Systemic Functional Linguistics in Language Education
(60 academic hours)
by Dr. Ruslana Westerlund
Description: In this course teachers will be introduced to Systemic Functional Linguistics, a theory of language that puts context at the center and defines language as a dynamic meaning-making system of choices in context. One of those context variables is the purpose of language use which influences language choices we make depending on the purpose (asking for help, telling others what happened, sharing an opinion, etc.). In school, students use language for a variety of purposes.
About the presenter: Dr. Ruslana Westerlund was born in Buzhanka, Cherkaska oblast, Ukraine and emigrated to the U.S. in 1995. She received her doctorate in educational leadership in 2013, and now is a researcher and an educational consultant specializing in K-12 TESOL. Since 1995, she has worked at various teacher training universities as well as state and national levels researching, designing and training states and school districts in improving educational outcomes for immigrant and refugee children. Most recently, she has been training teachers in the use of Systemic Functional Linguistics to make language meaningful and visible for their students. She also used SFL in developing the national-level English Language Development Standards for use by the member states of the WIDA Consortium in the United States and internationally.
Duration and Schedule: The course will take place during academic year 2022/23, over a period of 6 months. It includes 6 online sessions in Zoom, individual work with course materials and participants’ final projects.
Mode: The course is offered online and combines synchronous and asynchronous learning (Zoom and a group in Telegram/Viber with extra reading and tasks). Participants will meet in Zoom on once a month.
Tuition fees: The course is free for TESOL-Ukraine members/ 500 UH for non-members.
Sessions 2-4
| Date |
Topic |
| October 28th
7 pm Ukrainian time/
11am Chicago Time |
Systemic Functional Linguistics: Participants, Processes, and Circumstances
Identifying Participants in Texts and Expanding Noun Groups
Teacher homework: Choose a genre (for example, informational reports) and expand noun groups in your work with students and upload student work here, a week before the next session. |
| November 25th
7 pm Ukrainian time/ 11am Chicago Time |
Systemic Functional Linguistics: Participants, Processes, and Circumstances
Identifying Processes in Texts: Beyond Action Words
Teacher homework: Choose a genre (for example, personal narrative) and teach students different kinds of verbs in the context of the narrative genre in your work with students and upload student work here, a week before the next session. |
| December 16
7 pm Ukrainian time/ 11am Chicago Time |
Systemic Functional Linguistics: Participants, Processes, and Circumstances
Identifying Circumstances in Texts: More than Prepositions: Language of Where? When? How? And Why?
Teacher homework: Choose a genre (for example, autobiography) and teach students how to add the language of place and time in the context of the autobiographical genre in your work with students and upload student work here, a week before the next session. |
Deadlines:
Registration – October 16 (last day),
Notification of acceptance – October 17,
Start of the course – October, 21
