Entry #11- Systemic Functional Linguistics in the EFL class

Summary

• What is SFL? 

Developed by Michael Halliday in 1980s. SFL is a descriptive and interpretive framework for viewing language as a strategic, meaning-making resource.

- Explores how people use language in different contexts and how language is structured as a semiotic system
- Provides the tools to analyze written and spoken texts with particular attention given to the context in which they are produced. 

• Why use SFL in the classroom?

"In the absence of an explicit focus of language, students from certain social class backgrounds continue to be privileged and others to be disadvantaged in learning, assessment and promotion perpetuating the obvious inequalities that exist today" (Schleppegrell, 2004, p.3)

Content area teachers are increasingly finding themselves working with students whose native language is not English.
ELLs struggle academically:

- Lack of empathy for ELLs-
- Content area teachers believe it's not their responsibility
- Misconceptions about second language acquisition

ELLs are often inadequately accommodated and risk exclusion. Teachers often:

- Take the language of instruction for granted
- Don't have specific training
- Don't reflect on teaching methods or the academic language

SFL accommodates ELLs by

- Providing metalanguage (a language about language)
- Helping determine how writers create meaning in texts.

ELL accommodation is a political issue

- English as an International Language (EIL)

- Poor academic performance limits future job opportunities

• Introduction to SFL theory - Context

- Represents all the potential ways we can use language to exchange meaning in socially recognizable ways
- Serves as a virtual catalogue of genres that we can choose from to accomplish tasks with language in a particular culture
- Discourse communities are created when a large number of language users construct interpreted and use oral and written language in agreed-upon and socially recognizable ways.

The second context of SFL theory register has three sub-variables:

Field: Comprised of processes participants and circumstances (what is happening)
Tenor: Comprised of modality and mood (who is participating)
Mode: Comprised of written or spoken (medium of the text)

Register: Certain recognizable configurations of linguistic resources in contexts
Correspond to metafunctions.

These variables can be broken down into many linguistic realizations:
The field is often demonstrated when presenting one's ideas and it is established through ideational choices made by the speaker.

Tenor meanwhile is demonstrated when the speaker chooses to take a stance on an issue, observe mostly through the mood of the dialogue and the intonation of the speaker as well as the speaker's relationship to the audience or other participants.

Mode essentially how a text is structured according to its medium, includes cohesive devices transitions and thematic organization which varies largely according to whether the text is written or spoken.

SFL THEORY- Culture, Genre

- Register plus the communicative purpose
- More focused than register
- Genre deploys the resources of the register in particular patterns to achieve certain communicative goals
- Genre is effectively the function of language, of a particular discourse or text

• Demonstration of SFL analysis

SFL applied in EEL classrooms:

SFL is useful in many content areas as well as many different types of texts. In addition, SFL can be useful for all learners not just second language learners. SFL emphasises the significance of:

Context  
SFL emphasis the significance of context whether is a context of culture or context of situation

SFL theory in the ELL classroom 

Context applies when students read, write and speak.

When reading students should ask questions as:

- Who wrote the text?
- When was it written? what is the political/social/economic situation?
- Where was it written? what is the impact of setting?
- Why was it written? what is the author's motive?
- What kind of text is it? is it a book, play, poem, lyric, postcard, article, newspaper?

When writing students must write about topics that:
- they find interesting
- they understand
- that relate to their lives
- they usually write about in their mother tongue

Another important concept in SFL is:

Genre

In the ELL classrooms teachers should:

• Expose students to different genres.
• Explain the specific conventions of these genres
• Demonstrate how members of culture use texts as part of social lives
• Demonstrate how the purpose of a genre determines the shape.

Therefore when students read a text they should consider: 

- what is the purpose of the text?

- what is the level of formality?

- who is the audience?

The purpose of the text will determine the genre and shape

The level of formality will be defined by the audience of the text

Register formal or informal

Formal text use:
3er person
Active voice
No slang
Complete sentences
Transition words
No Hyperboles
No exaggerations

Informal text use:
Opinion
Jokes
Passive and active voice
First and second person
Incomplete sentences and slang

FIELD 
When using SLF in the classroom teachers should consider the field.

- What is the subject matter?

- Is there a specialized language? If so, to which domain does it relate?

The tenor is another SFL concept

- Who is the author?

- Who is the audience?

- What is the relationship between these participants?

- What is the role?

- What is the social position and status?

• How to implement SFL in the classroom?

"Educational implications of SFL are generally designed to teach students how to operate in social contexts relevant to their educational, social and cultural needs"

Visual learners

Auditory learners

"Building Blocks" technique: 

word groups are used rather than traditional concepts such as verb nouns or adjectives, a basic sentence can be broken up into three building blocks :

Participant + process + circumstance

Who or what + the doing or being words + when, where and how