Realization(s): Systemic-Functional Linguistics and the Language Classroom
A major aspiration of university-based language teacher education is that students will acquire a body of current knowledge about language teaching and apply it in their classrooms. This is a common expectation, and many MATESOL courses now incorporate reflective, task-based and action research approaches. However, there is little empirical evidence in the field of applied linguistics that teachers do indeed adapt their teaching on the basis of their new knowledge; even less is known about the tensions this brings for them in terms of changing pedagogy. Also, teacher educators rarely seem to explore the extent to which their instruction has achieved the impact they anticipate (but see some of the papers in Bailey & Nunan, 1996; Freeman & Richards, 1996; see also Lamb, 1995).
These comments reflect our own situations and assumptions until 2001. In Semester 1, from March to June, we co-taught a Masters grammar course based on systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) at Macquarie University, Sydney. Previously, we had relied mainly on the official university course evaluation system, which had given generally positive feedback. Having taught our various units, we (naively, and surprisingly, in hindsight) assumed that students would inevitably take up our theoretical explanations and ideas for practice into their future teaching.
The researchI we describe was originally motivated by the editor, who in a TESOL colloquium on grammar teaching (Lui et al., 2001), enquired whether any studies had been done on the teaching of systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) for pedagogical purposes. This question was of immediate interest to us, as we were about to embark on a new version of our course, developed with the Open University, UK (see Burns & Coffin, 2001, Burns, 2003). Not only would this research provide us with feedback on the content, but it would also give us an opportunity to trace what happened in our students’ classrooms when they finished the course.
It also awoke questions that had been lingering at the backs of our minds over our years of teaching, which became the focus of the study. What motivated teachers to take up new knowledge about language (KAL)? What were their attitudes and beliefs about grammar teaching? What were the particular complexities for teachers in adopting SFL as the grammatical knowledge base? What aspects of this linguistic theory did teachers use and why? How useful did they find it in their teaching? We were particularly excited about the new knowledge we ourselves would gain about the impact of our teaching and what we could then incorporate into future versions of the course. The main purpose of the study, then, was to investigate the extent to which Masters TESOL students enrolled in our course implemented the theoretical knowledge gained in their practice as teachers. To do this, we worked with two of our former students six months after they had completed our Masters course in SFL.
I The research was funded by a Macquarie University Research Grant.
