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Rethinking grammar in language arts: insights from an Australian survey of teachers' subject knowledge
Macken-Horarik, Mary Love, Kristina Horarik, Stefan
Macken-Horarik, Mary
Love, Kristina
Horarik, Stefan
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Abstract
In English-speaking countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, there is a renewed focus on teaching about language in school curricula and evidence of a paradigm shiftin approaches to grammar instruction. Calls for contextualized, meaning-based, even multisemiotic grammars are emerging in several countries. In Australia, the motivation for teachers to expand grammatical expertise has been sharpened by the introduction of the Australian Curriculum: English, with its requirement to teach "the structures and functions of word and sentence-level grammar and text patterns and the connections between them" (National Curriculum Board, 2009, p. 7). This paper reports on an Australian survey that sought evidence of the profession's levels of understanding of, and confidence to teach, the relational view of language underpinning this curriculum. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative responses from 373 English teachers across all years of schooling, the survey provides a national snapshot of their views on what is important in knowledge about language (KAL), levels of confidence in implementing this knowledge and emerging disjunctions between avowed and actual KAL in the profession. We relate this disjunction to international research suggesting that teacher confidence outstrips actual KAL, and explore the possibility that teachers' overall expressions of confidence may hide uncertainty about the implications of a relational approach to grammar. The paper concludes with discussion of limitations and implications of our study for future research into teacher subject knowledge, especially grammar.
Keywords
Date
2018
Type
Journal article
Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Book
Volume
52
Issue
3
Page Range
288-316
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (ILSTE)
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
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DOI
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Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled