WOOPS! I didn't mean this to go to the list.
ARRgh.



t 01:42 PM 1/8/99 -0000, you wrote:
>Hi. I've heard no direct response to my postings, so I'm
>getting a bit nervous. Did I violate protocol somehow?
>I would really like to be in touch with someone else who
>works with SFG. I'd like some conversational support!
>Please say more.
>
>Judith
>
>
>
>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
>


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