Progress Report — 2014

Grammar and Praxis: investigating a grammatics for twenty-first century school English (2011–2014)

A theoretical framework for the introduction of knowledge about language (KAL) was developed in 2011 based on the project proposal and introduced in adapted form over the following two years. This is currently the basis of several research papers led by Macken-Horarik (see Macken-Horarik, et al, under review and Macken-Horarik & Unsworth under review in Publications). In 2011, the team worked with NSW and Victorian primary and secondary English teachers on the grammatics of narrative; in 2012 we adapted the toolkit to focus on a grammatics of persuasion with an additional emphasis on multimodal persuasion; and then in 2013 we introduce teachers to a grammatics of text response – exploring multimodal narratives with teachers and then interpretation of these in speech and writing. The school-based workshops included an average of fifteen primary and secondary teachers in Victoria and NSW (with a total of approximately thirty teachers each year). Although we aimed to develop a grammatics for writing (of narrative, argument and text response), our 2013 work included a substantial component of visual analysis. All teachers have responded to visual grammatics with enthusiasm and student data is very exciting in this arena as well. Most of the teachers in our project have remained in the project over three years and this has enabled us to collect some important longitudinal data from a core group of teachers in primary and secondary schools in both NSW and Victoria. Our teacher workshops, classroom observations and interviews with teachers as they wrestled with and re-shaped the grammatics has resulted in a robust and multi-dimensions model of teacher semiotic knowledge. In 2014 after an extension to the project timeline (following an extended period of illness for CI Macken-Horarik), the analysis of teacher and student data is nearly completed. We are currently (as of June, 2014) collecting the final data set for a national survey of teachers of English on their views on teaching knowledge about language. We will compare the findings from our national survey with data collected in 2013 from grammatics teachers. Currently, a suite of papers are being prepared for international journals such as English in Education, Onomázein and Research in the Teaching of English and for national journals such as English in Australia. Several papers have come out by Macken-Horarik, with several under review from all investigators. The following list begins with the most recent papers and moves back through time.

Conference addresses and seminar papers based on grammatics research project

In addition to this, CI Macken-Horarik, CI Love, CI Unsworth and SRA Sandiford have given several papers about the research at conferences. In 2011, the team presented research framework and some initial data from narrative at the International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC); then in 2012, Macken-Horarik, Love and Sandiford gave three papers at the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association Conference (ASFLA). In 2013, Macken-Horarik delivered the Garth Boomer address at the national conference of Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) and a plenary address at the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association Conference (ASFLA) in Melbourne. Late in 2013, she co-authored and presented a paper with Carmel Sandiford and with Len Unsworth at the ALSFAL Congress in Chile from which two papers have been produced (see Macken-Horarik & Unsworth, under review) and Macken-Horarik & Sandiford, in prep). In 2014, Macken-Horarik gave a plenary address about the findings and the emerging framework for exploring teacher knowledge about language at the International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC) in Mendoza, Argentina. Findings have been disseminated at workshops and seminars at several universities (e.g. UNE and ACU at both Sydney and Melbourne campuses) and at University of Sydney in 2013). Several school teachers from NSW and Victoria who were involved in the grammatics project also presented their findings at ASFLA conference in 2013.