Text-Based Research and Teaching


Book Description

Contributions in this book illustrate the many methods available for researching language in context and for the analysis of everyday text types. Each chapter highlights language as a resource for the expression of meanings—a social semiotic resource. Text analysis is used to reveal our capacity to formulate multiple meanings for participation in different social practices—in relationships, in work, in education and in leisure. The approach is applied in text-based teaching and in the critical analysis of public discourses. The texts come from different social spheres including banking, language classes, senate hearings, national tests and textbooks, and interior architecture. Text-based research makes a major contribution to Critical Discourse Analysis. The editors and authors of this book demonstrate the value of text analysis for awareness of the role of language for accountable citizenship and for teaching and learning. This book will be of interest to anyone researching in the fields of language learning and teaching, functional linguistics, multimodality, social semiotics, systemic functional linguistics, text-based teaching, and genre analysis, as well as literacy teachers and undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics, media and education.







Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education


Book Description

This book presents research initiatives by tutors involved in a content-based instruction context as part of the University Town writing programme, National University of Singapore, which is an interdisciplinary programme designed to teach first- and second-year undergraduate students how to conduct academic research and write evidence-based research papers. It presents research the tutors conducted within the dual fields of teaching discipline-specific content and developing students’ academic literacy. The book focuses mainly on pedagogy and material development in this context. It shares the tutors' scholarship of teaching and learning experiences from this programme through presenting action research from the classroom, demonstrating constructive cycles of praxis, which are then evaluated using student texts and student feedback. The book draws on academic research literature related to content-based instruction, as well as topics such as facilitating collaborative peer reviews of assignments, and critical thinking pedagogy. It covers how multi-disciplinary or multi-lingual classrooms of this genre can motivate students to conduct and write up research and provides an overview of how both content and academic literacy is combined at a high level of engagement from an Asian context.




Theory and Method in Higher Education Research


Book Description

This volume of Theory and Method in Higher Education Research contains analyses and discussions of, amongst others, relational working, corpus linguistics, data dialogues, instrumental variables, participatory pedagogy, diverse participation, policy discourse, quality management and knowledge structures of research.




A Functional Linguistic Perspective on Developing Language


Book Description

This volume offers a comprehensive account of language development from a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective, integrating theory and data from a wide range of research studies. The book begins by taking an in-depth look at SFL theory and its focus on texts, highlighting the metafunctional nature of language and the ways in which individuals’ repertoires of meaning-making resources develop as they interact with the world and with others. Grounded in an SFL approach, the successive chapters consider in turn the key stages of language development, from infancy to school settings to additional, second, and foreign language learning contexts. Each chapter incorporates a range of SFL studies to demonstrate shifts in language development across these stages, but also the discussion of other functional perspectives to examine the ways in which these different approaches inform one another. A concluding chapter considers the implications of these studies for future research as well as for pedagogical practices in literacy teaching. In its consideration of the relationship between SFL theory and its application to language development, this book will be key reading for students and scholars in Systemic Functional Linguistics, language and education, and literacy studies.




The Routledge Handbook of Language Education Curriculum Design


Book Description

Curriculum design options cover a continuum from regional and school-based programs to national and international frameworks. How does policy speak to practice? What have teacher-researchers discovered through in-classroom studies? Where do you begin to describe or measure ‘effective’ language education curriculum design? The Routledge Handbook of Language Education Curriculum Design presents a comprehensive collection of essays on these issues by 31 established practitioners and new researchers. Informed by experienced scholarship and fresh studies, this handbook shares international perspectives on language education from policy and curriculum to teacher training and future directions. The handbook addresses language education curriculum design across five sections: Language curriculum design: perspectives, policies and practices Designs across the curriculum Curriculum designs in language education Curriculum resources, evaluation and assessment Teacher education, research and future projects With contributions from Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Switzerland, Timor-Leste and more, the handbook represents the breadth of research into and the global implications for sound language education curriculum design. It considers equally the needs of students and policy makers from urban metropolises and remote communities. It is designed to reinvigorate discussions about education policy, curriculum management and the role of teacher-researchers.




Curriculum Design and Praxis in Language Teaching


Book Description

Curriculum Design and Praxis in Language Teaching presents a variety of methodologies and theoretical perspectives for current and future postsecondary instructors in the areas of linguistics, second-language acquisition, and world literatures. Offering valuable insights for instructors, the materials presented in this book integrate perspectives and resources from various target languages, world regions, and cultures into areas related to teaching and learning within the field of language. From critical assessments of the current academic curriculum to the fine-tuning of lesson planning, the essays in this collection address the innovative design and implementation of traditional, blended, and online language courses. Including inter-artistic approaches, case studies, and practical guides, this book provides theoretical and hands-on suggestions regarding how to mindfully reinforce students’ socio-cultural engagement and linguistic development both inside and outside of their language-learning classrooms. The innovative ideas for language pedagogy presented in this book – including implementing technology, enhancing engaged spaces of learning, and adapting to the ever-changing field of pedagogy – represent agile ways of blending old and new approaches to carry forward into twenty-first-century postsecondary classrooms.




Evidence-Based Faculty Development Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)


Book Description

Educational developers play a central role in supporting faculty members and informing their ongoing professional development programming through the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). SoTL presents an opportunity for faculty professional development that is action-oriented, evidence-based, and engaging for faculty members at any stage in their academic career. Evidence-Based Faculty Development Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a critical scholarly publication that examines SoTL research as a method of professional development for educational developers and higher education faculty members. Highlighting topics such as professional development, research ethics, and faculty engagement, this book is ideal for deans, professors, department chairs, academicians, administrators, educational developers, curriculum designers, researchers, and students.




The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics brings together internationally renowned scholars of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to provide a space for critical examination of the key tenets underpinning SFL theory. Uniquely, it includes description of the three main strands within contemporary SFL scholarship: Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar, Martin’s discourse semantics and Fawcett’s Cardiff Grammar. In five sections and thirty-eight interdisciplinary chapters, this is the first handbook to cover the whole architecture of SFL theory, comprising: the ontology and epistemology of SFL; SFL as a clause grammar; lexicogrammar below the clause, and SFL’s approach to constituency; SFL’s vibrant theory of language above the clause; and SFL as a theory of praxis with real-world applications. With a wide range of language examples, a comprehensive editors’ introduction and a section on further reading, The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics is an essential resource for all those studying and researching SFL or functional grammar.




Threshold Concepts on the Edge


Book Description

Since the first literature about the Threshold Concepts Framework was published in 2003, a considerable body of educational research into this topic has grown internationally across a wide range of disciplines and professional fields. Successful negotiation of a threshold concept can be seen as crossing boundaries into new conceptual space, or as a portal opening up new and previously inaccessible ways of thinking about something. In this unfamiliar conceptual terrain, fresh insights and perceptions come into view, and access is gained to new discourses. This frequently entails encounters with ‘troublesome knowledge’, knowledge which provokes a liminal phase of transition in which new understandings must be integrated and, importantly, prior conceptions relinquished. There is often double trouble, in that letting go of a prevailing familiar view frequently involves a discomfiting change in the subjectivity of the learner. We become what we know. It is a space in which the learner might become ‘stuck’. Threshold Concepts on the Edge, the fifth volume in a series on this subject, discusses the new directions of this research. Its six sections address issues that arise in relation to theoretical development, liminal space, ontological transformations, curriculum, interdisciplinarity and aspects of writing across learning thresholds.