Text-Based Discussions and Functional Grammar Analysis: Scaffolding Understanding and Rich Participation for English Language Learners.

摘要

ABSTRACTThis dissertation study investigated the potential of Functional Grammar Analysis (FGA), based in systemic functional linguistics, to scaffold English language learners (ELLs) as they participated in text-based discussions (TBDs). Research has shown that ELLs fall behind in reading comprehension achievement, but studies are only beginning to define the best ways to support them in this realm. Studies have found that TBDs offer benefits for student learning, but there are few that focus on ELLs or struggling readers. There is promising research on classroom applications of FGA within literacy instruction, but further study is warranted, particularly with respect to text comprehension and in elementary school settings. This teaching experiment contributes to these three areas of inquiry. A socio-cultural perspective and FGA’s linguistic and pedagogical theories provide the theoretical framework. The research questions focus on how FGA can be used to support TBDs, and what affordances and challenges the pedagogy presents. The data come from five units enacted with fourteen fourth-grade ELL students, and consist of the unit plans and my reflections on the design process, the transcribed lessons, and the reflective memos I wrote after each enactment. Data analyses involved repeated reading of the lessons, transcripts, and memos; open-coding for themes within these data; triangulation of findings across data sources; and metacognition about my own thinking as the designer, practitioner, and researcher in every stage of this work. The results speak to how FGA supported the planning of high-quality instruction, how we need to think carefully about supporting students to work in small groups, how FGA language features can facilitate deep text comprehension and rich metalanguage, and how we should consider the participation of struggling readers during TBDs. I concluded that this is a potentially useful approach for addressing gaps in ELL comprehension instruction, and that the challenges of incorporating FGA into TBDs are not due to anything uniquely problematic about FGA itself, but are faced by many efforts to enrich classroom instruction through work that is novel, complex in content, and atypical in format. Furthermore, I argue that addressing these challenges can benefit students and improve teaching practice.