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In English-speaking countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, there is a renewed focus on teaching about language in school curricula and evidence of a paradigm shift in approaches to grammar instruction. Calls for contextualized, meaning-based, even multisemiotic grammars are emerging in several countries. In Australia, the motivation for teachers to expand grammatical expertise has been sharpened by the introduction of the Australian Curriculum: English, with its requirement to teach "the structures and functions of word and sentence-level grammar and text patterns and the connections between them" (National Curriculum Board, 2009, p. 7). This paper reports on an Australian survey that sought evidence of the profession's levels of understanding of, and confidence to teach, the relational view of language underpinning this curriculum. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative responses from 373 English teachers across all years of schooling, the survey provides a national snapshot of their views on what is important in knowledge about language (KAL), levels of confidence in implementing this knowledge and emerging disjunctions between avowed and actual KAL in the profession. We relate this disjunction to international research suggesting that teacher confidence outstrips actual KAL, and explore the possibility that teachers' overall expressions of confidence may hide uncertainty about the implications of a relational approach to grammar. The paper concludes with discussion of limitations and implications of our study for future research into teacher subject knowledge, especially grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers commonly assess students' written narratives, but how do teachers recognize and evaluate different aspects of student achievement? For example, how do they tackle the incomplete narrative that includes a creative foray? This paper presents a multifaceted framework for diagnosing and tracking primary and secondary student progress in narrative composition drawing on data from classrooms where teachers were implementing tools from systemic functional grammatics (Macken-Horarik, Love & Unsworth, 2011)--a way of thinking about language with 'grammar in mind' (Halliday, 2002). In systemic functional grammatics the study of wordings is situated within a larger account of language that is contextual, multilevel and multidimensional. The framework presented in this paper offers a means to analyse students' written narratives at different levels of organization (genre, phase and sentence) and different degrees of accomplishment. We show how the framework can be used to take account of strengths and weaknesses in students' crafting of narratives, deployment of interpersonal meanings and control and development of sentence messages. We propose that if a grammatics is to serve assessment practices in English, it should provide grammatically informed ways of diagnosing strengths and weaknesses, illuminate teachers' intuitions about students' achievements and difficulties, and enable them to lead development in writing more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up the sea-faring metaphor at the centre of this special edition and asks what kinds of navigational tools (metalanguages) are necessary to steer English through the digital seas of contemporary communication. Much of this territory is yet to be mapped and the disciplinary "boat" is buffeted by contrary winds such as pressures for improved outcomes on the basics and development of 21st-century digital skills. The role of grammar as a navigational aid is complicated by these competing pressures. Alongside developing metalanguages to explore digital literacy practices in Web2, in multimodal texts like picture books, websites and social networking sites, teachers are being asked simultaneously to prepare students for national testing regimes which assess children's abilities to identify the correct verb, to underline the pronouns and to punctuate sentences in language convention tests. What kinds of grammar will enable us to manage such seemingly incongruous purposes? How do we make use of tools to improve students' writing without succumbing to reductionist models of language? What kinds of "stretch" do available grammars need if they are to prove useful as tools in this environment? In this paper, I draw on a range of students' verbal, visual and multimodal texts to investigate the issues facing adaptations of grammatically informed metalanguages in English. I attempt to show how such metalanguages will need to accommodate and account for verbal texts produced by students for assessment and multimodal texts produced by young learners in less formal, even play, situations. Basing my account on Halliday's notion of "grammatics", I argue that any navigational toolkit needs to make space for both convention and innovation, but that this process requires careful thinking, dialogue across different grammars and substantive research into semiosis in school English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the study of English literature at senior secondary level might be construed in ways that are congruent with current poststructuralist understandings about texts, reading and writing. As an example we analyse an innovative English literature course, whose students develop a theorized understanding of a range of reading practices, which they apply in undertaking a series of readings of literary texts. Students thereby develop a reflexive understanding of their reading and meaning-making and are enabled to critically interrogate the reading positions texts invite readers to adopt. In the current historical moment, when a retreat from theory is being stridently advocated by reductive media-political campaigns, this paper contributes to debates concerning what knowledge about literary texts and reading is valuable and what capacities students can and should develop as readers and writers. By investigating the character of this distinctive English literature course and the kinds of development each task makes possible, we argue for the value of a critical poststructuralist reflexivity in helping students understand the constructive and often contested nature of texts and reflect on their own shaped and shaping role in meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the potential of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) for exploring students' achievements in writing, thus moving beyond "deficit models" of grammar in school English. It considers the semantic features of successful interpretations of examination narratives, using what I call the "symbolic reading". Halliday has suggested that we need to distinguish between grammar and grammatics, with the grammatics viewed as independent from but sensitive to language in use. In this article, I apply his notion of grammatics to analyze the linguistic basis of students' interpretive achievements. The article investigates three aspects of A-range interpretations of different narratives. These symbolic readings indicate a preference for relational transitivity of a synoptic kind, an ability to reformulate story significance through elaboration and rhetorical "spans" between material semiosis (in Theme) and abstract significance (in New). The analysis brings to light what ofien appears entirely intuitive on the part of successful English students but is nevertheless crucial to their success in examination English. The final section of the article considers some implications of the grammatics for teachers who want to prepare their students to read unfamiliar narratives symbolically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents introduction to the article that have been published in the April 2005 issue of the journal "Prospect."