Recent years have seen a shift in the role teachers’ play in the education of children,
We are no longer simply teachers of the content and knowledge in relation
to our subject. We also have a responsibility to develop specific literacy
skills and positive attitudes in our students.
(NSW Dept. School Education 1997)
This change has come about because of a variety of socio-cultural changes in the make-up of Australian families. The theories of Gee, Vygotsky, and Halliday, exploring Discourse communities, interactive learning, and functional grammar, give insight into the need for literacy learning and can be applied to language development and learning specifically in the secondary school system.
To be literate one must understand the rules of language and there are many
types of literacy as these rules vary across differing socio-cultural groups.
Literacy in the classroom involves having “assumptions about what the
teacher wants and expects, about what the students are supposed to be doing
and expecting of themselves, and about what concepts and skills are necessary
in order to complete a task successfully.”(Reid, 2002) Classroom literacy
in Australia is based on a westernized system and “there are increasingly
fewer children entering our schools who actually fit the middle-class model
of the school child that schools and curriculum were designed for.” (Green,
2003)
Students from differing cultures become disadvantaged in the classroom as they
can’t make sense of what is taught. They haven’t practised it at
home and find different meanings in language because of their cultural background.
They do not receive recognition for their literacy practices and they are streamed
in lower classes because streaming is based on white, middle-class norms. This
leaves students disillusioned with education as “…more then the
child’s story is being rejected. Her family, and her way of life, is
being deemed unacceptable. Faced with such a conflict between school and home,
a logical response from the child is to reject the social/language practices
of the school.” (Reid, 2002) It is important that teachers develop their
student’s literacy skills to create equality in the classroom and foster
positive attitudes about education among the students.
Gee’s Discourse Communities
The North American linguist James Gee proposed the theory of Discourse communities.
It is because of these different Discourse communities that there are many
types of literacy. A Discourse community is a group of people who have collective
beliefs and values and use these to create meaning out of language. There are
Primary and Secondary Discourses. The primary discourse is that of our micro,
family world we are born into and the secondary discourse is that of our social
world, the discourses of the groups and people we interact with outside our
immediate family. Each subject in the secondary school system is a separate
secondary discourse.
As teachers “we are in the business of helping our students become ‘insiders’ in
the discourse communities that will advantage them in life.” (Love et
al, 2001) It is important that teachers explicitly teach the literacy skills
necessary for a student to become an ‘insider’ and functional member
of the Discourse community of school and the classroom. According to Reid (2002),
Gee theorised that in order to become a member of a discourse community one
must participate in the community, “to take part in secondary discourses
that we have not acquired through time and experience, Gee says that we need
help, and often quite explicit teaching and instruction.” They also provided
strategies for including the varying discourses of the students into the class:
* broadening the range of texts in the classroom to include what the children
are reading outside school: television, advertising, junk mail, magazines,
newspapers, romance novels, etc.
* exploring these texts in terms of these questions:
* What are the possible readings of this text?
* How are these readings being promoted?
* Whose world view are we being asked to accept?
* Whose views are being marginalised?
* What is being assumed/naturalised by this text?
* creating an ‘open’ classroom in the sense that the Discourse
permits, encourages and rewards verbal risk-taking.
(Reid, 2002)
By applying Gee’s theory and these strategies it would be possible to
develop the student’s language and literacy skills allowing them to function
positively in the school environment.
Vygotsky’s Theory
Similarly to Gee’s theory, that the importance of participation in
order to become literate in a Discourse community, Lev Vygotsky, a Russian
psychologist, theorised that, “children do not ‘naturally’ develop
if left to their own devices, even in appropriate conditions…he stressed
the social nature of learning.” (Reid, 2002) He wanted interactive learning.
The standard interaction of the classroom is IRF:
I – Initiation (is made by one speaker, often but not always the teacher)
R – Response (other speakers follow)
F – Feedback (first speaker gives feedback to the response)
(Love et al, 2001)
Vygotsky felt to participate in interactive learning a student needed the conceptual
tools (language and other signs, such as pictures and symbols). These needed
to be explicitly taught for the students to become literate in the subject, “it
is worthwhile to specify the tools, especially the language needed to think
and act in (the) subject areas.” (Groundwater-Smith et al, 2001)
In order to initiate students into the Discourse communities (subjects) of
school, and enable them to become insiders, Vygotsky developed a model called
the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD). He saw “the only ‘good’ learning
as that which is in advance of development; that which extends a students current
understanding,” and that is what the ZPD does. The ZPD is the next achievable
step in the student’s development. The student is supported by the teacher
to move from what they already know to their next level of understanding.
The basic literacy’s of a subject are the building blocks to the next
proximal level of understanding. To do this scaffolding techniques are employed.
Scaffolding are, “the supports that students need to do a task that they
could not do on their own and that will enable students to develop the competence
to do the task independently.” (Groundwater-Smith et al, 2001) One such
technique is ‘modelling’. The example of the language skill would
be shown or demonstrated and the student would develop their own language skills
based on this model. Gradually the model is withdrawn until the student has
acquired the skill. By employing Vygotsky’s techniques a teacher can
develop the student literacy and language skills until they can function independently
in the particular discourse community, making them positive, functioning members
of that community.
Halliday’s Theory
Linguist, Michael Halliday, developed functional grammar. He “stresses the importance of the role of care-givers in scaffolding children into learning language at various stages of their development.” (Love et al, 2001) This is similar to Vygotsky’s theory of interactive learning. Functional grammar is language that has a social function.
Functions of language:
The ‘personal’ function – expressing an emotional state
The ‘instrumental’ function – getting things done
The ‘interactional’ function – engaging with other people
(Love et al, 2001)
It is an important part of literacy for students to know the functional grammar
of the Discourse community of the secondary classroom so that they may make
a positive contribution to the class and can develop their language further
by employing the techniques of Vygotsky.
Teachers must now take on the responsibility of explicitly teaching their students
literacy skills in order to give them a positive attitude towards education.
In order to do this a teacher must acknowledge Gee’s theory that students
come from different discourse communities and that they may need to be taught
the literacy’s of the classroom Discourse community. A teacher may employ
the techniques of ZPD and scaffolding, which Vygotsky developed, in order to
achieve this literacy, perhaps beginning with the functions of grammar outlined
by Halliday. Through this a student may eventually become a functioning member
of the secondary school Discourse community.
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References:
Green, D 2003 ‘The nature of language: The culture of texts,’ in Literacies and Learners: Current Perspectives, D, Green & R, Campbell (eds.) Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forrest, NSW, Australia.
Groundwater-Smith, S Brennan, M McFadden, M & Mitchell, J 2000, Secondary schooling in a changing world, Harcourt, Sydney.
Love, K Pigdon, K Baker, G & Hamston, J 2001, BUILT: building understanding in literacy and teaching, University of Melbourne, Melbourne. (CD-Rom)
Reid, J with Green, B & English, R 2002 Managing small-group learning, Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown, Australia.