This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright
This chapter explores how systemic functional linguistics (SFL) can contribute to secondary teach... more This chapter explores how systemic functional linguistics (SFL) can contribute to secondary teachers’ effectiveness for teaching disciplinary literacies to refugee youth in the United States. The chapter describes the Milltown Multimodal/Multiliteracies (MMM) Collaborative, an SFL-based professional development partnership between a large public university and a high poverty urban school serving high proportions of refugee youth with limited or interrupted formal education from Guatemala, Iraq, Mexico, Rwanda, and Vietnam. We present data from longitudinal case studies of these students’ school and work experiences as they participated in MMM curricular interventions, including SFL analyses of changes in the ways they produced and interpreted different genres of texts. These data illustrate how the MMM Collaborative constructed contact zones that supported the expansion of refugee students’ semiotic resources and semiotic mobility. Within these contact zones, refugee students drew on gestures, graphics, images, their home and peer languages, and English in learning to read and write disciplinary genres. Further, through their participation in genre pedagogy, refugee students expanded their use of a range of semiotic resources, including the ability to read and write disciplinary texts in English. However, students’ social, academic, and economic mobility appeared to be strongly influenced by their immigration status. These findings offer a nuanced perspective on what it means to be a refugee youth tasked with learning disciplinary literacies in the U.S. public school system today, and signal productive ways to rethink the role of critical applied linguistics in teacher education practices.
This chapter begins by briefly identifying issues related to the role of grammar teaching in K-12... more This chapter begins by briefly identifying issues related to the role of grammar teaching in K-12 ESOL contexts (English for Speakers of Other Languages). Next, it compares three approaches to teaching grammar that have shaped the TESOL field: behavioral, psycholinguistic, and social semiotic approaches. Then, it provides a review of current research regarding the use of a social semiotic approach to grammar instruction in K-12 ESOL contexts. Despite the documented challenges of implementing such pedagogies, we conclude with evidence-based suggestions for educators interested in approaching English teaching from a social semiotic perspective of language, learning, and social change.
When language is systematically unavailable to some, it is important that we not limit our explan... more When language is systematically unavailable to some, it is important that we not limit our explanation to the traits of the persons involved; it is equally essential that we take into account the interactional circumstances that position the people in the world with a differential access to the common tongue. (McDermott, 1996, p. 283) * This passage parsimoniously captures pivotal aspects of a debate currently taking shape in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) between sociocultural and psycholinguistic perspectives on learning and language development. Broadly defined, a sociocultural perspective of development takes as a starting point an understanding that the origin and structure of cognition are rooted to the daily social and cultural practices in which an individual participates. Participation, in this sense, is how an individual carries out activities with others through the use of physical objects, or artifacts, and symbolic sign systems, or psychological tools (Lantolf, in press; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1991). By extension, the Lemke, J. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Luke, A. (1993). The social construction of literacy in the primary school. In L. Unsworth (Ed.), Literacy learning and teaching: Language as social practice in the primary school. Melbourne, Australia: Macmillan. Luke, A. (1996). Genres of power? Literacy education and the production of capital. In R. Hasan & G. Williams (Eds.), Literacy in society (pp. 308-338). New York: Longman. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996a). Literacy and learning across the curriculum: Towards a model of register for secondary school teachers. In R. Hasan & G. Williams (Eds.), Literacy in society (pp. 232-277). New York: Longman. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996b). Specialised literacy practices in junior secondary English.
This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright
This chapter explores how systemic functional linguistics (SFL) can contribute to secondary teach... more This chapter explores how systemic functional linguistics (SFL) can contribute to secondary teachers’ effectiveness for teaching disciplinary literacies to refugee youth in the United States. The chapter describes the Milltown Multimodal/Multiliteracies (MMM) Collaborative, an SFL-based professional development partnership between a large public university and a high poverty urban school serving high proportions of refugee youth with limited or interrupted formal education from Guatemala, Iraq, Mexico, Rwanda, and Vietnam. We present data from longitudinal case studies of these students’ school and work experiences as they participated in MMM curricular interventions, including SFL analyses of changes in the ways they produced and interpreted different genres of texts. These data illustrate how the MMM Collaborative constructed contact zones that supported the expansion of refugee students’ semiotic resources and semiotic mobility. Within these contact zones, refugee students drew on gestures, graphics, images, their home and peer languages, and English in learning to read and write disciplinary genres. Further, through their participation in genre pedagogy, refugee students expanded their use of a range of semiotic resources, including the ability to read and write disciplinary texts in English. However, students’ social, academic, and economic mobility appeared to be strongly influenced by their immigration status. These findings offer a nuanced perspective on what it means to be a refugee youth tasked with learning disciplinary literacies in the U.S. public school system today, and signal productive ways to rethink the role of critical applied linguistics in teacher education practices.
This chapter begins by briefly identifying issues related to the role of grammar teaching in K-12... more This chapter begins by briefly identifying issues related to the role of grammar teaching in K-12 ESOL contexts (English for Speakers of Other Languages). Next, it compares three approaches to teaching grammar that have shaped the TESOL field: behavioral, psycholinguistic, and social semiotic approaches. Then, it provides a review of current research regarding the use of a social semiotic approach to grammar instruction in K-12 ESOL contexts. Despite the documented challenges of implementing such pedagogies, we conclude with evidence-based suggestions for educators interested in approaching English teaching from a social semiotic perspective of language, learning, and social change.
When language is systematically unavailable to some, it is important that we not limit our explan... more When language is systematically unavailable to some, it is important that we not limit our explanation to the traits of the persons involved; it is equally essential that we take into account the interactional circumstances that position the people in the world with a differential access to the common tongue. (McDermott, 1996, p. 283) * This passage parsimoniously captures pivotal aspects of a debate currently taking shape in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) between sociocultural and psycholinguistic perspectives on learning and language development. Broadly defined, a sociocultural perspective of development takes as a starting point an understanding that the origin and structure of cognition are rooted to the daily social and cultural practices in which an individual participates. Participation, in this sense, is how an individual carries out activities with others through the use of physical objects, or artifacts, and symbolic sign systems, or psychological tools (Lantolf, in press; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1991). By extension, the Lemke, J. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Luke, A. (1993). The social construction of literacy in the primary school. In L. Unsworth (Ed.), Literacy learning and teaching: Language as social practice in the primary school. Melbourne, Australia: Macmillan. Luke, A. (1996). Genres of power? Literacy education and the production of capital. In R. Hasan & G. Williams (Eds.), Literacy in society (pp. 308-338). New York: Longman. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996a). Literacy and learning across the curriculum: Towards a model of register for secondary school teachers. In R. Hasan & G. Williams (Eds.), Literacy in society (pp. 232-277). New York: Longman. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996b). Specialised literacy practices in junior secondary English.
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