LLED 360

As I was reading through this article I had a flashback to my first year at UBC. In one of my Art Studies courses, the theme of the course was on global citizenship and identity. The second reading was one of the densest I have ever read. It was so convoluted and about borders and international law, a topic that we were not familiar with at the time. I remember my professor took great effort and care to make sure that my fellow students and I could decipher and navigate through the dense and thick forest of academic jargonese that we had to wander through. She taught us not only how to navigate through it, but to “handle language in new ways” as the article says, so that we could write and speak in a way that illustrated our grasp of the language. She essentially was engaging in a form of Functional Language Analysis (FLA), particularly focusing on those three dimensions of experiential, textual, and interpersonal meaning. The effort our professor put in was well worth it as it laid the groundwork for the rest of my undergraduate career, but also in all the reading and analyzing I would do in my daily life. Therefore I can see how important FLA can be for secondary classrooms too, as students begin to encounter academic language and articles.

As a Social Studies teacher candidate, I would want my students to always be aware and familiar with the ins and outs of language. I think in my experiences earlier on in high school, much if not all the textual exploration we had was focused on deciphering the experiential meaning. Over time however, I learned to grapple and grasp the textual and interpersonal meanings as well. Therefore I wish to be able to teach my students how to do this, to realize the importance of “who is doing the story telling” or “how does the author seek to influence the reader” as important and consistent questions to ask. I want to be able to do this with their own writing. I think by learning how to create language and use language in these multidimensional ways––it will better teach them how to read language. As they engage in textual deconstruction, they also learn how to masterfully engage in language construction. And I hope I can be a co-constructor with them in the beginning phases as they find their own methods and voice.

Michael Yang

Upon the completion of my readings this week, I was reminded of my own personal experiences learning English as a second language. I can relate to the “background-school disconnect” (Zwiers 4) feeling that other diversity students mentioned in this chapter had as well. Culturally, I always stood out in my class, and to make matters worse I felt a huge barrier was set between mainstreamer classmates and me because I lacked the language skills to communicate with them. Reflecting back on those moments today, I completely agree with how important it is for teachers to take special notice of the struggles that engulf non-mainstream students in learning English, and to not let them fall victim to their invisible criteria. By developing a solid support system in their school, it provides these students the confidence they need to improve and to help them accept that it is okay to struggle a little before succeeding. It is important for students to improve on their academic English as soon as possible because their struggles in this language could eventually affect their performance in other classes. The last thing any teacher wants to see is their students giving up in science or socials because they can barely understand the lessons. I also believe that parents play a crucial role in this support system. By enrolling their child in extracurricular activities or providing them with educational novels and/or T.V channels, it helps to facilitate learning English even outside of the classroom setting. I was lucky to have teachers who noticed my struggles and set aside ESL class time for me, and parents who provided me with a broad range of extracurricular activities after school. This allowed me to build on my English skills, academically and socially. I definitely noticed a change in my performance and behavior at school after I passed my ESL course. Prior to passing, I was shy and extremely quiet in class. I never wanted to raise my hand and contribute in class discussions as I feared my accent was still obvious, or I would form sentences that were grammatically incorrect. While every student’s learning style and response to strategies is different, school support and extracurricular activities served to be the appropriate combination for me to develop my social, knowledge, and linguistic capital.

My discipline is in the sciences, and I have spent the past few years tutoring in this area. A strategy I have found very helpful in describing complex scientific topics to my students is by relating it something they already know. From this week’s reading, I was able to identify them as the use of metaphors, analogies, and personification. The key to helping a student understand a concept they just can’t grasp or visualize is to find common grounds through which you, as an educator, may start building the connection.

As a Mainstream English speaker, I often do not take notice of the challenges that face ELLs on a daily basis and particularly in academic language. However, this does not mean that, on reflection, I cannot relate or identify with the experiences of these learners. This was evidenced as I read the Functional Language Analysis article. As I read the various examples of different academic content texts I remembered encountering a period of adjustment when I entered junior high school and had to read and comprehend texts written in content-specific academic language. I remember having to read sections of these texts multiple times in order to deconstruct and reorganize the information — in order to make sense of it. Sometimes this still happens when reading articles and textbooks written by subject experts for areas other than my own. I did not have a specifically laid out method of deconstructing the text, such as Functional Language Analysis, with which to do so, but because of my knowledge base and generally strong comprehension abilities, I managed to make sense of the text by drawing on my current metacognitive and metalinguistic skills. However, for ELLs and others who do not have a very strong base in these ways of processing information, it must be very frustrating and seemingly impossible to unscramble the meaning of such texts. This is why I am very interested in this prescribed formula of language analysis and would like to explore this method of deconstruction in my content classroom.

In the study of theatre, students will encounter a wide variety of ways in which authors present information. They will read plays and scripts in which dialogue and stage directions, character details and setting descriptions are laid out and identified in specific ways. Also, they will engage with textbooks and similar academic texts that discuss the history of theatre through the ages. They will also meet texts that attempt to convey modern styles of acting, set design etc. and instruct students on how to explore and achieve these results themselves. Often in these instructional texts much metaphoric and abstract language is used to help the students engage in sensory explorations. These texts will each provide their own specific challenges to ELLs and I will attempt to use functional analysis in my classroom, as much as possible, to demystify these texts.

Theatrical history textbooks are the most obvious texts with which to use this method. They are written very similarly to conventional history texts, referring to dates, important figures and events. Therefore, these texts have frequent nominalizations, such as the “futurist movement”* which represents many events, people, and plays by the statement of two simple words (Fang and Schleppegrell 589). As with other history texts, judgments and personal opinion are also present in these texts. For example, “From the oppression of the dark ages, theatre was reborn, by the very institution that had decimated it—the church…”* As Fang and Schleppegrell suggest, the choices of words and their position with respect to each other are very important in helping the students understand the point of view of the author and the judgements the author is making about the “actors” (the church, the theatre etc.) (589). The students can analyse the processes of “doing” (decimated), “being”, “sensing” and “saying” and those “participants” (the church) involved to learn the experiential meaning of the text. They can also use the mood (declarative), modality and attitudinal vocabulary of the words (decimated) to find their interpersonal meaning. Through analysis of the pronouns, synonyms, antonyms and conjunctions students can understand the textual meaning of the text as well (Fang and Schleppegrell 592).

Through the exploration of Functional Language Analysis, it is my intention to help my students learn the skills to decipher historical and creative language so that they will be better equipped to extract knowledge from the theatrical texts that they will read.

Works Cited:

Fang, Z., & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2010). Disciplinary literacies across content areas: Supporting secondary reading through functional language analysis. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53, 587–597. doi:10.1598/JAAL.53.7.6

*These are my own examples.

Melanie Reich

Fang and Schleppegrell’s discussion of using functional analysis when approaching specialized academic language highlighted some key elements that I had not yet considered. Along with the difficulty of new vocabulary and concepts that academic texts can introduce, there is always a specific style, tone, or voice associated with various areas of study. Common expressions, tendencies to compact as much information as possible using new and complicated word and sentence structure, and general expectation of audience familiarity add to the entire challenge of adapting to other levels of language.

As a math specialist, I have always had a perception of mathematics as a universal language that needed few words to describe involved problems. This statement in itself is my bias, as well as something that I must now be very careful to approach with my students. Perhaps the greatest barrier does not lie in understanding the methods to solve the problems, but being able to confidently decide what the problem needs to be solved. As the article details, one small sentence expects the reader to hold knowledge from several areas of the subject so as to be able to formulate the problem never mind attempt at its solution. The weight in terms of multiple definitions and contextual connotations that math terminology holds is often taken as understood and mastered. Thus if a student encounters a challenging or unfamiliar problem, he/she should be able to call on their past knowledge of what the pieces of the question describe to build a suitable response.

Now being able to recognize my own personal assumption, I must now work to not carry forward into the classroom. Adopting the techniques that were outlined in the article could greatly help me assist my future students in becoming comfortable and confident with managing such language. After all, as teachers we cannot expect answers from our students if they cannot first understand what is the question!

Fang and Shleppegrell’s article demonstrate that it is important for educators to come up with discipline-specific ways of using language in order to help them succeed in the classroom.  I am in complete agreement with them.  Fang and Schleppegrell discuss how functional language analysis allows students to identify language patterns and associated meanings that are specific to certain disciplines.  By doing this, students can gain a more thorough understanding as to how language works in their discipline-specific setting and can help them comprehend and critique texts (Fang and Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 588).

I think that functional language analysis is important in any classroom setting by giving students a framework for understanding a variety of texts from disciplinary backgrounds.  For example, last week in class we discussed the importance of teaching brick and mortar words to our students in order to help them understand the language of a certain discipline.  By teaching students the meaning and importance of these words in the classroom, they will have a better concept of why certain words are being used in their teacher’s lesson.  Furthermore, demonstrating how language operates across specific disciplines shows adolescents how “content experts use language in characteristic ways to present information, engage in interpretation, and create specialized texts” (Fang and Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 591).

I also believe that teaching students discipline specific ways of using language will make the discipline seem more approachable.  What I mean by this is that students will probably be more interested in their work if they have a strong understanding of the meaning of the words used in that particular discipline.  Discipline-specific learning will also help students see connections, patterns and differences between the languages being used in each of their classes which can then be applied to their lives both academically and outside of the school setting.  This is extremely valuable for the students because it will help improve their critical thinking skills and ability to make connections when problem solving and learning in society.

I think that the functional language analysis approach will be extremely useful for me to adapt my own classroom when I become a teacher.  By assisting students in understanding discipline-specific language in my classroom, they will discover how this language transfers into other areas of their life.  It will assist them in having a successful experience in my class by giving them the basic knowledge needed to understand each lesson and the expectations required of them.

By: Erin Milne

Since LLED 360 first began I had been wondering exactly what the course would be about. It wasn’t until last classes demonstration that I started to have glimpses of what it was all about. The demonstration was to partner up with another classmate who was not in your same cohort and try and get them to draw something that was related to your specific field of expertise. I being a Theatre cohort paired up with a student from Social Studies. He had asked me to draw China and I had asked him to draw a Proscenium Arch. The amount of struggle, although it was fun, was surprising! I did not think it would be such a challenge to essentially have my partner draw a wall with a large hole in the middle and I knew this was because of my inability to effectively convey what I was trying to describe. After class I had reflected on the class and understood that situations would often arise like these and that was a hurdle that I will have to deal with. I just did not know how often these situations would occur and it couldn’t have been more apparent the following day.

After a class the following day a large group, which included myself, met outside to discuss a video project that we were going to work on. The group comprised of two different cohorts, Theatre and English. One classmate, whom is a fellow theatre student teacher, was discussing with the group on how we should organize the video sequences and to do that a storyboard would be an effective way to organize. As he spoke he paused briefly and asked, “does everyone know what a storyboard is?” As he was speaking I had understood all the terminology he was referring to being immersed in it myself and did not think twice about whether or not others knew as well. I responded to his question, “yes” as did others from the theatre group but everyone else remained silent! No one knew! It blew me away! I also thought it was great that the gentleman speaking could sense that others were confused by what he was saying and took the time to make sure everyone was on the same page.

It was a simple situation outside the classroom and controlled demonstrations that I really began to understand what LLED 360 will be about and the effectiveness it will have on me as I pursue my goal to become a Theatre teacher! Looking forward to the year ahead and the challenges it will bring! Even if it is just describing what a Proscenium Arch is.

As a biology teacher, I am well aware that this discipline requires secondary students to understand and develop a large repertoire of scientific terminology that may be completely novel to them. Along with this accumulation of technical vocabulary, students are also expected to understand complex concepts and relationships which are typically presented in densely packed language. In this respect, Fang & Schleppegrell’s (2010) suggestion for teachers to walk their students through academic language patterns specific to the discipline is effective in promoting student learning in the long run. In my future classroom I hope to incorporate periodic lessons focusing specifically on how to effectively read academic texts through using literacy exercises similar to the ones provided by Fang & Schleppegrell (2010).

In one of my undergraduate linguistic courses, we were introduced to Functional Language Analysis and initially, because the concept was foreign to us, we found it to be quite difficult. However, breaking the language down into workable pieces allows more efficient processing of information; once a student masters this procedure of breaking down dense text into small sections, he or she would be able to apply this technique across disciplines which would serve as a catalyst for further development in academic literacy.

Something I have found students struggle with in particular in understanding academic text is the use of synonyms or synonymic phrases to describe the same thing. Often these struggling students only need to be made aware that this is an academic technique used to avoid repetition and to introduce new vocabulary (usually in the form of a nominalization). If students are more aware of this pattern, they may be more conscious of these equivalent pieces of information when they read, allowing for more efficient information processing and organization.

Lucy Yang

After reading the article “Disciplinary literacies across content areas: Supporting secondary reading through functional language analysis,” I was reflecting on how I could adopt the ideas and methods of functional language analysis in an art classroom. I am always looking for ways to connect my learning to practicalities in my own disciple. The reality is that there is not a lot of reading that happens in an art curriculum. Most of the focus is on the production of art. When I think about the challenges a secondary student might face in my classroom as an ELL, I can predict that it would be with expressing themselves verbally when critiquing art and understanding others in the same way. Another difficulty might come if I ask them to produce some written work in response to their art.

As I was reading the article I translated some of the recommendations into possibilities for developing language within the space of an art critique. Specifically, I will deconstruct table 1 on page 593. This table suggests the process of working through functional language analysis. It asks the reader to analyze the content, organization and style of the author. The same can be done for a work of art. A student can look at the experiential meaning of a piece through the who, what, where, when and why presented in the content. Secondly, the textual meaning can be deconstructed through the specific use of design principles in the composition. Thirdly, the impersonal meaning can be explored though the style choices and cohesive mood expressed by the piece.

A piece of art can be read in a similar way to a piece of writing. As an art teacher it will be my goal to build the academic language of my students through the use of a format like this in a critique, and the gradual introduction of brick and mortar words that the students can use to express themselves both verbally and textually.

I believe that Fang and Schleppegrell really hit the nail on the head (pardon the figurative language) when they urge educators to make discipline specific ways of using language explicit to their students in order to help them better engage with the knowledge presented to them at school and to help them develop literacies across academic content areas. I know I have experienced many moments during my undergraduate degree where the readings were saturated with academic language that was completely foreign to me and the sentences were so complicated I often had to read through them multiple times just to attempt a guess at their meanings. There is nothing like an unfriendly, structurally complicated sentence laced with jargon to make an individual’s eyes glaze over and turn them off of a subject.

In order to minimize these types of negative outcomes from getting students to interact with academic language, they need to be taught a way to successfully wade through all of the academia. I am very attracted to the functional language analysis discussed in the article because it appears to give students the tools they need to apply the approach on their own to multiple disciplines.

Because of the practicality of this approach across subjects, I would argue that developing these skills in students should not be the responsibility of teachers in any particular discipline but rather a team effort where all teachers do their best to show students how to make sense of the complex academic language that they will increasingly be presented with. Further to that, I do not believe that these are skills that students need to wait to reach secondary school to begin developing. It makes sense, to me, that students would begin to be familiarized with functional language analysis, or some other method, before the point in their education that they will have such a strong need for them. Perhaps middle school would be a more effective time to introduce students to these ideas so that they can have a strong enough foundation to easily adapt to the new rigors of high school. However, that is not to say that secondary school teachers should then have no responsibility for the development and solidification of these forms of analysis. When I say that the development of these tools should be a team effort, I mean that it should be so throughout the entirety of a students educational career in order to best serve the needs of the students.

The topic I found interesting is the features of academic grammar. I remember that uneasy feeling I experienced first year in undergrad when I began to read the academic textbooks, articles and papers. It took a number of years for me to become accustomed to reading academic writing. The features of academic writing are long sentences, passive voice, nominalization and condensed complex messages. Students need to be taught to break down clauses and to focus on the main point of the sentence. While I believe it is important for ELL learners who are just starting to learn English to be aware of how clauses function, I would not choose readings that involve strings of clauses just to get them warmed up. I feel that would likely frustrate them, just as I was. We need to gradually increase the doses of clauses and not overburden the ELLs right off the bat. Besides, I personally feel some long sentences are simply unnecessarily complicated. Complex sentences with a lot of subordinating conjunctions can be broken down into smaller parts. The point is whatever subject(s) we teach, our lessons (and choice of text, especially for English class) need to adjust to the student’s level of academic language; the lessons need to be student-centered.

When I reached third year, I met this English professor who discouraged us to use the passive voice because, according to her handout, her “attention span is restricted by this practice” since “it is used to make the paper sound as though it is written with authority”. She points out the actual effect of using the passive voice is putting the reading process in slow motion. I cannot agree more. So there, even professors who use academic language do not necessarily all agree on the taken-for-granted rules!

Nominalization is wonderful. As the text says, the purpose is to pack higher levels of abstraction into one sentence. I feel it is important for ELLs to learn how verbs and nouns convert to adjectives, and also how they are nominalized. They need to be aware of the different forms of a word in order to extract the abstract meanings packed in the sentence.

Finally, I like this quote: “Students can try to be overly academic at the expense of clarity. We all have seen papers and books whose authors have overcomplicated the language of a text or speech to the point of sounding pretentious or stilted. They use sentences that are too long, they use too many clauses and ‘SAT words’, and the message ends up being too concentrated or muddy to make sense to the reader or listener.” (p.39). Our objective in teaching ELLs academic language is not to have them embellish their writing with unnecessary clauses and dangling nominalized terms that obscure the meaning. Our objective is help them to express their ideas, logic and thoughts with clarity and precision, whether on an academic paper or in formal oral speech.