Greta Perris will be presenting her dissertation proposal on Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 12:00PM. The presentation will be in-person in the LLED Multipurpose Room.
All are welcome to attend.
Supervisor: Dr. Sandra Zappa-Hollman, Dr. Steven Talmy (co-supervisors), Dr. Kathryn Accurso
Title: Becoming an SFLer? An autoethnographic account of learning to teach EAP from a functional perspective
Abstract:
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a theory of language as a social semiotic and an appliable grammar that connects form and meaning to account for language variation across contexts (Halliday & Mathiessen, 2004). SFL-informed approaches to grammar instruction have been shown to be extraordinarily effective in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) settings where reading and writing disciplinary texts is key for multilingual learners’ academic language development (Duff, Zappa-Hollman & Ferreira, 2015; Monbec, 2018). However, SFL is a complex theory with a unique metalanguage that language teachers can find challenging to learn and apply in practice. ‘Becoming an SFler’ requires a changed view on language from a more traditional rule-based approach to a meaning-oriented functional one, and a significant increase in linguistic knowledge and technical terminology; this can make SFL comparatively difficult for novices to learn (Derewianka & Jones, 2010).
Workplace collaborations with more knowledgeable colleagues appear to play a key role in helping EAP teachers overcome these challenges (Burns & Knox, 2005; Chun, 2014); yet, how expertise is developed in these collaborations is an aspect that has not been systematically researched.
In this autoethnographic study, I address this gap by examining my own journey teaching and learning innovative SFL-informed pedagogical approaches in interaction with peers in an EAP program at a Canadian university. The overarching research question of the dissertation is: how did peers contribute to my learning to teach EAP using SFL, while still a novice of the theory myself? The theoretical framework is informed by language socialization (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1986) and situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Alongside autoethnographic narratives, I draw on naturally-occurring data, including a robust corpus of digital communication, pedagogical artifacts used in situ, and a focus group interview. To analyze the data, I will use (reflexive) thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2012) and various forms of discourse analysis: I will use computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring, 2015) to interpret the role of digital interactions in developing expertise with peers; in turn, I will use membership categorization analysis (Baker, 2000) to examine the co-construction of particular kinds of teacher identity; and I will complement these analyses with occasioned semantics (Bilmes, 2010) and stance analysis (Heritage, 2012) to achieve a more nuanced, scaled identity categorization that also considers individuals’ positioning relative to their expertise.
The study has the potential to make several contributions to applied linguistics, topically and methodologically. Informal teacher collaborations for professional learning are a ubiquitous yet under-researched phenomenon; their legitimacy and value have not yet been fully recognized (Campion, 2016). The autoethnographic perspective in this study and discourse analysis of naturally occurring data open a rare window into examining how informal collaborations with peers can serve as a valuable source of professional and emotional support while continuing to develop expertise.