Chappell, P. J. (2020). A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education.

In
“Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education: International Experiences”. D.
L. Banegas. London, United Kingdom, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: 29-47.

A Functional Model of Language for

Language Teacher Education
Phil Chappell

Introduction

ELTE in Australia involves student-teachers who will be working in a diverse range

of ELT settings, both in Australia and in many international contexts. These student-
teachers have assorted ELT experiences, including none at all, and come from
various linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This chapter describes a particular unit
of study that student-teachers take when enrolled in either a Graduate Certificate
of TESOL or a Master of Applied Linguistics and TESOL course in an Australian
university. This unit of study introduces student-teachers to a functional model of
language based on SFL theory, SFG and genre theory and pedagogy.
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The course

The unit of study described in this chapter is named Linguistics and Language
Teaching. It is part of the Graduate Certificate of TESOL course, which is
embedded in the Master of Applied Linguistics and TESOL course, offered in
the Linguistics Department at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. The
Graduate Certificate of TESOL is a four-unit course that qualifies graduates
to teach in a variety of Australian contexts, including English as an Additional
Language or Dialect (EALD) programmes in schools (for qualified teachers),
migrant and refugee English language programmes, university English language
colleges and private English language colleges. It also prepares students to teach
in numerous international contexts.
The other units of study in the certificate course are a teaching methodology
unit aimed primarily at designing and implementing tasks and activities in the

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30 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

classroom, with a significant amount of peer teaching (Spratt & Leug 2000) and
micro teaching (He & Yan 2011); a programming and planning unit concerned
with principles and practices of planning lessons and units of work, as well as
covering, assessment and evaluation; and a practicum unit, where students
spend most of the semester at an ELT institution observing and teaching
lessons. The course has been designed via curriculum mapping principles so that
weekly topics in one unit often complement a topic in another unit. Mapping
of assessment tasks is done at course and unit level to ensure all course and
unit learning outcomes are assessed. This also ensures a variety of learning and
assessment tasks and activities across the course.
The course can be taken full-time over one semester or part-time over two
to four semesters. Domestic students are eligible to be enrolled either as online
or on-campus students. On-campus students attend a two- or three-hour
seminar for each unit per week over thirteen weeks. Online students participate
asynchronously via Macquarie University’s multimedia online learning
environment. Mini-lectures in seminars are recorded and automatically stored
in each online unit, and all learning and teaching resources for weekly topics
(including fully written lecture notes) are accessed by all students through the
online learning environment. Structured online discussions are moderated either
by the instructor or the students. Students in this course are mainly Australian
domestic students.
The Master of Applied Linguistics and TESOL is a sixteen-unit course that
takes two years to complete. With its dual focus, the course offers a variety of units
of study centred around the theme of the complex relationship between language
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use and context, as well as a strong theoretical and practical foundation in the
field of ELT. It is particularly attractive to international students, as successful
completion of the course allows for a variety of pathways for additional post-
study work experience in Australia. All students take the three coursework units
described above in their first semester and then carry out the practicum unit
later in their studies. The student cohort enrolled in this masters’ course usually
comprises around 60 per cent domestic students and 40 per cent international
students from a range of countries.

A systemic functional model of language

The Linguistics and Language Teaching unit is underpinned by SFL. Michael

Halliday, who developed the systemic functional model of language, famously

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 31

described language learning as such: ‘There are, I think, three facets to language
development: learning language, learning through language, and learning about
language’ (2004: 308). There is much to consider in this statement. For Halliday,
language is unequivocally social in nature, functioning as ‘the creature and
creator of human society’ (Halliday 2002: 6). Language learning is also inherently
social (Halliday 1993). We develop the ability to use language only in interaction
with others. While doing so, we use language to learn about the world around us
and within us – that is, the physical world and the world of our imagination and
consciousness. At the same time, and especially in instructed second language
learning, we learn about the nature of language and how it functions as a tool for
making meanings (Halliday 2004).
The systemic functional model of language deems language a resource for
making meaning. It is a three-level construct, whereby meanings are encoded
into wordings which are recoded into expressions. Wordings are what we
might traditionally call vocabulary and grammar but which are referred to
as lexicogrammar in SFL. Lexicogrammar is what allows us to make infinite
meanings with a finite number of units of expression (whether written, spoken,
gestural or multimodal). This presents a unique perspective on grammar for
language learning:

For educational purposes we need a grammar that is functional rather than

formal, semantic rather than syntactic in focus, oriented towards discourse
rather than towards sentences, and represents language as a flexible resource
rather than as a rigid set of rules. (Halliday 2004: 323)
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It is this linguistic perspective that is the point of departure for planning the
unit of study discussed in this chapter. However, before going into further detail
about the content and pedagogical approach taken to deliver the unit to student-
teachers, let’s unpack this claim of Halliday’s.

A functional orientation to grammar

In Australia, for many decades there have been debates about whether a
traditional or a functional grammar is best for educational purposes. Traditional
grammar is most often associated with a formal grammar, where form labels
are assigned to parts of speech. Functional grammar, of which there are many
theories (Steiner 1997), is associated with the communicative functions of
language – the different ways of using language to make meanings. When pitted
against each other, the debates over whether a functional or a formal grammar

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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32 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

is preferable can become a distraction (Derewianka & Jones 2010), resulting in

an either/or argument that is exclusive in nature. However, what Halliday (2004)
is arguing for is a functional orientation to grammar, yet his systemic functional
grammar by necessity includes both form and function.
Traditional grammar, with its formal orientation, emphasizing syntax and
parts of speech, tends to use a mix of formal and functional labels. The subject
of a sentence tells us what it is and what it does; therefore, we can say something
about its form and its function. A noun, on the other hand, is a formal label that
does not say anything about what it does, that is, what its function in a sentence
is. SFG, in a sense, builds a bridge between form and function (Derewianka &
Jones 2010), showing relations between grammatical classes and their functions
in spoken, written and multimodal texts.
In ELT, we should be concerned with supporting our students to successfully
communicate across a range of different communicative events, for example,
enjoying a casual conversation with a visitor to their country, presenting their
work in a seminar, collaborating with university peers on a research project,
writing an email to a customer, and writing a report for a school assignment.
This necessitates more than knowledge about the different forms language takes.
It requires understandings of how different combinations of language forms
function to make particular meanings in particular social and cultural contexts.
The functional orientation of SFG allows us to do just this.

Language as a semantic system

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This orientation to language is based on the premise that the reason language
exists is to allow people to make meanings. Language is a tool that helps people
make meanings with each other (Halliday 1985). Whenever we use language, we
make three simultaneous meanings: ideational meanings to relate experience;
interpersonal meanings to relate to others; and textual meanings to create
cohesive and coherent stretches of language, that is, text (Halliday & Matthiessen
2014). In the above quote, Halliday (2004) calls for a semantic (meaning-based)
focus rather than a syntactic (rule-based) focus. Rather than looking at language
from the point of view of what part of speech goes together with which other parts
of speech, the view is one of choice. What could be said in this particular social
situation, and what are the alternatives? This perspective, technically referred
to as paradigmatic, rather than syntagmatic (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014),
underscores the view of language as a semantic system, rather than language
as simply a set of structures. As Halliday and Matthiessen argue, ‘Language is

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mqu/detail.action?docID=5987473.
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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 33

a resource for making meaning, and meaning resides in systemic patterns of

choice’ (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 23).

Language use as a matter of choice

Choice underpins systemic functional theory. It allows us to analyse language
use by considering the choices from the language system a speaker or writer
makes in order to mean something. It allows us to consider how the meaning
would differ had another choice from the language system been made instead.
It allows us to consider whether a second language learner has a sufficient
repertoire of language to make appropriate choices. Finally, it allows us to
consider what cultural and social factors constrain what choices are possible in
order to successfully construct ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings
simultaneously. This is what Halliday means in the above quotation, where he
calls for a grammar that reflects language as being flexible rather than rule bound.

Language in cultural and social context

Consider that you have been tasked with writing a story – a narrative – about a
boy and his father, a deep, dark forest and a big, wild bear. Pause for a moment
and jot down or think about how you might answer these questions:

1. How does the story begin?

2. What main living and non-living participants will you introduce into the
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story?
3. What actions do the living participants carry out?
4. What are the main parts to the story?
5. How does the story end?

Depending on your own social, cultural, linguistic and educational background,

your answers to these questions will differ from other readers. However, it is
quite likely that the beginning of the story sets the scene and introduces the main
characters. It is also probable that the actions you choose for the story are physical
ones, involving walking, running and possibly hiding. There is also likely to be
some events involving the participants saying things to each other and possibly a
roaring of the bear. The main stages would be something like the following:

1. Set the scene.

2. Narrate a series of events.

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34 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

3. Introduce a complicating factor.

4. Introduce a resolution.

The ending might include an evaluation of the outcome by the boy and/or his
father. Of course, there may be other stages in the story, or there may be some
stages that fulfil different functions, or some may be left out. However, if the story
successfully achieves its social purpose within an Australian cultural context, it
is most likely to reflect what I have described above.
Finally, how might we state what the social purpose of this story is? Stories
entertain. Narratives often entertain by introducing a complication, and then a
resolution, and then an evaluation of that resolution. We might state the social
purpose as being: to entertain through narrating a series of events that include a
complication and resolution, and to evaluate the final outcome. This is the role
of narratives in many cultures (Martin & Rose 2008).
The reason that this task was probably not very difficult for readers is that we
are able to quite readily predict what language will be used based on the cultural
context in which it is set. Once we know the social purpose, we can predict how
meanings will unfold in stages, and thus we can predict the genre, namely, the
‘staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members
of our culture’ (Martin 1984: 25). In the example above, we have identified the
stages of a particular genre of storytelling, namely a narrative.
If genres are ways of categorizing activities within a culture, texts are instances
of a genre. In the above example, the activity of storytelling has resulted in a
particular type of text, a narrative. The text type, narrative, is a representation –
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an instantiation – of the storytelling genre. Given a slightly different purpose,

the genre could have been instantiated by a news story or by an autobiographical
recount.
We study genres through the texts that are produced during the activity. This
textual analysis allows us to understand what people do with language, and how
language works to help people achieve their purposes. We examine how the
text unfolds in stages, with each stage being characterized by a particular set
of key language features. Among these language features, we can analyse the
language that has been chosen to make ideational meanings about experience,
interpersonal meanings to relate to others and textual meanings to create cohesive
and coherent stretches of language. To do this with an instantiation of a genre, we
analyse the context of situation and its register, which comprises language that
construes ideational meanings (the field of discourse), interpersonal meanings
(the tenor of discourse) and textual meanings (the mode of discourse). The

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mqu/detail.action?docID=5987473.
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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 35

Context of Culture
Genre and Text Type

Context of Situation
Register
Mode
Channel
Field Distance
Activity
Topic Discourse Semantics
Meaning

Tenor
Status
Contact Lexicogrammar
text
Affect
Wording
clause
phrase/group
word
morpheme
Expression
Sounds phoneme
Signs grapheme
Symbols

Figure 2.1  The systemic functional model of language (adaptation of Martin 2009: 12)

grammar of field, tenor and mode, together with the relation between context of
situation and context of culture, is summarized in Figure 2.1.

The expression level

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Figure 2.1 depicts a systemic model of language, including all levels of language
use, from the more abstract context of culture, through to the lexicogrammatical
resources used to construe ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings,
down to the level where we use sounds (phonology) and symbols (graphology)
to physically express our language choices. This makes it an attractive model
of language for ELT. Depending on language learners’ proficiency levels and
particular language-learning needs, interventions for individual students can
be planned based on assessments of their understandings and control over the
various levels described above. In addition, whole units of study can be planned
for delivery in language classrooms that integrate all levels of language across
the four macro skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Indeed, this is
an important aspect of the unit of study described in this chapter, to which we
now turn.

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36 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

Pedagogic grammar

Halliday’s introduction to linguistics was through his initial FL learning and

teaching experiences, when, not long after learning Chinese, he began to teach
the language to military personnel during the Second World War. His motivation
for working with linguistics has always been his conviction of the need for
practical outcomes of this work (Halliday 1985). Thus, SFL is considered an
‘appliable linguistics’ (Mahboob & Knight 2010) that comes with a pedagogic
grammar highly suited for second and FL teaching and learning. An effective
pedagogic grammar should be descriptive rather than prescriptive, focusing on
appropriate language use in different contexts rather than focusing on rules of
use (McCabe 2017).

The unit of study

Linguistics and Language Teaching is a four-credit unit which explores the

nature of language, language in context, register, text structure, sentence- and
text-level grammar, spoken and written English, phonology and a genre-
based approach to second language teaching and learning. The unit considers
applications of the above aspects of language to ESOL contexts within Australia
and internationally. The unit complements the Language Teaching Methodologies
unit, the Planning and Programming in TESOL unit and the Practicum in TESOL
unit, by introducing a model of language relevant for second language teaching.
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Successful completion of these units qualifies participants for the Graduate

Certificate of TESOL award.

Teacher knowledge
The unit is primarily aimed at developing student-teachers’ linguistic
content knowledge, and aspects of their GPK and PCK (Figure 2.2). By
doing this, it contributes to student-teachers’ wisdom of practice of second
language teaching and learning, which I have argued elsewhere constitutes
the deep-seated philosophical orientations towards the nature of language
and language learning that ‘bind together everything that goes on in the
classroom’ (Chappell 2017: 435). Thus, an important part of the early stages of
the unit is to pick apart different perspectives on the nature of language, and
encourage student-teachers to articulate, and then reflect upon, compare and

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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 37
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Figure 2.2  Model of language teacher knowledge (Chappell 2017: 435)

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38 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

contrast their own understandings of language and learning with the different
theoretical orientations in the literature, such as structural linguistics and
cognitive linguistics. All aspects of the unit are conceived of in terms of
the model of teacher knowledge developed in Chappell (2017), depicted in
Figure 2.2.

Texts
Required texts
1. Derewianka, B. (2011). A new grammar companion for teachers. Newtown:
Primary English Teaching Association.
2. Cobuild. (2011). Collins Cobuild English grammar (3rd ed.). Harper
Collins.

Recommended text
1. Humphrey, S.L., Droga, L. & Feez, S. (2012). Grammar and meaning.
Newtown: Primary English Teaching Association.

Pedagogical approach
The pedagogical approach is based firmly on a social interactionist approach
to learning and teaching (Chappell 2014). Learning in higher education
contexts involves applying new knowledge in the form of concepts, theories,
principles and the like, in collaboration with others, to everyday practical
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activity that students were previously unable to fully carry out independently.
Teaching involves being keenly aware of where each student is at and
providing the right kind of support at the right times, in a variety of forms,
wherever possible. Importantly, instructors on teacher education courses
have the opportunity to model desirable teaching techniques and strategies.
The notion of scaffolding, defined by Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976: 89) as
‘the means whereby an adult or expert helps somebody who is less adult
or less expert’ achieve a task outcome, reflects one of the main pedagogic
strategies in the unit. In many of the weekly seminars, the instructor will
introduce new linguistic concepts by deconstructing texts, conduct a whole-
class text analysis using the classroom audiovisual technologies and then
assign small groups to conduct similar tasks. Student-teachers are provided
with additional analyses to carry out independently out of class via the
online learning environment, where they can also use the asynchronous

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 39

discussion forums to share and discuss their work with their peers. Finally,
student-teachers will demonstrate how well they can do similar analyses
independently through the assessment tasks.
Given the novelty of SFL and genre pedagogy for many of the student-
teachers, explicit reference to its relevance for second language learning and
teaching is crucial. For example, once student-teachers are familiar with the
concept of register as being those aspects of a context of situation that shape
and are shaped by our language choices, it is important to demonstrate an
application to ELT in a relevant and meaningful manner. This may be through
explaining how understanding the context helps language students with their
listening comprehension. While introducing a recorded dialogue in the language
classroom, the teacher should aim to have the students understand what the
social purpose (genre) of the conversation is, what is happening and being
talked about (field), who is taking part and what the nature of their relationship
is (tenor), and what channel of communication is being used (mode). A short
small group brainstorming session can engage student-teachers in coming up
with a variety of strategies to introduce the context to their students in their own
classrooms.
Feedback from student-teachers suggests this approach is appreciated for
its potential to positively influence their learning, as the following written
comments demonstrate:

As far as I can recall, you are also the only lecturer I have come across thus far
who has convincingly modelled what has been taught – from the way we were
assessed to the way you seem to value and welcome everybody’s contribution in
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class. (TEDSCode APPL92112S115390)

Using a student-centred approach with enough number of pair/group tasks/

activities to consolidate the concepts. (TEDSCode APPL92015S162739)

The syllabus

Decisions about selection of content for the unit are driven by the need to make
SFL, SFG and genre pedagogy accessible for student-teachers from a range of
cultural, educational and linguistic backgrounds. Theory and practice are woven
together to present a pedagogically relevant and practical linguistics for second
language teaching and learning. At the same time, given that a high percentage
of student-teachers are from language backgrounds other than English, learning

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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40 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

tasks are included that develop not only their knowledge of the English language
but also their proficiency in speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Learning outcomes
To enable student-teachers to:

1. articulate their personal theories of language and language

learning;
2. build the foundation knowledge of linguistics required for language
teaching;
3. develop knowledge of the relationships between language, text and
context;
4. recognize and differentiate a range of text types and their features;
5. develop knowledge of the units of grammar of English and the relationship
between grammar and vocabulary;
6. plan strategies to present grammar and engage learners in understanding
its communicative significance;
7. recognize and understand the differences between spoken and written
language;
8. develop knowledge of the discourse features of English;
9. develop knowledge of the phonology and graphology of English.

Weekly topics
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1. Introduction: Different views of language

2. Language in context
3. Register
4. Genre, text Types and text structure
5. Functions of language, levels of language
6. Language for expressing ideas
7. Language for connecting ideas
8. Language for interacting with others
9. Language for creating cohesive texts
10. Spoken and written English
11. Phonology and teaching pronunciation
12. Graphology and the mechanics of writing
13. Review

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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 41

Learning and teaching activities for context

of culture and context of situation
The syllabus is top-down in the sense that it starts at the higher stratum of the
model, context of culture and context of situation, then works its way down to
the expression level. Student-teachers are reminded of the practical implications
right from the start. For example, after an initial mini lecture in the first
week on different perspectives on language, involving cognitive, behavioural,
anthropological and social semiotic perspectives, student-teachers are shown
video recordings of a teacher introducing a text to students by introducing the
social purpose, the text type and a summary of the field, tenor and mode of the
text. In this way, theoretical aspects of SFL are introduced alongside practical
classroom applications of the theory.
Moreover, early on, a variety of procedures are modelled for introducing the
social context of a text to language students. In Topic 2, Language in Context,
student-teachers are provided with a heuristic that they will use throughout the
course. Given the widespread use of ELT course books in many contexts, the
spoken, written and multimodal texts presented in these coursebooks are used
in seminars to fulfil several aims, including inculcating teaching practices that
relate language and text to its context of use; demonstrating the shortcomings
of inauthentic written and spoken texts; developing analytical tools to efficiently
evaluate texts for how authentic-like they are; and procedures for supporting
language students in understanding appropriate and effective language choices
according to the context of situation. One variation of this simple heuristics,
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adapted for spoken texts, is:

1. What is the purpose of this conversation? (Identifying genre)

2. What kind of casual conversation is this? Where is it taking place?
(Identifying text and/or social activity type)
3. What things and activities are they talking about? (Describing field of
discourse)
4. How would you describe the speakers’ relationship? (Describing tenor of
discourse)
5. Is this spoken language, written language, on the phone, by email, face to
face? (Describing mode of discourse)

To develop a critical analytic approach to text analysis, several activities are

aimed at developing student-teachers self-awareness of how they use their
tacit knowledge of lexicogrammar and genres to predict and/or make choices

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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42 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

from the language system. For example, in Topic 4, Genre, Text Types and Text
Structure, student-teachers work in small groups to analyse the social purpose,
field, tenor and mode of short excerpts taken from longer texts, such as:
Will fifties be alright?
Sold! they fit a treat. fanks babe. Wot u up 2 lata? Jx
Rinse your mouth out and we’ll wait for that to take effect.

Small group and whole-class discussions focus on the linguistic evidence that
supports the student-teachers’ descriptions of social purpose, field, tenor and
mode, as well as knowledge about the activity that the text could be associated
with. Student-teachers are then asked to develop their own short excerpts of
texts from social activities from their own sociocultural contexts that may be
interesting to people from other cultures. This underscores the importance
for student-teachers to be explicit about cultural assumptions and possible
cross-cultural misunderstandings that may occur due to cultural and linguistic
differences.

Learning and teaching activities for the lexicogrammar

of field, tenor and mode
The term ‘language features’ is used throughout the unit to refer to the linguistic
features associated with a particular text that is associated with a context of
situation within a broader cultural context. This is where the lexicogrammar of
SFG is introduced.
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Topic 5 introduces the clause as the basic unit of meaning in the English
language. Student-teachers first self-assess their ability to identify clauses in
a text containing mainly single-clause sentences and a couple of multi-clause
sentences. The session then moves on to a number of collaborative learning
tasks that develop student-teachers’ understandings of the central elements
that make up a clause, and then they revisit the self-assessment task. The
concept of rank scale and rank shift is introduced. First, the concept of text as a
semantic unit that is realized by sentences and clauses is revisited to underscore
the relation between context, text and lexicogrammar. Next, the rank scale is
introduced and student-teachers undertake some text analyses to identify
morphemes, words, groups, clauses and clause complexes. Finally, texts are
introduced where some simple rank shifting has occurred. This highlights the
importance of looking at language both from its form and the function it is
performing in a text.

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 43

Topics 6 and 7, concerned with ideational meanings, introduce the language

features of field: processes, participants and circumstances. This is achieved in
Topic 6 by using a variety of activities involving transitivity analysis (analysis of
clauses for the processes that are unfolding, the participants who are involved,
and the circumstances involved in the process, as in Halliday & Matthiessen
2014). In Topic 7 the attention turns to multi-clause sentences and how
experiential meanings are combined logically in texts.
Topic 8 introduces the language features associated with interpersonal
meanings, realized through the grammar of interaction – the systems of mood
and modality (appraisal is not covered in any detail in the unit due to the
constraints of time). A variety of written, visual and audiovisual texts is used
to demonstrate how, when we speak, we take on different roles to achieve a
variety of reactions from our speech partners (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014).
When we write, we make choices from the mood system, by way of enacting
speech functions, to interact with our readers. Further, by making choices from
the system of modality, we can modify the level of delicacy in ‘the region of
uncertainty that lies between “yes” and “no”’ (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 176).
Course book dialogues are revisited to critically evaluate the language choices
that the course book authors have used, both for their lack of authenticity and
how an awareness of speech roles and speech functions can unveil hidden
discrimination by, for example, gender.
Topic 9, Language for Creating Cohesive Texts, focuses mainly on textual
cohesion and coherence, focusing largely on written genres, for example,
reporting, explaining and arguing, that would normally be used in academic
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English courses. This is linked to Topic 10: Written and Spoken English, which
includes a session on giving feedback to students on their writing. A model for
carrying this out is introduced through modelling a feedback session for the
class and focusing on all aspects of the language features of mode, as well as field
and tenor. The students then analyse texts written by ELLs and discuss in small
groups what kinds of feedback they would provide. This is assessed in a final
summative assessment task, described earlier.

Learning and teaching activities for the expression level

Topic 11, Phonology and teaching pronunciation, starts off by tuning student-
teachers in to the difference between speech sound and all other sound in our
environment, using sound files from Halliday and Greaves’s (2008) Intonation
in the Grammar of English. This introductory task is aimed at having student-

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mqu/detail.action?docID=5987473.
Created from mqu on 2020-08-23 20:31:58.
44 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

teachers think critically about the link between sound and meaning and also to
view sound as the medium of transmission for human speech. After covering
segmental and suprasegmental aspects of speech, the seminar moves into
workshop mode, where student-teachers look through published course material
for opportunities to integrate pronunciation into language lessons. Jazz Chants
(Graham 2003) are introduced as effective ways to tune language learners into
the rhythm of the English language.
Topic 12, Graphology and the mechanics of writing, is divided into two
sections. First, orthography is introduced through a variety of language-learning
tasks that both familiarize student-teachers with technical orthographic aspects,
for example, punctuation conventions, as well as modelling a range of language-
learning tasks to use in their classes. The second section links back to the previous
topic, focusing on graphophonic awareness; that is, an awareness of how the
sounds of English are represented graphically as letters and combinations of
letters. This section allows for a focus on the relationship between an ELL’s
developing phonological system and their control over the macro skills of
speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Wrapping up
The concluding topic in this unit is both a review of previous topics and an
introduction to a planning procedure that serves to integrate the macro skills
into a lesson or unit of work, as well as to demonstrate how the model of language
can be applied to a range of language events. In a final activity, student-teachers
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are shown examples of language event sequences (Burns, Joyce, & Gollins 1996),
and then in small groups they prepare their own which they present to the class.
An example is presented in Figure 2.3.

Assessment tasks
All assessment is through completion of tasks that involve the analysis of texts.
These tasks are formative in nature, being designed to engage and support
student-teachers in the learning process, while at the same time, assessing
achievement and providing feedback for further achievement in subsequent
tasks. Assessment is standards based, whereby the tasks are mapped against
course and unit learning outcomes. Each task has a marking guide that provides
student-teachers and teaching staff with a rubric for assessing students’ work
against the predetermined performance criteria.

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 45

Figure 2.3  Unit of work planning using language event sequences (adapted from
Burns et al. 1996)

The first assessment task is aimed at raising student-teachers’ awareness of

the range of text types they encounter on a daily basis. It requires them to keep
a language diary over the period of one week and select six varied language
events to analyse. The analysis is based on the newly introduced concepts of the
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social purpose for using language: language for expressing experience (field),
language for interacting with others (tenor) and language for creating cohesive
texts (mode). Analyses are presented in tabular form.
The second task is a more elaborate analysis of social purpose, genre and
text type, and the grammatical features used in texts to realize experiential
and interpersonal meanings. As textual meanings have yet to be covered, these
are reserved for the final assessment task. A spoken text and a written text
are chosen for all student-teachers to analyse. This task requires the student-
teachers to use the grammatical constituents of field (processes, participants and
circumstances) and tenor (mood block and speech functions, and modality) in
their analyses.
The final task involves analysing an English language student’s written
text, using the entire systemic model presented throughout the unit, in order

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mqu/detail.action?docID=5987473.
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46 Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

to identify where the student has good control over the language features
important for this text type, and diagnosing where the student needs work,
suggesting interventions that will support the student gaining greater control
of the genre and text type. This is a summative assessment task requiring
student-teachers to apply the understandings gained throughout the unit to
an ELT context.

Reorientation

In this chapter, I have argued that a functional model of language provides an

effective pedagogic grammar for language teacher education. It explicitly relates
the functional language system to the cultural and social contexts in which it is
used. It offers a systemic description of how language use varies from one context
to the other by considering the differences in ideational content, interpersonal
relations between speakers/writers/readers and the mode of communication.
The pedagogical implications for this are that student-teachers can be
apprenticed into an approach to language teaching where the social purpose of
an interaction, the topic that is being talked about, the relationship between the
interlocutors and the channel of communication all shape the spoken or written
(or multimodal) text that unfolds during the interaction. These texts are clustered
into a range of spoken and written genres that can form the point of departure
for planning integrated skills lessons focused on meaningful communication.
Through explicit focus on these texts, language features at the levels of discourse
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semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology/graphology can form the basis

of language lessons. During the course of the unit, student-teachers not only
learn about linguistics for language teaching they learn this through the English
language, and for international students, they develop their language proficiency
at the same time.

Questions for change

1. How does your language teacher wisdom of practice align with the views
of language and language learning presented in this chapter? To start, write
down your own views of what language is, and how you think it is learnt,
and then compare this with the views in this chapter.

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
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A Functional Model of Language for Language Teacher Education 47

2. Are genre and functional grammar a part of the curriculum in your

particular ELT context? If not, what opportunities exist for introducing
genre and functional grammar into the curriculum?
3. How effective do you think the syllabus described in this chapter would be
for your student-teachers? What adjustments would you make?
4. What might a taxonomy of genres and text types look like for your ELT
context?
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Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mqu/detail.action?docID=5987473.
Created from mqu on 2020-08-23 20:31:58.
48
Copyright © 2020. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved.

Content Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education : International Experiences, edited by Darío Luis Banegas,
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mqu/detail.action?docID=5987473.
Created from mqu on 2020-08-23 20:31:58.