Grounding Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Theory in Deepening ELL's Discipline Knowledge and Exploring the Praxis of Teaching and Researching Disciplinary Literacy Development: A Book Review

Abstract

In the book, Teaching and Researching ELLs’ Disciplinary Literacies: SFL in Action in the Context of US School Reform (2019), Meg Gebhard, professor of Applied Linguistics and co-director of the Secondary English Education Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, provides a comprehensive description to second language researchers, multilingual learners, language teachers, and teacher educators of how Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) can be applied to give ELLs access to the language and literacies they need to succeed across the curriculum. Throughout the chapters, Gebhard provides convincing evidence that mastering their various grammars and genres (text types) is equally important. This well-referenced book is a valuable resource for practitioners and educators who want to expand their understandings of how language works and how to best support its development in school settings. Gebhard offers a straightforward introduction to SFL-based literacy instruction and discourse analysis. The work is distinctive in its use of highly contextualized examples of how teachers and students utilize texts across the curriculum. This book is also unique because as the reader moves through the chapters, the suggested practices get more detailed and begin to take into account the institutional and community conversations that shape how teaching and learning happen in our public schools.