as writing instructors (Brisk & Parra, 2018 ) and fostering teacher dispositions that engaged with student contributions (Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ). Brisk and Zisselsberger ( 2011 ) recount how elementary teachers in Boston, after receiving instruction in SFL pedagogies, reported developing higher levels of confidence in their abilities to plan and teach (a) a wider range of genres, (b) specific text organization, and (c) language features as a result of the professional development initiative. Teachers perceived positive changes in their practices due to their professional development (Aguirre-Muñoz et al., 2008 ; Berg & Huang, 2015 ; Carpenter et al., 2015 ). In Australia, Fenwick et al. ( 2014 ) recount how as a result of this teacher education, the amount of pre-service teachers who did not feel confident about their KAL decreased from 62% at the beginning of the unit to 2% at the end of the unit. In addition to confidence in their KAL, teachers also appeared to have a higher confidence in their teaching, as SFL supplied them with a knowledge of what to teach (Aguirre-Muñoz et al., 2008 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ).

While the majority of studies reported teachers valuing the opportunity to learn and apply their KAL (e.g., Fenwick et al., 2014 ), some teacher educators also experienced resistance to learning this approach, such as a dislike for a new metalanguage, one of the central concepts of SFL (de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ; Daniello et al., 2014 ). Others experienced confusion about what SFL theory is and how it can be integrated with other theories (e.g., Daniello et al., 2014 ; Gebhard, 2010 ).

Impact on Teachers’ Instruction

When teachers have had a chance to implement SFL-based instruction in their classrooms following pre-service teacher education or in-service professional learning, they develop linguistic knowledge that had an impact on both their instruction and on students’ learning (de Oliveira, 2011 ); a developed KAL appeared to promote rigorous classroom instruction during which teachers were able to engage students in rich conversations about learning (Achugar et al., 2007 ; Daniello et al., 2014 ). SFL-based in-service teacher education initiatives have also shown benefits beyond changes to classroom practices (de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ); they have also shown how collaborative professional development of this type can facilitate a positive school culture (Brisk & Parra, 2018 ).

Approaches for Teaching Language and Literacy

One of the main impacts seen across research was the implementation of a genre-based approach to teaching writing in classrooms (Accurso et al., 2017 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Daniello, 2014 ; Macken-Horarik et al., 2006 ). After being exposed to SFL instruction, teachers across studies showed an increased focus on genre and language (Daniello et al., 2014 ), often building curriculum around genre. Instead of working with isolated sentences, texts were examined for purpose and structure at the text, sentence, and word levels (Brisk & Parra, 2018 ).

When working with genre, teachers also utilized direct and explicit instruction to integrate academic language and content (Macnaught et al., 2013 ; Berg & Huang, 2015 ). Fenwick et al. ( 2014 ) argue that a functional approach to language is ideal for teaching the disciplinary language of content areas. Since language and content cannot be separated in SFL theory, teachers worked to connect writing to disciplinary instruction and embedded language learning throughout lessons (Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Carpenter et al., 2015 ).

Strategies and Tools for Teaching Language and Literacy

A large portion of the literature that discusses teachers’ instruction mentions their implementation of the different phases of the TLC (e.g., de Oliveira, Jones, & Arana, 2018 ). This conceptual tool allowed teachers to develop their students’ writing across different genres in a variety of content areas (Brisk & Parra, 2018 ), unpacking and repacking knowledge through deliberate selection of texts and direct instruction (Macnaught et al., 2013 ). Since the TLC is a tool and not a main objective, teachers were able to adapt the cycle to their classrooms after learning about SFL theory and pedagogy (de Oliveira et al., 2018 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ). In de Oliveira and Avalos’s ( 2018 ) study, the focal teacher adapted the TLC to work with just introductory paragraphs.

Teachers developed students’ content knowledge, as proposed by Derewianka and Jones ( 2012 ), before engaging in the joint deconstruction phase of the TLC, which allowed teachers to break down a mentor text in order to explicitly teach students what needed to be included in each genre or phase (e.g., Daniello et al., 2014 ). Using the joint construction phase allowed teachers to scaffold students with higher-level texts (e.g., Macnaught et al., 2013 ), and independent construction allowed students the opportunity to practice what they were learning (e.g., Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Macnaught et al., 2013 ). During the entire cycle, teachers’ new knowledge of language helped them differentiate instruction, especially for their emerging bilingual students (Berg & Huang, 2015 ).

Metalanguage was another tool that teachers frequently utilized after participating in SFL teacher education. Grounded in their KAL (Macnaught et al., 2013 ), this conceptual tool appeared to facilitate teachers’ identification and articulation of language across different genres and various literacy demands (Gebhard et al., 2013 ; Macken-Horarik et al., 2006 ). In addition, a metalanguage allowed teachers and students to engage in critical analysis of their own and other texts (Humphrey, 2018 ), connecting language choices with different meanings (Macnaught et al., 2013 ). These findings are supported by other studies that show how a metalanguage can have benefits for the teaching and learning of academic literacy (e.g., Achugar et al., 2007 ; Byrnes, Maxim, & Norris, 2010 ).

Instructional Challenges

Even with professional development or teacher education classes, studies have shown ways in which teachers still encounter challenges. For example, after being taught genre-based pedagogy, some teachers appeared to struggle with the tendency to present genres as a fixed set of rules (Brisk & Zisselsberger, 2011 ; Gebhard, 2010 ). The extent to which they developed their use of SFL metalanguage and other tools was influenced by their teaching contexts (Gebhard et al., 2013 ).

Impact on Student Learning

The impact of pre- and in-service teacher education programs on teachers’ instruction and scaffolding appears also to lead to an impact on student learning (e.g., Macnaught et al., 2013 ). The literature discusses how students gained knowledge and confidence in writing, increasing their proficiency and purposefulness (Daniello et al., 2014 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ). Some students discussed how direct instruction through deconstruction helped them understand and develop a better understanding of purpose (de Oliveira & Avalos, 2018 ), and others demonstrated the ability to recognize and discuss meaning in the language that engages interpersonally. The SFL metalanguage appeared to be a resource that enabled students to focus on specific meanings in texts (Accurso et al., 2017 ; Schleppegrell & Moore, 2018 ).

Studies also show that SFL-informed pedagogies appear to have had a positive impact on student achievement (e.g. Achugar et al., 2007 ; Humphrey, 2018 ; Humphrey & Macnaught, 2016 ). Schleppegrell and colleagues’ work with history teachers in California demonstrates this, as the students whose teachers participated in their SFL professional development showed more improvement on the state standardized tests when compared with the students from classes whose teachers did not partake in the SFL-based professional development (Achugar et al., 2007 ). Humphrey and colleagues’ research (Humphrey, 2018 ; Humphrey & Macnaught, 2016 ) also reports findings of growth evidenced by the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) writing assessment. These scholars attribute this increase in student achievement to their teachers’ use of SFL-informed scaffolding strategies and metalanguage (Humphrey, 2018 ).

Suggestions for Incorporating SFL in Teacher Education

This article shows that when teachers are prepared to apply SFL in their classrooms, they are able to facilitate classroom instruction that integrates SFL concepts and helps students access language through reading and writing activities. Because SFL theory does not provide teacher educators or teachers with a developed curriculum or mode of instruction (Daniello et al., 2014 ), the ways in which it has been applied in teacher education have varied, depending on teachers’ level of instruction (elementary, secondary, or tertiary), familiarity with SFL concepts, and pre-service or in-service status. Based on the studies reviewed in this article, we cannot provide a “one-size-fits-all” approach to SFL inclusion in teacher education. However, we provide some principles derived from the SFL in teacher education literature and implementation by de Oliveira and Avalos ( 2018 ).

Principles of SFL Applied to Teacher Education

Principle 1: language and content cannot be separated.

Content and context cannot be separated, as content is expressed through language. Disciplinary learning in school is dependent on language. Language is not the only means through which learning occurs, but it is certainly the most important element of learning, as learning language and learning through language occur simultaneously (Halliday, 1993 ). Language is the “essential condition of learning, the process by which experience becomes knowledge” (Halliday, 1993 , p. 94).

Principle 2: Disciplinary Knowledge and Information Is Condensed Through Complex Clause Structures, Different From Students’ Everyday Language

Academic language constructs disciplinary knowledge in complex clause structures. Academic language is difficult for all students and is the kind of language students learn at school, different from the everyday language they use for spoken communication (Schleppegrell, 2004 ). In order for teachers and students to understand how content is constructed through academic language, they must know how to identify and use these complex clause structures. For example, academic language used to represent and teach subject matter dissociates actors from actions with the construction of “things” through the use of nominalization, a resource used in many academic and scientific genres (e.g., Halliday & Martin, 1993 ; Martin, 1993 ; Schleppegrell, 2004 ; Unsworth, 1999 ).

Principle 3: Developing a Meaning-Based Metalanguage Enables Teachers to Recognize How Meanings Are Construed in Different Content Areas and How Power Is Expressed in Language

When teachers develop specific ways to talk about the interconnection of content and language with students, both groups can engage in analyzing the ways language is powerful in constructing knowledge and discussing how they can also participate in that construction (Athanases & de Oliveira, 2011 ; de Oliveira & Schleppegrell, 2015 ). This also enables teachers to encourage a reflective attitude on the part of students and to help them recognize how language choices create meanings of different kinds and the power of those choices (Achugar et al., 2007 ; Harman, 2018 ). By providing engaging activities that enable students to interact and build on their language resources, additional language resources are created via socialization into a community of learners around academic texts (Schleppegrell, 2013 ). Thus, teachers can focus on how concepts are presented and developed and give students tools for learning from other texts.

Principle 4: A Genre-Based Approach to Writing Instruction Provides Guidance Through Interaction in the Context of Shared Experience

The notion of guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience based on an SFL genre-based approach is the driving force behind a teaching–learning cycle (TLC) (Martin & Rose, 2005 ; Rothery, 1996 ). As already discussed, the TLC can be recursive and repeated as students become more familiar with specific genres. The notion of building field at all phases is key. Building field refers to students’ development of their knowledge of the content and context of particular texts. Students also build a critical orientation to text by not just learning about the genre, but by also being critical of its usage. Regardless of whichever phase is introduced first, the TLC aims to provide students with teacher interaction, guidance, and support as they go through each phase.

Principle 5: Disciplinary Practices of Subject Areas Guide Instruction

Different disciplines present unique challenges to students and teachers, and much of the challenge is semiotic (Schleppegrell, 2007 ). For instance, at the secondary level, history and other areas of social studies are presented in textbooks and primary source documents composed of dense and abstract language. To learn history, students have to be able to read difficult texts, engage in discussion of complex issues, and write in ways that present their judgments and perspectives, while simultaneously reporting on what they have learned. It is imperative that students are not only to understand sequences of events and the roles historical participants played in those events, but also to recognize the authorial interpretation, which is an integral part of all historical reporting (de Oliveira, 2010 ). Although typically these tasks are difficult for students, teachers may use SFL to understand and explicitly teach how language is used to make meaning in history and social studies texts as well as to provide meaningful writing instruction when using the TLC.

Principle 6: Language Dissection Enables Teachers and Students to Develop Knowledge About Language

Language dissection is an approach to language analysis that teachers can use with students to make the language used in texts explicit. KAL is essential for teachers to be able to effectively integrate a focus on language into their routine teaching practices (Gebhard et al., 2013 ; Macken-Horarik et al., 2011 ; Schulze, 2015 ). Teachers are taught to “dissect” the language in written and spoken texts using SFL tools. Table 1 presents the three areas of meaning and metafunctions, questions to guide language dissection, and the focus of the analysis.

Table 1. Areas of Meaning, Questions, and Focus of Analysis.

Note . Table is based on de Oliveira and Schleppegrell ( 2015 )

Principle 7: Apprenticing Teachers Into SFL Theory and Practice Incorporates Teaching Lessons That Apply SFL Pedagogy

To better prepare teachers for application of SFL theory into their own classrooms, teacher educators should apprentice them into the theory and practice by not only providing them with opportunities to carry out language dissection with texts they use with students, but also to plan lessons that address what they find through their language dissection. During this entire process, they should receive scaffolding from teacher educators. Teachers can identify the language patterns prevalent in the texts they use most frequently in their classes so that they may design instruction to make those linguistic features visible to students (Schulze, 2015 ). Mentor lessons, similar to mentor texts for students to deconstruct within the TLC, can serve as models for teachers to see SFL tools in an authentic teaching context and can provide ideas, as teachers work to develop their own lessons.

This article responds to a call for greater attention to systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as a meaning-based theory of language that provides a framework for teacher education on knowledge of language (KAL) grounded in meaning and how language functions across content areas (e.g., Hyland, 2007 ; Schleppegrell, 2004 ). After demonstrating the need for this type of approach and providing the history and theoretical foundations of SFL, we provide a systematic overview of the body of literature on SFL in teacher education and some principles for teacher educators to follow when implementing SFL in teacher education programs. This emerging body of literature is still in its fledgling stages, with the majority of the work being published in the 2000s and beyond. Although literature reviewed in this article demonstrates a clear need for teachers to have a deep KAL in order to support their diverse learners and appears to indicate that utilizing an SFL-based pedagogical approach to develop academic language and literacy can have significant impacts (e.g., Achugar & Carpenter, 2018 ; Brisk & Parra, 2018 ; Humphrey & Macnaught, 2016 ), there is still a lot of investigation that needs to take place. Recognizing the importance of students’ language and literacy skills and the implications of their learning on all stakeholders, next steps in research become paramount.

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Learning to Use Systemic Functional Linguistics to Teach Literary Analysis: Views on the Effectiveness of a Short Professional Development Workshop

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Learning to analyze literature involves developing an ability to identify important aspects of a text and learning where to find evidence of that importance. Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a theory of language that connects linguistic form to the meaning being constructed; thus, it offers a useful foundation for analyzing literature. This chapter describes a two-hour professional development workshop carried out to introduce English language arts (ELA) teachers to SFG and show them ways to help their ELLs develop an ability to carry out systematic, language-based literary analyses that connect with research across the curriculum, thus addressing Common Core Standards. Teachers’ views regarding the workshop and the usefulness of this approach are discussed, using data collected during the workshop and subsequent focus group interviews.

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Achugar, M., Schleppegrell, M., & Oteíza, T. (2007). Engaging teachers in language analysis: A functional linguistics approach to reflective literacy. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 6 (2), 8–24.

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Slater, T., McCrocklin, S. (2016). Learning to Use Systemic Functional Linguistics to Teach Literary Analysis: Views on the Effectiveness of a Short Professional Development Workshop. In: de Oliveira, L., Shoffner, M. (eds) Teaching English Language Arts to English Language Learners. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59858-5_10

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