Systemic Functional Analysis

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:39 pm

I hesitated to get into the other thread on the fascinating topic of tenses and aspects. I have run it all off so I can go over it again because, like some others, I am just over my head when it comes to this subject. Since I teach mostly oral English in EFL settings I can usually palm off these questions to my more competent comrades who speak the first language of my students and can explain with the aid of translation. However, I am now in a situation where I am expected to teach by myself and I don't speak either of the languages of the students. My professors have recommended that I try Systemic Functional Grammar and I am trying to wade through the books to understand. Most of the authors seem to hail from Australia and I have attended a course and conference with some. Why am still in the position of not understanding what is going on in these threads then? What should I understand in order to go forward?

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 9:20 pm

I have difficulty imagining that you are as much of a fledgeling as you imply here, Sally. I've read a couple of your other posts, and you look like a veteran to me...at least you look like you've been around for a while.

The upshot is that I don't understand this last post. Why do you say you don't understand what is going on? Is there truly something in the tenses and aspects posts that is unclear to you? I cannot believe it is beyond you, but you may not be intimately familiar with some of the terminology or some of the particular concepts involved. If so, then perhaps there are others like you. Maybe some reading suggestions could be made.

Larry Latham

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 11:53 am

Yep, it is 46 years and counting. I believe I am a good teacher in many ways but this part of the EFL teaching has me flumoxed. I guess I am angry that I am this far along in life and haven't been exposed to all of this somewhere along the line.

When students like Shun Tang come to me and have questions about a sentence and whether it right or wrong, I can often say from the sound of it, of course, but how do I explain to a student when many of the words that you all use are unfamiliar and difficult for me?

It seems that we have to teach English and then another language called English Grammar which is a much more difficult one. The students here in Greenland also get all of this in Danish so they are learning two more additional languages with the English Grammar and the Danish Grammar.

I have tried using the Systemic Functional Grammar which breaks things down into colours - red for verbs, blue for nouns, green for ajectives, etc. and this seems to work well but now I am in deeper it seems we have to go back to more traditional grammar books for explanations on present continuous, etc.

The text books we use are based on communcative learning and have 10 pages in the back on things that they know Danish students will have difficulty with. We don't have any grammar books or any other English books for that matter except what they get on the Internet.

It has been great to find all the posts on this forum for links to give them.
There is no money for more books. Anything you can recommend online would be great.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:53 pm

Do you mean to tell us that you have been teaching for 46 years! If so, then you are likely the senior member here. The rest of us can sit at your feet and learn.

I know nothing about Systemic Functional Grammar, by the way, but it sounds sexy.

Larry Latham

By "reading suggestions", I meant reading for you, not for your students. If you read several of my posts, you'll find that I believe Michael Lewis is a potent thinker in this field, and so I'll have to recommend you start with him. (Not everyone here would agree, though, so you'll have to sort it out yourself). If you do read Lewis, I suggest you start with The English Verb, published in London in 1986, originally, and still the finest, freshest discussion of verbs that I have seen.

The Linguist · Post by **The Linguist** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 6:49 am

18 months ago I did a course for my MA on SFG and I found it theoretically very interesting. I could see several applications and the usefulness of it, but I also felt very unsure as to how to apply it ot my classes right now.

I think that for myself at least it, I would like to observe another teacher using it and sit down and talk with how to approach it. In this case the book knowledge is just not enough for me to do it.

I am very interested in hearing what others have to say about this.

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:40 am

Thanks Larry for the recommendation of the book. I will search for it.

Meanwhile I have 45 students who are going for final exams. In Greenland and I guess Denmark as well, these are the only exams they have in their young lives and they count for everything. So I have a month to try to get them to understand enough to correct their own essays. They write an essay for three hours and have a 30 minute or less oral exam. They get three choices for the essay and have a topic assigned for the oral with a tape or video and a story on the same subject which they then discuss with the teacher and a censor. The censor comes from Denmark and is there to make sure all is fair. His/her mark counts more than the teachers.
I decided in August that as I only have them for 5 hours a week and they weren't writing at all, that I would devote the first six months to getting them comfortable with writing. I never corrected anything with red pencil as they do here but typed up their essays with corrections and we shared these among the classes. Now they are writing four pages and seem to love it. So we just have to learn to correct. I decided that it was too short a time to teach Grammar words so taught them questions. "We are going to look for words in your essays that answer the question, "What is it or Who is it?" or "What are they doing?"." I never mentioned nouns or verbs because those are different words in Danish and Greenlandic. So we took a red pencil and found all the "What is it?" and blue for "What are they doing?" and then tried to make sure they matched together. They have a sense of what is right and wrong when they read it out loud but they can't read out loud in the exam. I did the same for pronouns, adjectives, articles, adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. Those are the major mistakes, particularly prepositions and articles and of course, punctuation. Somewhere they have learned to use commas instead of periods. They also say "her's purse". Now I don't know what else to do.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 4:53 pm

It sounds like you're doing a lot (not to mention a lot of work). How old are your students? Are they all of one gender, or mixed? How do they seem to relate to you?

Larry Latham

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 6:13 pm

I can't answer for Sally, but although my classes tend to consist of a mixture of males and females, not one of my students is of mixed gender, they're all either male or female.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 7:06 pm

Excellent point!

Larry Latham

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 11:03 am

You guys are something else - you provide a lot of laughter for us all. Thanks.

The students are 15 years old (because they can advance quickly if they are smart) to 19 years old (because they can repeat if they failed last year). There are both young men and women and a few who haven't decided which they are. There are more young women though.

Relations are difficult. I look Danish and have a Danish surname, I am old and ugly and my mother dresses me funny (as we used to say of our older teachers). I only speak English and don't really understand Danish or Greenlandic although after two years I know some but can't use it in the class except when they are super frustrated. Then I ask them to test me in Greenlandic and they laugh and laugh at my mistakes and that breaks the tension. There are remanants of a colonial relationship between the Danish and Greenlanders and a present atmosphere of Greenland wanting independence and that is present in every relationship. They are teenagers - what more can I say? There is a Danish tradition of teaching with a Folk School basis which teaches for citizenship. They never get tests other than dictations in Danish and Greenlandic. I did it once in English but couldn't see that they were learning anything. They do like the mild competition though. We do give them report cards twice a year and then they have the final test. I give them a rubic of what I am looking for and ask them to give themselves a mark for the report cards and the essays. They are harder on each other than I would be but of course a few give themselves 13 which is the highest mark and I scale that back to reality. 0.3 the the lowest. Quite a few of the oldest got that first time around because they don't talk, don't write, don't contribute, and usually sleep. They get paid to come to school. I don't mark them there if they sleep.They are up to 5 on this report card. 6 is a pass. For 13 you have to invent the language.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 5:34 pm

Sounds challenging, rather typical in some aspects, rather unique in others. I think you must love it, Sally.

Larry Latham