Presenter: Dr. Eszter Szenes, The University of Sydney, Australia
Date and Time: Thursday, October 25, 2018, 10:00 – 11:30 AM
Location: Ponderosa Commons Oak House, Multipurpose Room 2012
Renovating genre-based pedagogy in disciplinary literacy instruction: Integrating semantic waves into the Teaching-Learning Cycle
In this presentation I will illustrate the value of pursuing interdisciplinary collaborations for content and language integrated disciplinary literacy development in tertiary contexts. Specifically, I will demonstrate how the notion of ‘semantic waves’ from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (Maton, 2013, 2014) has informed the ‘Sydney School’ genre-based pedagogy known as the Teaching-Learning Cycle (TLC) (Rothery, 1994, 1996; Rose & Martin, 2012) at The University of Sydney Learning Centre. Based on what Martin (2015) calls “having a common problem to solve” (p. 57), systemic-functional linguists have continued to have constructive interdisciplinary dialogues over several decades with social realist scholars. One of these common problems concerns the nature of disciplinary knowledge-building across a wide range of disciplines. I will highlight examples of applications of semantic waves from faculty-based disciplinary contexts such as Education and Social Work, from deconstructing assignment questions and modelling successful student writing to independent control of disciplinary genres and self-assessment. By demonstrating the pedagogical value of integrating semantic waves into the steps of the Teaching-Learning Cycle for scaffolding tertiary students’ disciplinary literacies, I show how this innovation has resulted in the renovation of the Sydney-school genre-based pedagogy through an interdisciplinary approach.
Dr. Eszter Szenes is a linguist at the Learning Centre, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) and Registrar Portfolio, University of Sydney. Her current multi-disciplinary research projects focus on embedding disciplinary and professional literacy development into the curriculum and exploring the knowledge practices of critical thinking and reflective writing in a range of academic disciplines such as Education and Social Work, Business and European Studies. Her work (both research and pedagogy) primarily draws on the theoretical foundations and methodologies of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory in the sociology of education.
Light refreshments will be served. No RSVP necessary. All are welcome.
This talk will take place on the traditional, unceded, and occupied territories of the Musqueam people.