In our everyday practices, we all define language in different ways. Our conceptualization, or what might be called our “theories,” whether derived from personal experiences or from reading books and articles, shape the kinds of learning opportunities we provide our ELL students and are therefore highly consequential to their academic trajectories. For this reason, this course will introduce you to a perspective on language called: functional linguistics. While this perspective also accounts for the structure of language, it places the function of language as central (what language does, and how it does it). It starts at the social context and looks at how language both acts upon and is constrained by this social context. Other perspectives of language start with and remain focused on the structure of language. We believe the functional approach provides teachers with more useful tools for helping students gain access to academic literacies in the classroom.

This course will support you in understanding how such a perspective on language (writing, speaking, visual, mathematical, and electronic, etc) can help you scaffold students’ academic achievement. The central vehicle for building your framework and exploring your research questions will be an in-depth analysis of students’ writing or proto writing in the social context in which it was produced.