An experimental study on the effect of systemic functional linguistics applied through a genre-pedagogy approach to teaching writing

Abstract

In the tradition of teaching English as a second language, there has been an increased interest in how functional language descriptions and understandings of genres may be used as resources for making meaning. The present study investigates what impact writing instruction that draws upon systemic functional linguistics (SFL) applied through a genre-pedagogy approach has on students' ability to write argumentative essays. This includes explicit grammar instruction inspired by SFL, as well as instruction on text structure. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, with a quasiexperiment followed up by quantitative and qualitative analyses of the collected material. Statistical analyses indicate a significant positive effect on writing performance in the intervention groups, regardless of gender, first language and previous level of writing. As the study lacks control groups, the quantitative analysis was complemented with examples from student texts to illustrate the improvement revealed in the statistical analysis. The findings suggest that SFL applied through a genre-pedagogy approach to teaching writing may help students to improve their writing skills.

Challenges concerning argumentative writing in a second language context

“…The students starting in upper secondary school come from a tradition where writing texts with involvement and using a personal style has been encouraged (Øgreid & Hertzberg, 2009, p. 458). Interviews carried out to follow up on the current study indicate that the students had not learnt much about writing argumentative texts and using formal language before upper secondary school (Horverak, 2016b). Keeping this in mind, it is not surprising that the students struggle when met with totally different expectations in upper secondary school.…”

“…The current study focuses on a dataset collected during a quasi-experimental study that tested out the effects of a genre-pedagogical approach to teaching argumentative writing in English in an ESL (English as a second language) context in upper secondary school (Horverak, 2016a). The results of this study showed that students improved from pre-to posttests regardless of first language, gender and what grade they had been given in English previously.…”

Content area teachers’ challenges writing language objectives: A document analysis

“…It was found that increasing teachers’ understanding of functional linguistics had a positive effect on their instruction of language in content areas. Similarly, Horverak (2016) explored the impact of writing instruction informed by systemic functional linguistics on students’ writing skills in Norwegian upper secondary schools. The findings revealed that explicit grammar instruction with an SFL perspective can improve students’ essay writing skills.…”

A Comparative Study of English Systemic Functional Linguistics in the Conclusion of the Thesis

“…In the process of English graduation thesis writing, there are some differences between the students' knowledge level, the ability to analyze and solve problems [7]. In the actual process of writing, there are some problems such as inappropriate selection of topics, vocabulary selection, errors in grammatical application, irregular format and insufficient reference to foreign materials [8].…”