Progress Report for ARC Discovery Project (2011-2014)
Discovery Project Title: Grammar and praxis: investigating a grammatics for
21st century school English (DP110104309)
Project Leader & Chief Investigator Mary Macken-Horarik (University of New
England)
Chief Investigator Kristina Love (Australian Catholic University)
Chief Investigator Len Unsworth (Australian Catholic University)
Senior Research Associate Dr Carmel Sandiford (Australian Catholic University)
Project Summary (as per original application)
In a complex communicational environment and at the dawn of an Australian
curriculum, English teachers and students need new kinds of knowledge about
language (KAL). Our project will investigate new demands on KAL through
‘grammatics’ – a metalanguage informed by grammar but taken in new directions. In
a series of classroom trials at four year levels and in diverse classrooms, we will
examine the effect of grammatics on teachers’ and students' knowledge and knowhow. In particular, we will explore the effect of grammatics on students' written and
multimodal compositions. The project will provide crucial evidence about what kinds
of praxis yield what kinds of KAL and how this can transform the knowledge base of
school English.
Progress Report for 2014
A theoretical framework for the introduction of knowledge about language (KAL)
was developed in 2011 based on the project proposal and introduced in adapted form
over the following two years. This is currently the basis of several research papers led
by Macken-Horarik (see Macken-Horarik, et al, under review and Macken-Horarik &
Unsworth under review). In 2011, the team worked with NSW and Victorian primary
and secondary English teachers on the grammatics of narrative; in 2012 we adapted
the toolkit to focus on a grammatics of persuasion with an additional emphasis on
multimodal persuasion; and then in 2013 we introduce teachers to a grammatics of
text response – exploring multimodal narratives with teachers and then interpretation
of these in speech and writing. The school-based workshops included an average of
fifteen primary and secondary teachers in Victoria and NSW (with a total of
approximately thirty teachers each year). Although we aimed to develop a grammatics
for writing (of narrative, argument and text response), our 2013 work included a
substantial component of visual analysis. All teachers have responded to visual
grammatics with enthusiasm and student data is very exciting in this arena as well.
Most of the teachers in our project have remained in the project over three years and
this has enabled us to collect some important longitudinal data from a core group of
teachers in primary and secondary schools in both NSW and Victoria. Our teacher
workshops, classroom observations and interviews with teachers as they wrestled with
and re-shaped the grammatics has resulted in a robust and multi-dimensions model of
teacher semiotic knowledge. In 2014 after an extension to the project timeline
(following an extended period of illness for CI Macken-Horarik), the analysis of
teacher and student data is nearly completed. We are currently (as of June, 2014)
collecting the final data set for a national survey of teachers of English on their views
on teaching knowledge about language. We will compare the findings from our
national survey with data collected in 2013 from grammatics teachers. Currently, a
suite of papers are being prepared for international journals such as English in
Education, Onomázein and Research in the Teaching of English and for national
journals such as English in Australia. Several papers have come out by MackenHorarik, with several under review from all investigators.
Research publications published or under review
1. Macken-Horarik, M. Love, K. & Unsworth, L. (2011)
A grammatics ‘good enough’ for school English in the 21st century: Four challenges
in realising the potential. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. 34, (1), 9-21.
2. Macken-Horarik, M. (2012)
Why school English needs a ‘good enough’ grammatics (and not more grammar).
Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education, 19 (2), 179-194.
3. Macken-Horarik, M. (2013)
English in a Tempest: The Value of Metaphor for Re-Imagining Grammar in English.
English in Australia (special issue in honour of Garth Boomer), 48 (3), 46-53.
4. Macken-Horarik, M., Sandiford, C. Love, K. & Unsworth, L. (under review)
Knowing about and knowing how: Developing an account of linguistic knowledge
adequate to school English, for Research in the Teaching of English.
5. Unsworth, L. & Macken-Horarik, M. (under review)
Interpretive responses to images in picture books by primary and secondary school
students: Exploring curriculum expectations of a ‘visual grammatics,’ for English in
Education.
6. Macken-Horarik, M. & Unsworth L. (under review)
New Challenges for literature study in primary school English: Building teacher
knowledge and know-how through systemic functional theory, for special issue of
Onomázein focused on papers from IXth ALSFAL Congress.
Conference addresses and seminar papers based on grammatics research project
In addition to this, CI Macken-Horarik, CI Love, CI Unsworth and SRA Sandiford
have given several papers about the research at conferences. In 2011, the team
presented research framework and some initial data from narrative at the International
Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC); then in 2012, Macken-Horarik, Love and
Sandiford gave three papers at the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics
Association Conference (ASFLA). In 2013, Macken-Horarik delivered the Garth
Boomer address at the national conference of Australian Association for the Teaching
of English (AATE) and a plenary address at the Australian Systemic Functional
Linguistics Association Conference (ASFLA) in Melbourne. Late in 2013, she coauthored and presented a paper with Carmel Sandiford and with Len Unsworth at the
ALSFAL Congress in Chile from which two papers have been produced (see MackenHorarik & Unsworth, under review) and Macken-Horarik & Sandiford, in prep). In
2014, Macken-Horarik gave a plenary address about the findings and the emerging
framework for exploring teacher knowledge about language at the International
Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC) in Mendoza, Argentina. Findings have been
disseminated at workshops and seminars at several universities (e.g. UNE and ACU at
both Sydney and Melbourne campuses) and at University of Sydney in 2013). Several
school teachers from NSW and Victoria who were involved in the grammatics project
also presented their findings at ASFLA conference in 2013.