Longitudinal Study of EFL Students Using the Systemic Functional Linguistics Method

Akiko Nagao

doi:10.5539/ies.v10n11p47

Abstract

This study examined the progress of English as a foreign language (EFL) writers using the instructional framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and the communities of practice (CoPs) model. The study participants comprised 11 first-year undergraduate students in Japan with intermediate-level English proficiency who were exposed to SFL in a single EFL classroom (CoP). The participants’ genre understanding and meaning-making decisions when writing discussion essays were studied over two semester-long courses. To do so, their developmental changes were analyzed using pre- and post-instructional writing tasks. In particular, their ability to convey interpersonal meaning, such as through the use of modal verbs, was examined and compared between the pre- and post-tasks. To triangulate the findings, participants’ genre awareness in relation to discussion essays was also examined using in-depth qualitative analysis of their self-reflective texts and peer assessments, based on a grounded theory approach. In the pre-writing task, it was apparent that the learners lacked understanding of the components of discussion essay writing. However, analysis of their post-instructional tasks revealed that most had begun to apply the language components required to convey interpersonal meaning in their discussion genre texts. These results suggest that the changes in learner’s genre awareness and knowledge affected the lexicogrammatical features they used when writing discussion essays. Thus, this study concludes that applying the SFL framework to writing instruction enhanced EFL learners’ awareness of textual meaning and their understanding of the function of discussion essay texts.

Highlights

By exposing Japanese learners to the instructional framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and the theoretical framework of communities of practice (CoPs), this study investigated the writing proficiency and genre awareness of English as foreign language (EFL) writers
The SFL and genre-based approach to language learning enable learners to connect the lexicogrammatical features of texts with their purposes (Nishijo, 2017) and the benefits of applying the SFL approach to academic language lie in the teaching methodology, which includes deconstructing linguistic structures, a feature that makes the linguistic expectations of academic language explicit to learners and teachers (O’Donnell, 2011)
This study examined the performance of undergraduate EFL learners on SFL genre-based reading and writing tasks during a one-year course, and was guided by the following research questions: (1) How do Japanese EFL learners’ lexicogrammatical choices when writing discussion essays change over two semesters?

Summary

Introduction

By exposing Japanese learners to the instructional framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and the theoretical framework of communities of practice (CoPs), this study investigated the writing proficiency and genre awareness of English as foreign language (EFL) writers. Aguirre-Muñoz, Park, Amabisca, and Boscardin (2009) found that learners tend to “produce mere recounts of temporal events, lacking analysis of the events in terms of how they reveal character traits. This is evidenced by the overuse of action verbs (and underuse of mental verbs) and lack of modality” The SFL and genre-based approach to language learning enable learners to connect the lexicogrammatical features of texts with their purposes (Nishijo, 2017) and the benefits of applying the SFL approach to academic language lie in the teaching methodology, which includes deconstructing linguistic structures, a feature that makes the linguistic expectations of academic language explicit to learners and teachers (O’Donnell, 2011)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion