Ability to write focused expository essays in English is the key to academic success for students in an English-medium education system, but such writing can be a challenge for students for whom English is a Second Language. Focusing writing lessons on improving topic content and grammatical accuracy does not always achieve the expected results.…

This paper takes as point of departure the register variable field, and explores its application to the discourse of History and Biology in secondary school classrooms from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics. In particular it considers the functions of technicality and abstraction in these subject specific discourses, and their…

This study examines the discursive construction of adequate English proficiency through error correction in citizenship classrooms. In particular, the microanalysis of corrective sequences demonstrates that such proficiency is viewed narrowly--as a practical tool for passing the naturalization interview and not necessarily a tool for broader…

Despite their (albeit limited) access to Standard Australian English through education, Australian Indigenous communities have maintained their own dialect (Aboriginal English) for intragroup communication and are increasingly using it as a medium of cultural expression in the wider community. Most linguists agree that the most significant early…

Deaf students are attending mainstream postsecondary institutions in increasing numbers. This study attempts to fill a gap in the literature regarding deaf students' writing tutorials with hearing tutors and interpreters. It consists of observation of tutoring sessions, interviews, and collection and grounded theory analysis of relevant documents…

A teacher's language awareness (TLA) is generally believed to have a significant impact on grammar or form-focused (FonF) instruction. TLA has traditionally been assumed to be a cognitive construct. A more recent view on TLA argues for its sociocultural significance in second language learning. This paper builds on this recent view and attempts to…

This article traces the trajectory of educational ideas through policy, curricular materials and enactment in the classroom. Specifically, I examine current English policy regarding the teaching of grammar in primary schools, and its enactment in a Year 3 (8-year olds) literacy lesson. While the policy advances a broadly rhetorical approach to…

Heritage language speakers constitute a unique cultural and linguistic resource in the United States while also presenting particular challenges for language educators and language programs. This paper examines the potential of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in a curriculum for Spanish second language learners/heritage speakers, with…

The paper reports on a study of emergent adult instructed L2 German writing ability in a college-level program that developed an explicit curriculum-based approach to supporting L2 writing. It uses systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) as its theoretical framework and traces writing development through a central construct in the theory, the…

This paper provides a basic introduction to the genre-based literacy research undertaken over the past three decades by educators and functional linguists in Australia and their innovative contributions to literacy pedagogy and curriculum. It focuses on the concept of genre, its place within the model of language and context developed as systemic…

The paper illustrates grammar as a meaning-making resource for early intermediate to advanced adult learners. It focuses on the environment of clause complexing, where different functions, such as Subject and Theme, are unified to construct a rhetorically oriented language logic. The paper suggests that learners' awareness of this logic offers a…

This paper focuses on the discursive and grammatical means by which science students extract and objectify knowledge from the dynamics of the laboratory setting. I argue that nominalization is a particularly important strategy by which this curriculum unit and teacher apprentice students into objectifying the data, evidence, and conclusions from…

This article describes an investigation based on a corpus of original and redrafted versions of extracts from reflective narratives by 15-year-old secondary school students in the UK. It builds on the established research on sentence combining with respect to students' writing development. The findings are discussed in relation to the use of…