SFL praxis in U.S. teacher education: a critical literature review

Abstract

This literature review analyzes the influences of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in U.S. teacher education from 2000 to 2019. First, we describe how SFL has been contextualized in United States in response to changing demographics, new technologies, policies, and the impacts of globalization. Second, we outline our methodology, which yielded 136 publications from the fields of literacy research, teacher education, and applied linguistics. Third, we present four findings: (1) the main vehicles for introducing U.S. teachers to SFL theory and practice are grant-funded university-school partnerships, courses in colleges of education, and self-contained professional development workshops; (2) most interventions focused on introducing teachers to functional metalanguage and text analysis, with fewer focusing on multimodality; (3) SFL interventions positively influenced teachers’ level of semiotic awareness and ability to design focused disciplinary literacy instruction. Teachers’ critical awareness and confidence for literacy instruction were influenced to a lesser extent; and (4) more sustained investments in teacher professional development led to greater gains in teacher learning as well as a critical awareness of the relationship between disciplinary literacy practices and ideologies at work in K-12 schools. Based on these findings, we conclude with three recommendations for the future of critical SFL praxis in teacher education.