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Functional Language Instruction and the Writing Growth of English Language Learners in the Middle Years
Humphrey, Sally Macnaught, Lucy
Humphrey, Sally
Macnaught, Lucy
Author
Abstract
In this article the authors report on the use of a scaffolding pedagogy (Gibbons, 2009), informed by systemic functional linguistics, to support the writing of English language learners in middle years curriculum learning. They focus on the work of one teacher and her English class across the first 18 months of a longitudinal design-based literacy research project, Embedding Literacies in the Key Learning Areas (ELK). This 3-year project was conducted in an Australian urban secondary school with 97.5% of students from language backgrounds other than English. A core aspect of the pedagogy implemented through the ELK project is the use of a shared metalanguage to make visible the patterns of language valued for discipline learning. Analysis of instructional materials, classroom discourse, and data on students’ achievement on standardized external and formative internal assessments of writing over 18 months indicates that growth in writing is related to pedagogical practices that include consistent use of a functional metalanguage in classroom modeling of exemplar texts and in feedback on students’ writing.
Keywords
Date
2015
Type
Journal article
Journal
TESOL Quarterly
Book
Volume
50
Issue
4
Page Range
792-816
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Education
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Open Access Status
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Controlled