Introduction
| Second Language Acquisition Research
| Policies & Classrooms | Sociocultural
Research & Theory
EML505 Professional
Writing in TESOL contexts
Strand
2
TESOL publications
|
Sociocultural research &
theory
What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted,
is simply the fact that it doesn't weigh as a force that says no, but that
it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge,
produces discourse. It needs to be considered as a productive network which
runs through the whole social body, much more than as a negative insistence
whose function is repression (Foucault 1980: 119).
Pally: Schools train students to write for the teacher,
to demonstrate competence to someone who already has it. But outside school,
writers must bring an idea to someone who doesn't have it. In short, writing
is not so much: "Did I show you that I get it?" but rather, "Do you get
it?" [-20-]…..
Diallo: We did talk about all this, but in relation to
my paper. I liked the exercises you gave me the last three weeks. They
really did help me. You should have given them to me every week (make an
outline, summarize, what is the main idea in each paragraph, how did the
author introduce subjects, etc.).(Pally & Diallo 1995: http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej04/a2.html)
[The pedagogic device] acts as a symbolic regulator of
consciousness; the question is, whose regulator, what consciousness and
for whom? It is a condition for the production, reproduction and transformation
of culture (Bernstein 1996: 52).
There are various sociocultural
theories relevant to education. They have been shaped by such disciplines
as anthropology, linguistic anthropology, sociology, politics and to a
very small extent, psychoanalysis, which examines the relationship between
culture and desire. Publications in this field will have features in common.
They will focus, to a greater or lesser extent, upon:
-
Semiotics
-
Connections between language (spoken
and written) and sociocultural organisations and dynamics, including institutionalised
ways of speaking and behaving (discourses)
-
The relationship between the individual
and social and cultural organisatons and groups (subjectivity and
identity)
-
Language variations
-
Political dynamics, from the macro
level of governments and bureaucracies to the micro level of the family
(hegemonies and marginalisations)
-
Cultural reproduction and processes
of change.
As your TESOL courses are based
on sociocultural theory you should find these interests underpinning your
subjects.
Systemic-functional linguistics
in sociocultural theory
The concerns outlined above indicate
sociocultural perspectives. Systemic-functional linguistics has a significant
place in the field as it is the only sociocultural theory which comprehensively
theorises the relationships between cultural organisations, behaviours,
ideologies and language, and models how cultural dynamics are instantiated
at the level of text (discourse-semantics), clause (lexico-grammar), and
grapho-phonology. That is, there is coherence between contexts and
texts. (See Figure 1)
Figure 1 Coherence
between contexts and textual organisations and linguistic features
It is important to note
that coherence refers to the coherence between text and contexts;
whereas cohesion refers to the internal properties of texts. Eggins
explains coherence in the following way:
Coherence refers to the way a group of
clauses or sentences relate to the context (Halliday and Hasan 1976: 23).
Since in the systemic model we recognize two levels of context (context
of culture; i.e. genre, and context of situation, i.e. register), we can
recognise two types of coherence: situational or registerial coherence,
and generic coherence (Eggins 1999: 87).
Coherence means a text
can be read both ways, from "bottom-up", or from "top-down": if we read
from the clause and textual unfolding, we can judge the nature of the contexts
in which the text was created and identify its social purpose. If we know
the contexts of culture and situation and the social purpose of the text,
we have a guide for producing a text. Many of the publications from systemic
linguistic perspectives will deal with these matters, including as they
apply in pedagogies.
Discourse-semantics and discourses
It is also important, as indicated
previously, to note the difference in meaning between discourse-semantics,
which might also be described as textual unfolding and realisation in wordings,
and discourse/s, which are to do with habits of thinking, systems
of beliefs, attitudes and values which come within the rubric of ideologies.
Discourse-semantics
is related to the notion of discourse competence
as a factor in
communicative competence (Savignon 1983), although the concept of
communicative competence is not a comprehensive cultural theory:
it is not in any way an explanation of the relationship between language
and culture; it is rather to do with observations of communicative phenomenon.
James Gee makes the distinction
between discourses as different kinds of extended language practices
and the ideological meanings of discourse, by capitalising the ideological
meaning as Discourse (Gee 1999, 1992; Nichols 1998). I have said
in another subject, that when a child is born, it is born into a story
already partly told: there will be gender behaviours and roles already
settled in the nursery, carried over into schools and careers. These behaviours
are constituted from discourses, from the things we say and think about
the behaviour of girls and boys, so that we "naturalise" those behaviours
and support them with material things, artefacts; such as, toys, clothes,
books. The behaviours seem inevitable, but they are constituted by language,
by discourses. There are discourses about the environment, about crime,
about relationships, about literacy standards (which are always falling),
about the rights of the individual; there are discourses which are racist,
colonialist, ethnocentric, religious, moralist, feminist, postcolonialist,
materialist; there are legal discourses, media discourses, medical discourses,
educational discourses.
Think about the discourses you might find
functioning in your own life.
How do you talk about relationships?
About gendered behaviours?
About age?
About the environment?
About health?
Where do your ideas come from?
Who else shaes them?
Educational discourses might be
governmental, departmental, staffroom, classroom, etc. No discourse is
"pure", they will be blended in many complex ways. In the classroom there
will be a blending of discourses from the wider community. These discourses
will be embedded within instructional and regulatory discourses
(Christie 2000, 1998, 1997; Bernstein 2000, 1996, 1990, 1986). As also
indicated previously discourses are usually contested; or, as the sociologists
might say they are sites of contestation.
Publications in sociocultural
theory
Publications in sociocultural
theory are interested in the way discourses, or ideologies, and their contestations
will mark the texts we create in our classrooms, syllabus designs, governmental
policies. No text, is ever ideologically neutral, as contexts are not ideologically
neutral. We cannot ever free ourselves from ideologies; ideologies are
not some kind of false consciousness (Threadgold, in Threadgold & Cranny-Francis
(eds) 1990: 2-3).
Themes in systemic-functional
publications include:
-
Explicit teaching about the coherence
of contexts and texts;
-
The differential access to such
knowledge, which is a form of cultural capital;
-
Teaching-learning cycles;
-
Multiliteracies;
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The teaching of a metalanguage;
-
Critical literacies;
-
Exchange patterns in classrooms;
-
Critique of ideological discourses
in pedagogies which maintain hegemonies and marginalise some groups.
Resource Link:
This link will be a useful resource
to support your understanding of functional grammar.
Readings
The readings for this topic take
up some of the listed sociocultural themes. The readings from your Booklet
are chapters from texts and a report. They do raise issues for your awareness,
so that when you are teaching text-types, syntax, pronunciation, and all
the matters essential in a language classroom, you will have a depth of
understanding about how your pedagogy is embedded in cultural processes.
You will find ways to incorporate drills and exercises into meaningful
activities, teaching the importance of rehearsal for ease of recall (Biggs
1994), but giving opportunities for using and transforming those exercises
in communicative tasks, supported by substantial field knowledge. You will
do all of this, but at the same time you will be aware of the sociocultural
processes at play. You will be aware of those processes which you need
to teach explicitly, such as generic structures, the social purposes of
all texts (including the texts you and the students develop through classroom
exchanges), the influence of the context of situation on the language
and textual choices we make. But you will also be aware of how cultural
discourses play in your classroom and pedagogy; you will be aware of representations
of groups, and how that can marginalise some, even students within your
own classroom.
First reading (Essential):
P.Jones (2001) Mind
in the classroom. Forthcoming. In J. Hammond (ed.) Scaffolding.
PETA: Newtown. Draft only, not for public citation. (You may cite
the article in your assignments.)
You have read some of these articles
in your work on paragraphs, so hopefully the task will be partly completed.
"Mind in the classroom" makes
significant revelations about different uses of language in the interactions
of two school groups. The interactions in one group are cognitive and productive
and in the other they are largely disconnected from the construction of
knowledge. The use of systemic linguistics to compare the kinds of processes
used in the interactions is a good example of how that grammar might be
used to uncover the social purposes of classroom interactions.
The differences between the
groups support Pauline's contention that notions of the individual
separate from the social milieu are inadequate, in spite of their dominance
in educational and humanitarian discourses. The concept of individuality
does not explain the marked differences in group characteristics. We need
more than simple ideas about individual capacity to explain how such beliefs
about language and learning have developed in the two classrooms.
&
Please read :
P. Jones
(2001), Mind
in the classroom.
Explain what Pauline means by "the social
nature of learning".
Compare the sociocultural view of learning
with individualistic ideas.
What scaffolding strategies were used in
the classes?
Summarise the differences between the two
groups' beliefs about language and learning.
What did you find interesting in the article?
Reading:
S. Nichols (1998). Current issues in classroom
discourse: a review of literature on talking and listening in the middle
years. In P. Cormack, P, Wignell & S. Nichols (eds) Classroom discourse
project, Volume 1. DEETYA: Canberra, pp.8-29.
This reading offers a review of
changing perspectives on classroom interactions. The role of language in
learning, or classroom discourse is represented from different historical
and cultural perspectives.
&
Please read:
S. Nichols (1998)
Make a taxonomy of the article.
How does Nichols develop the themes of culture
and language and learning?
How does she develop ideas about discourse?
What are the problems she sees with group
work?
What information does she give about the
dynamics of gender in classroom interactions?
What do you learn about "wait time"?
Choose one point from the article which interested
you and summarise how Nichols developed it.
Reading (Essential):
F. Christie (1994). On pedagogic discourse.
University
of Melbourne: Melbourne.
In this article Christie moves
the discussion of classroom discourse into a new field. Gone is the story
of the teacher lamenting about how much he or she had dominated talk in
the classroom. Christie writes:
Patterns of teacher-led classroom talk
have been frequently criticised. However, if we take seriously the claims
of psychologists like Bruner, for example, with respect to the need to
provide effective scaffolding for students to learn, the evidence would
suggest that a great deal of teacher-led talk has an important role in
the development of learning (Christie 1994: 9)
The article is a report of an
extensive research project, set in upper primary schools in Darwin, which
focused on the discourses associated with different school subjects across
a series of lessons. The methodology was influenced by the work of Michael
Halliday and Jim Martin. Halliday's view of language as a meaning making
resource was central (just what and how were meanings made in the different
curriculum areas). Christie drew on Martin's work to do with the nature
of genre as sets, or stages, of cultural choices, which achieve social
purposes. She was also drawing upon Bernstein's theories of pedagogic discourses,
as being both regulatory and instructional. She does not fully develop
these ideas in this project (See Christie 1997) but she does develop the
idea of a curriculum macrogenre which is a series of lessons, following
sequential stages (^), some of which are recursive (*), and each of which
serves its own purpose, while contributing to the broader purpose of the
whole sequence.
The idea of curriculum macrogenres
is as important for language teachers as for any other teacher. The important
thing for language teachers to be aware of is the relationship between
language and learning, between language and cognition. In the next topic
we shall consider language proficiency from the point of view of
policy supports and take note of work by Cummins (1984) who contrasts Basic
Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive /Academic Language
Proficiency (CALP). The former is much more easily and quickly developed,
the latter is demanding and takes far longer. In many ways the issues Christie
raises about subject knowledge and technical language in this article is
about developing CALP.
&Please
read
F. Christie (1994).
Record the aims of Christie's project.
Why might Christie be so concerned about
the generalities of curriculum study in teacher education courses?
Why is specific subject language important?
Why does she say that the idea of children
using their own language has "a hollow ring"?
Why does she use functional grammar in the
study?
Outline Christie's major findings.
Reading:
Fairclough, N. (1995). Discourse and
social change. Blackwell: Oxford, pp. 12-36.
Fairclough's chapter is an overview
of different approaches to discourse analysis. He begins with the model
developed by Sinclair and Coulthard which has been used extensively for
analysis of classroom "transactions" which are composed of different kinds
of "exchanges". He draws a distinction between non-critical and critical
discourses. The latter takes account of power dynamics within discourses.
He includes the influences of Althusser and Foucault. Althusser theorised
that ideologies are embedded in institutions in quite deterministic ways.
He wrote about Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA). There is probably some
element of truth in this theory, and it might be quite close to Bernstein's
ideas about the "regulatory" discourse in what he calls the "pedagogic
device". There is a tension between the way we are shaped by our culture
and the possibility of exerting agency. Foucault's work in theorising how
discourses function as "formations" and how they shape what we see as knowledge
and truth is illuminating. Changes, and agency, are possible because of
the contradictions and ambiguities which accompany all discourses.
This article is challenging
because it is a synthesis of very complex ideas. It does give us a frame
for thinking about how language works in the culture and in the classroom
- but if you are pressed for time I would prefer that you read the three
articles online. I have given a detailed study guide to support your reading
if you need it.
&Please
read if you have time
Fairclough, N. (1995).
-
How does Fairclough distinguish between critical
and non-critical approaches to discourse? Which names are associated with
the two categories?
-
Sinclair's and Coulthard's theory of classroom
discourse has been used very widely. It does have a place in analysis of
classroom interactions, although it has limitations.
-
Draw a chart of what they call transactions.
According to Fairclough, what are the strengths
and weaknesses of Sinclair's and Coulthard's model?
What is ethnomethodology?
How is Fanshel's and Labov's approach to
discourse analysis different from those of Sinclair and Coulthard and ethnomethodologists?
What are the problems Fairclough identifies
in "critical linguistics".
What contributions does Fairclough suggest
Pecheux made to critical discourse analysis?
What does Fairclough tell the reader about
Althusser?
What are "discursive formations"?
Read Fairclough's conclusions carefully.
Online Readings
To supplement these extracts from books I have
selected three articles from TESL-EJ which you should find useful.
They are very readable.
Please follow the links :
The readings have been selected
because:
-
They represent two different professional
writing contexts in TESOL.
-
They are informative, very readable,
articles in which the authors draw upon sociocultural theories.
-
They should give you some ideas
for classroom tasks.
Abstracts have been included below
for two articles and an extract has been selected from the third.
-
Please read the articles.
-
If you have time, choose one which
is the most interesting to you and:
-
Make an outline, noting macro
themes and their related hyperthemes
-
Identify features of textual structures
-
Note how the author makes a transition
from one paragraph to the next
-
Note how the author makes transitions
from one macrotheme to the next.
The three readings are:
T. Caudery (1998). Increasing students' awareness of genre through text
transformation exercises: An old classroom activity revisited. TESL-EJ,
Vol.
3. No. 3 September http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej11/a2.html
Tim Caudery
University of Aarhus, Denmark
<elgu@post3.tele.dk>
Students learning to write in L2 need to be aware of text genres:
not simply of generic conventions, but of genre in the wider sense of communicative
events or acts. This article claims that transforming texts from one genre
to another, using information and ideas in the source text to create new
texts for different audiences and purposes, helps students to become aware
of and take into account genre-related features such as writer-reader relationship,
purpose of writing, and medium. As well as discussing the advantages and
drawbacks of using text transformation tasks on a writing course, both
from theoretical and practical viewpoints, the article outlines how work
on such tasks may be organised, and gives examples of task types. However,
text transformation is a very flexible type of exercise, adaptable to different
approaches to teaching writing, and to classes of different levels and
with different writing goals.
M. Pally, M. & A. Diallo (1995). The Man Who Mistook "Wet Paint" for
a Verb: A Chronicle for Thinking about Language, Culture and Writing.
TESL-EJ,
Vol. 1. No. 4 June 1995. http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej04/a2.html
Marcia Pally, M. Ed.D
New York University
pallym@ACFcluster.nyu.edu
Abou Diallo
New York University
The central concern of the native speaker was teaching the rhetorical
requirements of English persuasive and expository writing, which Cope and
Kalantzis (1993) describe as subordinative, analytical, minimally redundant,
distancing, either genuinely or disingenuously attempting balance and objectivity"
(p. 76). This American tendency, as Fox (1994) writes, "to directness,
to precise relationships between verbs and their subjects, to clear and
relatively obvious transitions, to announcement of intent and [-5-] summary
statements" (p. 20) is alien and often problematic to many students from
non-Western and non-English speaking cultures, and non-dominant subcultures
in the U.S. While mainstream English persuasive and expository writing
relies on up-front clarity, their traditions rely on subtlety, indirection,
inference, circumlocution, close investigation of received wisdoms, contextualization
of issues (rather than isolation and under-a-microscope analysis), and
collectivist notions of evidence. As a result, students from these traditions
often see English writing as obvious, dull, unchallenging, and naive. Yet
they are required to write in the English idiom in order to succeed at
their jobs or universities. Even advanced graduate students, like the one
in this chronicle, often find such writing distasteful or mysterious, either
because they have not been explicitly taught it or because it requires
sizable (and undesirable) changes in world view and personality. The effort
to alter their writing styles has led students, according to Fox, to frustration,
depression, resistance, rebellion, or failure.
…….
Working with Abou has made me think about Jim Cummins's language interdependence
theory (Cummins, 1979). Developing advanced cognitive concepts in L1, according
to Cummins, should facilitate the transfer of those concepts to L2. Perhaps,
but Abou can think in a sophisticated manner in French and explain complex
ideas in spoken English. Yet expressing those ideas in English writing
demands another step.
At the beginning of this log, I thought that step was cognitive, a matter
of developing and ordering ideas. Without a good grasp of her ideas in
L1, Abou would have double difficulty in her L2, as Cummins suggests. I'm
inclined to think now that the trouble is also linguistic. One selects
and arranges one's ideas according to the conventions and vocabulary of
one's mother [-16-] tongue--as the "culture generale" and "linguistique,
encyclopedique" examples show. Yet grasp of a concept and the ability to
express it in L1 does not necessarily produce the ability to express it
in L2 even, as in Abou's case, with significant command of L2. Abou knew
what she meant to say but couldn't make it clear using the English translation
of French words.
Marina A. Aidman (1998). Early letter writing: Constructing bilingual
and bi-cultural identity.
Paper presented at the AARE 1998 Annual Conference http://www.aare.edu.au/98pap/aid98173.htm
[Accessed 6 July 2001]
Abstract
Letter writing can be an important and effective means of children's
written language development. Our study supports this argument made by
Collerson (1983) and Robinson, et al. (1992) who analysed children's English
mother tongue letter writing. In children of a LOTE background, writing
letters in their home language acquires a particular significance, as a
means of promoting their minority language competence as well as constructing
their bilingual and bi-cultural identity (Taft 1981; Norton 1995, 1997,
1998). Our study demonstrates that this is so by examining a bilingual
child's letters in both her languages written over the first four years
of primary schooling. Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday 1994) has been
used for a detailed linguistic analysis.
Further Resources:
TESL-EJ http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/index.html
The Systemic Meaning Modelling Group http://minerva.ling.mq.edu.au/smmghome.htm
[Accessed 6 July 2001]
L. Unsworth (nd) Relating visual literacy to a functional model of language.
Training
& Development. http://www.tdd.nsw.edu.au/yoursay/topic001/unswor/u6visu.htm[Accessed
6 July 2001]
Len Unsworth (nd) Using grammar to develop critical literacy. Training
& Development. http://www.tdd.nsw.edu.au/yoursay/topic001/unswor/u5gramm.htm[Accessed
6 July 2001]
|
You
have now completed the topic and the subject -
very
best wishes
Joan
Phillip, Pauline Jones & Team
|
PS I hope
you have learnt as much from reading this subject as I have learnt in writing
it. No doubt you are as exhausted as I feel now, and that at times you
will have felt trapped and tied down and wanted to run away and spend time
with your families and friends. In the end the effort is worthwhile. Have
a wonderful Christmas break
PPS Recently
I
was discussing Penny McKay's article with an American university visitor,
and lamenting that while the United States language policies seemed to
support a genuinely pluralist society, Australia was obsessed with normative
assessments without even using them for diagnosis of students needs. Carlos
(who was partly educated in a truly bilingual school in Cuba) indicated
that the American situation is more ambiguous than it appears. The he suddenly
said, "An old Vermont farmer once said, "You don't fatten a lamb just by
weighing it." It seemed pertinent to the issues of Australian national
literacy assessments.
Have a wonderful Christmas
Joan
Oh! Please
post to the Forum!
*