This book addresses Mohans (1986) concept of a social practice, an educational activity that can be considered as action in a frame of meaning, or a knowledge framework (KF). The KF, grounded in systemic functional linguistics, is a heuristic that provides both a theoretical framework for researching the language of social practices and a springboard for organizing lessons that can help teachers bring explicit language development into content teaching. This volume brings together the latest research on using Mohans SFL-based theory at institutions of higher learning.
One outcome of this book is to show how a functional approach to language research can be a major tool for research in the experiential tradition of John Dewey who, as a pragmatist, regarded knowledge functionally as arising from an active adaptation of the human organism to its environment (www.iep.utm.edu/dewey). Another outcome is to illustrate the complexity of the role activities play in education.
This is the first book to examine the linguistic demands of the activities that occur in higher education. It provides empirically grounded examples of how Mohans work is being implemented in universities worldwide. It thus adds to conversations addressing the use of educational activities to teach and describe disciplinary literacy and the integrated development of language and content.
1. A Knowledge Framework Approach to Linguistic Research and Teaching
Tammy Slater
2. Corpus-based Knowledge Framework Analysis: A Deliberation of Methodology
and Outcomes
Elena Cotos, Iowa State University
3. Student Academic Writing: Situated Enactment of Genre, Argument, and
Knowledge Structure
Constant Leung, Kings College London
4. Perceived Effectiveness of AWE: Focus on Forms, Focus on Meaning, and
Interactional Modifications
Aysel Saricaoglu (University of Ankara), Evgeny Chukharev-Hudilainen (Iowa
State University) & Hui-Hsien Feng (National Kaohsiung University of Science
and Technology, Taiwan)
5. Coaching as Activity/Social Practice
Carolyn Kristjansson (Trinity Western University, Canada) & Bernard Mohan
(University of British Columbia)
6. Voting as a Social Activity: Voter Suppression, the Common Good, and
Evidence
Bernard Mohan
7. Disciplinary Differences in the Knowledge Structures in University Lecture
Slides
Zhi Li, University of Saskatchewan
8. Causal Explanations in Physics: A Functional Analysis of EFL Lectures and
Textbook Excerpts
Kimberly Becker (Iowa State University) & Xiaoping Liang (California State
University, Long Beach)
9. Online Teacher Training Using the Knowledge Framework and the
TeachingLearning Cycle for Literacy Development
Stephanie Link (Oklahoma State University) & Jesse Gleason (Southern
Connecticut State University)
10. Opportunities and Challenges of the KF for In-service Teacher
Development: A Case Study
Jingzi Huang & Margaret Berg, both at University of Northern Colorado
11. The Knowledge Framework for Building Teacher Awareness of Language in
Content Instruction
Jesse Gleason & Elena Schmitt (Southern Connecticut State University)
12. Learning and Using the Knowledge Framework as a Language and Content
Teaching Unit Project: A Case Study
Amy Walton & Gulbahar H. Beckett, both at Iowa State University
13. The Role of Functional Recasts in EFL Undergraduate Students Learning of
Intercultural Communication
Masaki Kobayashi (Kanda University of International Studies, Tokyo) & Emi
Kobayashi (Kyoai Gakuen University)
14. Enhancing Disciplinary Learning Experience through an Adjunct
English-Across-the-Curriculum Model
Esther Tong, Cecilia Pun, & Phoebe Siu, all at Hong Kong Polytechnic
University
15. Implementing the KF in a Content-based Language Teaching Classroom
Hong Ma (Zhejiang University) & Jian Zhou (Hangzhou Normal University)
16. Knowledge Structures as Designs: Tracing Patterns Across Textual
Trajectories
Diane Potts, Lancaster University
Tammy Slater, Associate Professor Emerita at Iowa State University, draws upon analytic methods from Systemic Functional Linguistics, including Mohans Knowledge Framework, to investigate and understand the development of academic language through content-based and project-based teaching and learning, particularly in ways that inform and advance the field of literacy education for English language learners. She has published in several journals, including Linguistics and Education and Theory into Practice, and has co-authored chapters in several books. With Gulbahar Beckett, she edited Global Perspectives on Project-based Language Learning, Teaching, and Assessment: Key Approaches, Technology Tools, and Frameworks (2020).
