Using Functional Approach To Improve Language And Learning In Hong Kong Secondary Schools

Abstract

This paper derives from projects funded by Hong Kong Education Bureau which aim at developing secondary students’ language ability across the curriculum when they learn to master their content subjects, and in particular, their competence in expressing concepts and ideas in different subject domains in both Chinese and English. Based on Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1994) and Genre theory (Martin, 1999), the researcher worked closely with teachers of Chemistry, Biology and Economics to identify students’ problems and difficulties encountered in their use of language in performing academic tasks, with special reference to subject-specific genres (Shum, 2006). The team then explored effective teaching approaches with relevant materials to help students overcome the problems and difficulties identified. In the previous year, some pilot teaching of the above three subjects were conducted. Some classroom data included classroom observation, student interviews, students’ written texts were collected. This paper is to report the teaching designs and strategies the teachers developed and to evaluate the effectiveness of the genre pedagogies through classroom data analysis. Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Second Edition. London: Edward Arnold. Martin, J.R. (1999). Mentoring Semogenesis: ‘genre-based’ literacy pedagogy. In Frances Christie (Ed). Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consciousness. London: Cassell. Shum, M.S.K. (2006). Exploring an approach for teaching subject-specific genres in Chinese: the case in post-colonial Hong Kong. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 29, No. 1: 06.1-06.22.