Mike, Hurray!! Someone who is attempting what I have
done. There is, by the way, a discussion list for those
who are interested in SFG applications to education.

I have myself decided not to teach the grammar. In one
course, there is too much too important about language
to attend only to learning a complicated apparatus.
However, SFG informs my course from the inside out.
The magic of the SFG description is in its relevance
as you say to "text" - to acts of meaning making. So I
try to set up situations/ problems that foreground
aspects of the grammar  -- for instance, role playing
or rewriting dramatic dialog, reversing role relations
to draw attention to mood and modality.

There are lots of ways of getting at theme/rheme --
scrambling a recipe and drawing attention to
the (re)ordering of information that is required
for coherence.

It's the "ideational" grammar -- the one that's most
elaborate and distinct from traditional terms that is
hardest to figure out. But I'm working on it and would be
delighted to find someone else to work on it with me.
If other people on this list are not interested, I would
be happy to continue the conversation by personal email.

Judy



At 12:43 PM 1/7/99 +0600, you wrote:
>Middle school & secondary English education majors are not exactly
>thrilled about taking a required English grammar course.   I have
>been thinking of ways to motivate them by showing them how
>grammatical choices and functions are text-driven, so that they can
>understand the relationship between sentence level grammar and
>written (or spoken) texts.   I think this is a key to helping them
>see the relevance of grammar-study and moving them away from the
>relatively meaningless taxonomies and parsing of "traditional
>grammar" (at least as they are taught in isolation).
>
>One tradition that has paid attention to this kind of
>textlinguistics is systemic functional grammar--Michael Halliday, et
>al.     That tradition has given a lot of attention to pedagogical
>grammars, I have been told, but I never encountered any of these in
>the American educational system.
>
>I have worked a little with systemic grammar myself.   Just last
>year I studied Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell's book _Making Sense of
>Functional Grammar_ (that is systemic functional grammar).  The book
>(an Australian publication available here in the US) does a fairly
>good job of making Hallidayan functional grammar accessible to
>undergraduate students.  I was a little frustrated at times when the
>book failed to use the kind of linguistic reasoning I am accustomed
>to in setting up categories and justifying analyses of sentences. I
>sometimes felt I was being asked to accept too much "on faith."
>
>As I thought about using this approach in my own English grammar
>class, two objections stared me in the face: (1) students who are
>somewhat familiar with "traditional grammar" have to learn a whole new
>set of terminology--and that is a tedious task for most and a
>formidable challenge for some;  it is also formidable to require this
>kind of tedious learning in a course that is required for education
>majors (who may rather not be there); (2) young teachers going out
>into our school system (where sometimes the worst kind of "traditional
>grammar" still reigns) would be at a total loss of how to make use of
>what they learn about systemic grammar.  It would be totally foreign
>to the kind of textbooks now widely in use in the US.  It would take
>more determination, skill, and courage than most of our graduates
>have to be able to take their knowledge of systemic grammar into
>middle and secondary school class rooms.
>
>So despite these two giant negatives....fools press on where angels
>fear to tread!  Does anyone know of other materials in the systemic
>functional tradition or does anyone have any experience using this
>approach with teachers in training here in the US?  Could you dispel
>either of my big negatives?  Thanks.
>
>Mike Medley
>
>
>
>
>**********************************************************************
>R. Michael Medley       VPH 211                Ph: (712) 737-7047
>Assistant Professor     Northwestern College
>Department of English   Orange City, IA  51041
>**********************************************************************
>


Judith Diamondstone  (732) 932-7496  Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183

Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm Blake