PORTFOLIO #8: SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS IN THE EFL CLASS

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 produce. 

Why use SFL in the classroom?
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 responsability
• 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 about teaching methods, or the academic language

SFL accommodates ELLs by

• ... providing metalanguage (language about language)
• ... helping determine how writers create meaning in texts.

ELL accommodation is a political issue

• English as International Language (EIL)
• Poor academic performance limits future job opportunities

"In the absence of an explicit focus on 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)

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 catalog of genres that we can choose from to accomplish taks with language ina particular culture
- Discourse communities are created when large number of language users construct interprete 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:
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 communicative purpose
- More focused than register
- Genre deploys the resources of register in particular patterns to achieve certain communicative goals
- Genre is effectively the function of language, of a particular discourse or text

SFL theory in the ELL classroom 
Context applies when students read, write and speak.
Reading
-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?
Writing
Students must write about topics..
-... they find interesting
-... they understand
-... that relate to their lives
-... they usually write about in their mother tongue

Genre

• 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 purpose of genre determines shape.

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?

Register Formal or informal

When using SLF in the classroom teachers should consider field.

- What is the subject matter?

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

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 thes 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

Mind map