Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In schools and universities around the world, goals for teachers of English include helping students learn both English language and academic content presented in English, while supporting students to succeed in both real-world literacies and on high-stakes assessments. We argue that classroom instruction can be carefully designed with all these interests in mind. This session illustrates how socially grounded genre-based instruction (GBI) can be amplified using the tools of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to support learners’ language and literacy development in ways that allow them not only to learn how language and texts work, but also to gain access to the language of school and society. This approach helps teachers instruct and evaluate language and literacy learning to support students’ growth and prepare them for high-stakes tests. In our session, we relate stories of teachers in the US who have used GBI and SFL tools to modify their instruction in ways that any teacher can incorporate into day-to-day teaching of reading and writing. We show how preparation for tests can be a by-product of good literacy instruction rather than a central goal. The session will benefit teachers and teacher educators wishing to make literacy instruction more grounded in real-world practices.