The Corio Oval tribe: Geelong Football Club in colonial times

Geelong, Victoria’s second city, has an AFL football club whose culture and identity is closely tied to the city itself. An analysis of its playing group for the colonial period demonstrates that this local tribalism began early. As football became professionalised towards the end of the nineteenth century, country Victoria lost power in relative terms to metropolitan Melbourne: for example, Ballarat’s three main clubs lost their senior status. But Geelong, with its one remaining senior club, prospered and was admitted to the VFL ranks in 1897. The Geelong players were the sons and nephews of the Western District squattocracy and so had access to networks of power and influence. Many attended the prestigious Geelong Grammar School and the worthy Geelong College (in surprisingly equal numbers). They pursued careers both on the land and in professional roles, and maintained the social connections they had built through the club and other local institutions. Despite their elite standing, however, they continued to be regarded by the supporter base as an embodiment of the city and a defence against the city’s Melbourne critics that Geelong was a mere ‘sleepy hollow’.

Teaching grammar: rethinking the approach

Margaret Kettle examines grammar, its image problem and some new developments aimed at improving its teaching and learning in the TESOL classroom.

Mapping the language of science and science teaching practices : a case study of early childhood school science

Concerns raised in educational reports about school science in terms of students. outcomes and attitudes, as well as science teaching practices prompted investigation into science learning and teaching practices at the foundational level of school science. Without science content and process knowledge, understanding issues of modern society and active participation in decision-making is difficult. This study contended that a focus on the development of the language of science could enable learners to engage more effectively in learning science and enhance their interest and attitudes towards science. Furthermore, it argued that explicit teaching practices where science language is modelled and scaffolded would facilitate the learning of science by young children at the beginning of their formal schooling. This study aimed to investigate science language development at the foundational level of school science learning in the preparatory-school with students aged five and six years. It focussed on the language of science and science teaching practices in early childhood. In particular, the study focussed on the capacity for young students to engage with and understand science language. Previous research suggests that students have difficulty with the language of science most likely because of the complexities and ambiguities of science language. Furthermore, literature indicates that tensions transpire between traditional science teaching practices and accepted early childhood teaching practices. This contention prompted investigation into means and models of pedagogy for learning foundational science language, knowledge and processes in early childhood. This study was positioned within qualitative assumptions of research and reported via descriptive case study. It was located in a preparatory-school classroom with the class teacher, teacher-aide, and nineteen students aged four and five years who participated with the researcher in the study. Basil Bernstein.s pedagogical theory coupled with Halliday.s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framed an examination of science pedagogical practices for early childhood science learning. Students. science learning outcomes were gauged by focussing a Hallydayan lens on their oral and reflective language during 12 science-focussed episodes of teaching. Data were collected throughout the 12 episodes. Data included video and audio-taped science activities, student artefacts, journal and anecdotal records, semi-structured interviews and photographs. Data were analysed according to Bernstein.s visible and invisible pedagogies and performance and competence models. Additionally, Halliday.s SFL provided the resource to examine teacher and student language to determine teacher/student interpersonal relationships as well as specialised science and everyday language used in teacher and student science talk. Their analysis established the socio-linguistic characteristics that promoted science competencies in young children. An analysis of the data identified those teaching practices that facilitate young children.s acquisition of science meanings. Positive indications for modelling science language and science text types to young children have emerged. Teaching within the studied setting diverged from perceived notions of common early childhood practices and the benefits of dynamic shifting pedagogies were validated. Significantly, young students demonstrated use of particular specialised components of school-science language in terms of science language features and vocabulary. As well, their use of language demonstrated the students. knowledge of science concepts, processes and text types. The young students made sense of science phenomena through their incorporation of a variety of science language and text-types in explanations during both teacher-directed and independent situations. The study informs early childhood science practices as well as practices for foundational school science teaching and learning. It has exposed implications for science education policy, curriculum and practices. It supports other findings in relation to the capabilities of young students. The study contributes to Systemic Functional Linguistic theory through the development of a specific resource to determine the technicality of teacher language used in teaching young students. Furthermore, the study contributes to methodology practices relating to Bernsteinian theoretical perspectives and has demonstrated new ways of depicting and reporting teaching practices. It provides an analytical tool which couples Bernsteinian and Hallidayan theoretical perspectives. Ultimately, it defines directions for further research in terms of foundation science language learning, ongoing learning of the language of science and learning science, science teaching and learning practices, specifically in foundational school science, and relationships between home and school science language experiences.

Parsing the Australian curriculum English : grammar, multimodality and cross-cultural texts

The release of the Australian Curriculum English (ACE) by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has revived debates about the role of grammar as English content knowledge. We consider some of the discussion circulating in the mainstream media vis-à-vis the intent of the ACE. We conclude that this curriculum draws upon the complementary tenets of traditional Latin-based grammar and systemic functional linguistics across the three strands of Language, Literature and Literacy in innovative ways. We argue that such an approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts. To demonstrate the utility of this new approach, we draw out a set of learning outcomes from Year 6 and then map out a framework for relating the outcomes to the form and function of multimodal language. As a case in point, our analysis is of two online Coca-Cola advertising texts, one each from South Korea and Australia.

Playing with Grammar in the Early Years : Learning about Language in the Australian Curriculum : English

As teacher/researchers interested in the pursuit of socially-just outcomes in early childhood education, the form and function of language occupies a special position in our work. We believe that mastering a range of literacy competences includes not only the technical skills for learning, but also the resources for viewing and constructing the world (Freire and Macdeo, 1987). Rather than seeing knowledge about language as the accumulation of technical skills alone, the viewpoint to which we subscribe treats knowledge about language as a dialectic that evolves from, is situated in, and contributes to a social arena (Halliday, 1978). We do not shy away from this position just because children are in the early years of schooling. In ‘Playing with Grammar’, we focus on the Foundation to Year 2 grouping, in line with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (hereafter ACARA) advice on the ‘nature of learners’ (ACARA, 2013). With our focus on the early years of schooling comes our acknowledgement of the importance and complexity of play. At a time where accountability in education has moved many teachers to a sense of urgency to prove language and literacy achievement (Genishi and Dyson, 2009), we encourage space to revisit what we know about literature choices and learning experiences and bring these together to facilitate language learning. We can neither ignore, nor overemphasise, the importance of play for the development of language through: the opportunities presented for creative use and practice; social interactions for real purposes; and, identifying and solving problems in the lives of young children (Marsh and Hallet, 2008). We argue that by engaging young children in opportunities to play with language we are ultimately empowering them to be active in their language learning and in the process fostering a love of language and the intricacies it holds. Our goal in this publication is to provide a range of highly practical strategies for scaffolding young children through some of the Content Descriptions from the Australian Curriculum English Version 5.0, hereafter AC:E V5.0 (ACARA, 2013). This recently released curriculum offers a new theoretical approach to building children’s knowledge about language. The AC:E V5.0 uses selected traditional terms through an approach developed in systemic functional linguistics (see Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) to highlight the dynamic forms and functions of multimodal language in texts. For example, the following statement, taken from the ‘Language: Knowing about the English language’ strand states: English uses standard grammatical terminology within a contextual framework, in which language choices are seen to vary according to the topics at hand, the nature and proximity of the relationships between the language users, and the modalities or channels of communication available (ACARA, 2013). Put simply, traditional grammar terms are used within a functional framework made up of field, tenor, and mode. An understanding of genre is noted with the reference to a ‘contextual framework’. The ‘topics at hand’ concern the field or subject matter of the text. The ‘relationships between the language users’ is a description of tenor. There is reference to ‘modalities’, such as spoken, written or visual text. We posit that this innovative approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts (see Exley and Mills, 2012). We believe there is enormous power in using literature to expose children to the richness of language and in turn develop language and literacy skills. Taking time to look at language patterns within actual literature is a pathway to ‘…capture interest, stir the imagination and absorb the [child]’ into the world of language and literacy (Saxby, 1993, p. 55). In the following three sections, we have tried to remain faithful to our interpretation of the AC:E V5.0 Content Descriptions without giving an exhaustive explanation of the grammatical terms. Other excellent tomes, such as Derewianka (2011), Humphrey, Droga and Feez (2012), and Rossbridge and Rushton (2011) provide these more comprehensive explanations as does the AC:E V5.0 Glossary. We’ve reproduced some of the AC:E V5.0 glossary at the end of this publication. Our focus is on the structure and unfolding of the learning experiences. We outline strategies for working with children in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 by providing some demonstration learning experiences based on texts we’ve selected, but maintain that the affordances of these strategies will only be realised when teaching and learning is purposively tied to authentic projects in local contexts. We strongly encourage you not to use only the resource texts we’ve selected, but to capitalise upon your skill for identifying the language features in the texts you and the children are studying and adapt some of the strategies we have outlined. Each learning experience is connected to one of the Content Descriptions from the AC:E V5.0 and contains an experience specific purpose, a suggested resource text and a sequence for the experience that always commences with an orientation to text followed by an examination of a particular grammatical resource. We expect that each of these learning experiences will take a couple if not a few teaching episodes to work through, especially if children are meeting a concept for the first time. We hope you use as much, or as little, of each experience as is needed. Our plans allow for focused discussion, shared exploration and opportunities to revisit the same text for the purpose of enhancing meaning making. We do not want the teaching of grammar to slip into a crisis of irrelevance or to be seen as a series of worksheet drills with finite answers. Strategies for effective practice, however, have much portability. We are both very keen to hear from teachers who are adopting and adapting these learning experiences in their classrooms. Please email us on b.exley@qut.edu.au or lkervin@uow.edu.au. We’d love to continue the conversation with you over time.

Exploring with Grammar in the Primary Years: Learning about Language in the Australian Curriculum: English

This new volume, Exploring with Grammar in the Primary Years (Exley, Kevin & Mantei, 2014), follows on from Playing with Grammar in the Early Years (Exley & Kervin, 2013). We extend our thanks to the ALEA membership for their take up of the first volume and the vibrant conversations around our first attempt at developing a pedagogy for the teaching of grammar in the early years. Your engagement at locally held ALEA events has motivated us to complete this second volume and reassert our interest in the pursuit of socially-just outcomes in the primary years. As noted in Exley and Kervin (2013), we believe that mastering a range of literacy competences includes not only the technical skills for learning, but also the resources for viewing and constructing the world (Freire and Macdeo, 1987). Rather than seeing knowledge about language as the accumulation of technical skills alone, the viewpoint to which we subscribe treats knowledge about language as a dialectic that evolves from, is situated in, and contributes to active participation within a social arena (Halliday, 1978). We acknowledge that to explore is to engage in processes of discovery as we look closely and examine the opportunities before us. As such, we draw on Janks’ (2000; 2014) critical literacy theory to underpin many of the learning experiences in this text. Janks (2000) argues that effective participation in society requires knowledge about how the power of language promotes views, beliefs and values of certain groups to the exclusion of others. Powerful language users can identify not only how readers are positioned by these views, but also the ways these views are conveyed through the design of the text, that is, the combination of vocabulary, syntax, image, movement and sound. Similarly, powerful designers of texts can make careful modal choices in written and visual design to promote certain perspectives that position readers and viewers in new ways to consider more diverse points of view. As the title of our text suggests, our activities are designed to support learners in exploring the design of texts to achieve certain purposes and to consider the potential for the sharing of their own views through text production. In Exploring with Grammar in the Primary Years, we focus on the Year 3 to Year 6 grouping in line with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (hereafter ACARA) advice on the ‘nature of learners’ (ACARA, 2014). Our goal in this publication is to provide a range of highly practical strategies for scaffolding students’ learning through some of the Content Descriptions from the Australian Curriculum: English Version 7.2, hereafter AC:E (ACARA, 2014). We continue to express our belief in the power of using whole texts from a range of authentic sources including high quality children’s literature, the internet, and examples of community-based texts to expose students to the richness of language. Taking time to look at language patterns within actual texts is a pathway to ‘…capture interest, stir the imagination and absorb the [child]’ into the world of language and literacy (Saxby, 1993, p. 55). It is our intention to be more overt this time and send a stronger message that our learning experiences are simply ‘sample’ activities rather than a teachers’ workbook or a program of study to be followed. We’re hoping that teachers and students will continue to explore their bookshelves, the internet and their community for texts that provide powerful opportunities to engage with language-based learning experiences. In the following three sections, we have tried to remain faithful to our interpretation of the AC:E Content Descriptions without giving an exhaustive explanation of the grammatical terms. This recently released curriculum offers a new theoretical approach to building students’ knowledge about language. The AC:E uses selected traditional terms through an approach developed in systemic functional linguistics (see Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) to highlight the dynamic forms and functions of multimodal language in texts. For example, the following statement, taken from the ‘Language: Knowing about the English language’ strand states: English uses standard grammatical terminology within a contextual framework, in which language choices are seen to vary according to the topics at hand, the nature and proximity of the relationships between the language users, and the modalities or channels of communication available (ACARA, 2014). Put simply, traditional grammar terms are used within a functional framework made up of field, tenor, and mode. An understanding of genre is noted with the reference to a ‘contextual framework’. The ‘topics at hand’ concern the field or subject matter of the text. The ‘relationships between the language users’ is a description of tenor. There is reference to ‘modalities’, such as spoken, written or visual text. We posit that this innovative approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts (see Exley & Mills, 2012). Other excellent tomes, such as Derewianka (2011), Humphrey, Droga and Feez (2012), and Rossbridge and Rushton (2011) provide more comprehensive explanations of this unique metalanguage, as does the AC:E Glossary. We’ve reproduced some of the AC:E Glossary at the end of this publication. We’ve also kept the same layout for our learning experiences, ensuring that our teacher notes are not only succinct but also prudent in their placement. Each learning experience is connected to a Content Description from the AC:E and contains an experience with an identified purpose, suggested resource text and a possible sequence for the experience that always commences with an orientation to text followed by an examination of a particular grammatical resource. Our plans allow for focused discussion, shared exploration and opportunities to revisit the same text for the purpose of enhancing meaning making. Some learning experiences finish with deconstruction of a stimulus text while others invite students to engage in the design of new texts. We encourage you to look for opportunities in your own classrooms to move from text deconstruction to text design. In this way, students can express not only their emerging grammatical understandings, but also the ways they might position readers or viewers through the creation of their own texts. We expect that each of these learning experiences will vary in the time taken. Some may indeed take a couple if not a few teaching episodes to work through, especially if students are meeting a concept or a pedagogical strategy for the first time. We hope you use as much, or as little, of each experience as is needed for your students. We do not want the teaching of grammar to slip into a crisis of irrelevance or to be seen as a series of worksheet drills with finite answers. We firmly believe that strategies for effective deconstruction and design practice, however, have much portability. We three are very keen to hear from teachers who are adopting and adapting these learning experiences in their classrooms. Please email us on b.exley@qut.edu.au, lkervin@uow.edu.au or jessicam@ouw.edu.au. We’d love to continue the conversation with you over time. Beryl Exley, Lisa Kervin & Jessica Mantei

Investigating a disciplinary approach to literacy learning in a secondary school

This paper presents findings from a Design-Based Research (DBR) project undertaken in a large regional high school in Queensland. The study focused on an intervention involving explicit teaching using systemic functional grammar in assessed writing across two Year 8 subjects: English and History. The study’s findings demonstrate that, despite efforts at the whole school and classroom level to support a disciplinary literacy approach to subject learning, there are considerable constraints that need to be considered and overcome in order for students to develop appropriate writing capabilities for particular discipline areas.

Secret Squirrel Stuff in the Australian Curriculum English: The genesis of the ‘new’ grammar

In much the same way that a squirrel stores a range of food in a range of places, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (ACARA) Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2015) stores references to grammar in a range of places. This paper explores some seemingly ‘hidden’ grammars within the AC:E to (re)discover their genesis and how they unfold across Foundation to Year 6. The first ‘Secret Squirrel’ moment centres on the introduction of a new grammar which weaves traditional Latin-based and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory. The second ‘Secret Squirrel’ moment centres on the use of one sub-system of SFL Theory, the System of Appraisal, and its potential to provide an analytical lens for ‘reading’ the interpersonal meaning within narratives. The remainder of the paper draws on Goodson’s (1990) notion of curriculum as a social construction, paying attention to the levels of processes and (potential) practice. This part of the paper focuses on the System of Appraisal as it is introduced in the AC:E and then translates the Content Descriptions to an example analysis. One stimulus text, Melanie Watt’s (2012) children’s picture book ‘Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach’, is introduced then analysed using the System of Appraisal as an analytical lens for identifying how language choices ‘go to work’ (Macken-Horarik, 2003, p. 285) on readers, that is how Watt’s language choices are crafted so a ‘compliant’ child reader (Martin & White, 2005, p. 62) has the opportunity to ‘feel with’ and thus ‘adjudicate’ the behaviour of characters in particular ways (Macken-Horarik, 2003, p. 285).

Water bottles from China: Decoding visual grammar

On the ALEA Study Tour to China, Beryl Exley and her roomie Kathryn O’Sullivan pondered over their first night dilemma whilst staying at a hotel in Beijing. They read the room service guide (in English) which advised against drinking the tap water and confirming the supply of one bottle of complementary water per guest per day. The room service guide listed ‘special’ bottled water was the equivalent of $AUS7 per bottle. However the dilemma was this: sitting on the shelf above the fridge were three different kinds of water-like bottles. Each had a different label, written mainly in Chinese characters. Not wanting to mistake the bottles, Beryl and Kathryn set about decoding the text of the three bottles in question.