Building Science Teacher Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge with SFL

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter analyzes one high school science teacher’s development of disciplinary linguistic knowledge (DLK) for the purpose of meeting the civil rights of multilingual students in his English-dominant classroom. First, the chapter offers a brief description of the theoretical underpinnings of DLK and our conception of teachers’ professional knowledge development. Second, we outline our ethnographic methods for tracing the focal teacher’s DLK development. Third, drawing on six years of data, we present findings which suggest four stages of DLK development: (1) learning functional metalanguage to “see” classroom discourse in new ways; (2) applying functional metalanguage to develop conscious knowledge of official literacy practices in high-school science; (3) applying functional metalanguage to develop conscious knowledge of multilingual students’ literacy practices in science class; and (4) experimenting with language-focused curriculum design and implementation for unique contexts. Finally, we discuss what changes to practice emerged from this process and had staying power over time, as well as the implications of our findings for the practice of science teacher education and professional development.KeywordsSecondary teacher educationProfessional developmentScience educationDisciplinary literacySystemic functional linguisticsCritical language awareness