Inservice teachers’ perception of a language-based approach to Content Area Reading

Abstract

Recent spotlight on adolescent literacy has once again put content area reading at the forefront of discussion. A recurring theme in this discussion is the call for new approaches that engage students in 'close, attentive' reading of richly complex content area texts. One such approach is functional language analysis, or FLA (Fang and Schleppegrell, 2008, 2010). Although the approach has garnered considerable interest among literacy scholars, it is less clear how it is perceived by teachers. This study explored 39 inservice teachers' perception of FLA. The teachers, who enrolled in an online content area reading course, were asked to read and respond to a textbook that describes FLA. Their responses were analysed using a constant comparative method that is inductive, data driven, and iterative. The analysis revealed that the teachers were interested in but apprehensive about the linguistically informed approach. The finding suggests that successful implementation of FLA in content area reading instruction requires that teachers develop deep, overt knowledge about language and be provided ongoing support.