10.2 Linguistic Expertise for Teaching English Lit...
In order to successfully implement a "linguistically informed, responsive, and embedded pedagogy" such as FLA, teachers need to develop a strong, explicit "linguistic subject knowledge" about English (Love, Macken-Horarik & Horarik, 2015; Myhill et al., 2012; Turkan et al., 2014). This knowledge encompasses at least three key areas: (a) an understanding of how language use varies across academic disciplines and tasks, (b) the ability to identify and interpret language features characteristic of various disciplinary discourses and academic genres, and (c) control over a metalanguage for engaging students in explicit discussion about the ways English is used in the texts they read and write (Fang, 2014b; Schleppegrell, 2020). More specifically, language users make different lexical and grammatical choices according to contextual factors such as purpose, topic, audience, and the role of language in the interaction. English teachers must be able to recognize these registerial differences and provide linguistic support that enables students to navigate, with ease and effectiveness, through academic tasks across disciplines. Similarly, because each discipline — and each genre in the discipline — draws on different constellations of lexical and grammatical features, teachers must be able to identify and explain these linguistic features in terms of their meanings, structures, functions, logic, and effects, and design tasks that support students' learning and use of these features in authentic reading and writing practices. In other words, they must be able to engage students in productive talks about how language works in the texts they read and model for them how to communicate in writing using discipline/genre-specific language.
To engineer this sort of instruction, teachers need a metalanguage, i.e., a language for talking about language. A meaning-based metalanguage can promote noticing and consciousness-raising about language among students, support modeling through exploration of the ways language constructs meaning in texts, stimulate interaction and talks that deepen students' engagement with language and content, facilitate a deeper understanding of content and the language that constructs this content, create synergistic links between students' first and second/foreign language and between reading and writing activities, allow explanatory precision and efficiency, enhance students' capacity to learn new language features, and serve as a powerful navigational tool that enables productive engagement with complex texts (Gebhard et al., 2013; Hu, 2010; Macken-Horarik, Love & Unsworth, 2011; Schleppegrell, 2013). SFL's functional grammar (see Chapter 2) offers a powerful metalanguage for exploring how language does its work in texts of different kinds. It enables teachers to engage students in "learning language" and "learning about language" while also "learning through language" across the different stages of schooling (e.g., elementary, secondary, tertiary). In short, a metalanguage based in functional grammar is a valuable resource for scaffolding students' language learning, literacy development, and knowledge building.
Having linguistic subject knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective literacy instruction. Teachers need to turn their explicit knowledge about language into linguistic know-how, i.e., the ability to use linguistic knowledge for pedagogical purposes. To this end, they need expertise in providing what Schleppegrell and O'Halloran (2011, p. 6) called "macro-scaffolding" and "micro-scaffolding". The macro-scaffolding expertise refers to the ability in planning challenging units of instruction that develop language, literacy, and content over time and engage students in active learning. This ability involves setting high expectations for students; creating a motivating classroom environment that builds on students' cultural/linguistic capitals and funds of knowledge; having clear curriculum goals and learning objectives; teaching learning strategies; encouraging reflections on learning; connecting reading, writing, speaking, and listening; using multiple forms of assessment; and providing ample opportunities to apply, review, and reinforce new skills, strategies, and knowledge.(https://www.daowen.com)
Micro-scaffolding expertise refers to the ability in supporting students' engagement with language, literacy, and content. This ability involves creating an atmosphere for trust and risk taking within a small community of learners; supporting group/collaborative work; engaging students in authentic communication tasks that motivate them and give them choices; asking high-level questions that enable students to apply new knowledge; encouraging participation; providing clear instructions, modeling, and presentation of new information; using multimodal representations; using appropriate technology; building on prior knowledge and experience; using flexible pacing; building bridges between everyday language and academic language; and giving constructive feedback. These practical abilities enable teachers to enact their linguistic subject knowledge in ways that connect with curriculum standards, motivate and engage students, and maximize learning outcomes.