Books by Hiram Maxim
Editions by Hiram Maxim
Articles / Chapters by Hiram Maxim
Transforming Postsecondary Foreign Language Teaching in the United States, 2014
This chapter reports on one foreign language (FL) department's ongoing efforts to overcome the di... more This chapter reports on one foreign language (FL) department's ongoing efforts to overcome the division between so-called language courses at the lower levels and content courses at the upper levels that characterizes much of collegiate FL education. Central to this endeavor has been close collaboration between linguists and literary/cultural studies scholars within the department to (a) identify appropriate content-based speaking and writing tasks; (b) specify the linguistic features needed to realize these tasks; and (c) integrate the explicit instruction of these features into all courses in an articulated manner. The author illustrates ways that this undertaking affected not only the configuration of course offerings but also the degree of meta-level linguistic awareness among all faculty members, thereby equipping them theoretically and pedagogically to carry out curricular integration. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how other departments might undertake similar programs to implement language-based content instruction across the undergraduate curriculum.
The collegiate foreign language profession has become increasingly aware of the unnecessarily det... more The collegiate foreign language profession has become increasingly aware of the unnecessarily detrimental effects of bifurcated curricula on student learning and departmental governance, yet there have been few instances to date of departments that have been able to achieve unified, articulated programs of study. This article presents one foreign language department’s initiatives and activities to do just that. We describe the collaborative process that the German Studies Department at Emory University underwent in its full-scale revision of the undergraduate curriculum. The chairperson begins the description by explaining his role in the reform process. Other faculty members continue the description by outlining the institutional and department context, the impetus for reform, the curriculum’s theoretical framework, and the different curricular levels. An ongoing, multi-year project, the revised curriculum has placed demands on students and faculty, but also indicated promise for enhanced departmental identity and student learning.
Educating the Future FL Professoriate for the 21st Century, 2013
In presenting pedagogical and theoretical frameworks for educating the future foreign language (F... more In presenting pedagogical and theoretical frameworks for educating the future foreign language (FL) professoriate, the preceding chapters have highlighted the centrality of teacher development for the entire FL profession. While it is perhaps self-evident to many readers of this series that today’s graduate students are tomorrow’s professoriate and thus essential to the profession’s future, the contributions to this volume have pointed out that teacher education has not always been prioritized to the degree that it deserves in the FL graduate curriculum. Whether it is the limited course work devoted to teacher education or the assignment of the teacher supervisor position to one individual or the inclusion of graduate student teacher education only on the periphery of important professional discussions (e.g., 2007 MLA Report), FL graduate student teacher development, for all its apparent importance, has not enjoyed much prominence neither in theory at the professional and scholarly level nor in practice at the departmental level. Given this recurring theme in the volume and the need to address it, we contribute this brief coda that synthesizes the major points from the preceding chapters in order to present central challenges and opportunities for the collegiate FL profession if it is to take the development of its future educators seriously.
Crossing Languages and Research Methods. Analyses of Adult Foreign Language Reading , 2009
Recent findings in L2 reading research cite the benefits to language development from supplementi... more Recent findings in L2 reading research cite the benefits to language development from supplementing reading with text-specific tasks that require learners to interact with the language in the text. One procedure for fostering learner interaction with textual language is the appropriation of textual language into writing and speaking. To date, however, professional discussions on textual appropriation tend to focus on the issues it raises regarding plagiarism rather than its potential facilitative effect on L2 language development. In particular, little is known about how instructed adult learners themselves view and work with texts as resources for their own learning.
The paper addresses this issue, first, by arguing for a comprehensive reconsideration of textual appropriation’s critical role in any language learning. It locates textual borrowings within the gradual appropriation by all learners of a range of L2 textual features into their language use. For L2 learners and L2 instruction this highlights a need to understand in explicit terms the type of language that a specific text uses at the lexico-grammatical, sentential, and textual level. Next, the paper outlines the pedagogical sequence implemented at the advanced level of a four-year integrated, content-based collegiate FL curriculum that explicitly attends to the textual language of the assigned thematically clustered readings. The paper then presents data from classroom observations, learner interviews, and analyses of learner writing to characterize how 6 advanced FL learners viewed and responded to this explicit instructional approach to narrow reading and writing development, focusing in particular on their approach toward and the type, degree, development of their textual appropriations across two semesters. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this learner-based perspective on textual borrowing for L2 reading and writing instruction.
This position paper argues that collegiate foreign language (FL) education has lost sight of the ... more This position paper argues that collegiate foreign language (FL) education has lost sight of the central role that language plays in the profession. Regardless of one's sub-field within foreign language education (i.e., linguistic, literary, or cultural studies), the profession shares the common focus of exploring how to make and interpret meaning in and through language. The paper therefore recommends that an acknowledgement of and re-commitment to this foundational principle provides common ground to effect the types of change within departments that have long been called: the integration of upper- and lower-level instruction; the reform of graduate student teacher education to foster curricular thinking; the explicit and systematic attention to the development of advanced language abilities; and the establishment of a collaborative departmental culture centered around publicly shared beliefs and concerns.
Conceptions of L2 Grammar: Theoretical Approaches and their Application in the L2 Classroom , 2009
Advanced grammar instruction in collegiate foreign language (FL) departments typically consists o... more Advanced grammar instruction in collegiate foreign language (FL) departments typically consists of a foundational review of the grammatical canon, often relying on an advanced grammar textbook that both reviews and expands the traditional paradigms studied in lower-level instruction. Holding firm to the belief that reviewing these paradigms yet again will finally result in the mastery long considered necessary for upper-level study, this approach nevertheless fails to take into account the (con)textual nature of language use that permeates all levels of language use and that inherently requires grammar to be inextricably linked to meaning, form to function. This chapter addresses this lack of textuality in upper-level grammar instruction by presenting how formal language development at the advanced level in one departmental context is treated from a genre-based perspective in that the specific language features inherent to particular genres considered appropriate for advanced language instruction provide the basis for developing students’ formal accuracy. Specifically, this approach adheres to the belief that the development of advanced language abilities proceeds along a continuum that moves from the narrative, verbal-oriented language use emphasized at the lower levels to more argumentative, nominal-dominated forms of expression. As a result, this narrative-argumentative continuum serves as the basis for selecting and sequencing genres across the curriculum. This chapter will focus on one upper-level course that was recently redesigned with this continuum in mind and that used the genres selected for the course as blueprints for the students to follow into more linguistically advanced forms of expression.
This article argues that the construct of task can provide a principled and effective foundation ... more This article argues that the construct of task can provide a principled and effective foundation for the development of extended, multi-year curricula and pedagogies for second/foreign language learning of adults. That assertion is made with an important condition: “task” must be expanded, both theoretically and empirically, toward issues that arise in conjunction with textuality and literacy rather than being grounded primarily in psycholinguistic, sentence-oriented processing considerations, as original proposals by Long and Crookes (1992) had suggested.
The article presents that overall theoretical argument and then describes how genre-based tasks have been used (1) for selection and sequencing decisions within an existing content- oriented collegiate curriculum in the German Department at Georgetown University; (2) as a way to inform pedagogical choices that target advanced levels of L2 ability, particularly the crucial area of vocabulary development; and (3) to devise genre-based tasks that assess L2 learners’ language abilities and content knowledge across the curriculum and also help to further specify learning objectives and curricular choices.
One of the characteristics of the well-documented bifurcation in collegiate foreign language (FL... more One of the characteristics of the well-documented bifurcation in collegiate foreign language (FL) instruction is the difficult transition from lower- to upper-level instruction. Particularly pronounced are the expectations placed on readers at the upper level. No longer engaged in surface readings and sentence-level exercises that stay focused on everyday situations with clear intent and unambiguous meaning, learners at the upper level must shift to super-sentential and discourse-level processing of texts that contain a significantly higher level of abstraction and ambiguity. Recognizing that preparation for such an approach to reading requires long-term attention, this paper establishes the pedagogical feasibility of implementing in beginning instruction the type of textual thinking and reading practiced at upper levels. Implemented in two sections of first-semester German (N = 27) while reading a full-length novel, this pedagogical approach centers on developing beginning learners’ ability to see texts as message systems that reveal cultural significance.
Poetry and Pedagogy. The Challenge of the Contemporary, 2006
Although there have been increased efforts in recent years to improve the education of graduate s... more Although there have been increased efforts in recent years to improve the education of graduate students as teachers, most graduate teacher development continues to take place in foreign language (FL) departments divided academically and structurally between language teaching at the lower level and content teaching at the upper level. In such a department, graduate teaching assistants’ (TAs) pedagogical training and teaching experience is typically restricted to lower-level “language” classes, a phenomenon that is reinforced by the TA supervisor’s limited jurisdiction and authority within the department. Without any substantive exposure as teachers to “content” classes, TAs are left with an incomplete introduction to the profession.
This article addresses this issue of inadequate preparation of graduate teachers within a divided department by presenting the case of one department that instituted an expanded view of TA education consisting of two central components: implementing a more coherent, less divisive curriculum and assigning the responsibility for educating TAs to the entire faculty. By teaching in a curriculum that does not distinguish between language and content, TAs come to a better understanding of the longitudinal nature of language learning and of the pedagogical choices that allow for effective language instruction. Teaching in a curriculum without divisions also allows faculty to interact more with graduate teachers, to understand their pedagogical concerns, and to offer constructive advice. Within such a departmental and curricular framework, it is hoped that TAs can receive a more complete socialization into the range of intellectual pursuits that constitute a department and FL study.
Language Program Articulation: Developing a Theoretical Foundation , 2005
In light of the well-documented structural and professional obstacles to developing articulated c... more In light of the well-documented structural and professional obstacles to developing articulated curricula in collegiate foreign language (FL) departments, this paper presents a procedural approach for overcoming these obstacles and implementing an integrated four-year undergraduate curriculum. Specifically, the approach consists of the following steps: the formulation of shared departmental goals, the establishment of a close linkage between language and content at all levels of instruction, a clear principle for organizing and sequencing the content, a consistent pedagogy for engaging the content, and a systematic approach for assessing the degree to which the curriculum meets its stated goals at all levels of instruction. To demonstrate the practical application of this approach, this paper discusses the implementation of an articulated program for developing collegiate FL learners’ writing abilities within a recently revised and integrated undergraduate curriculum. Following a genre-based literacy orientation, the curriculum is able to establish a context for developing learners’ writing abilities across all four years of instruction. In addition, the implications of an articulated curriculum for the language program director are discussed.
Modern Language Journal, 2002
Despite efforts to integrate all levels of foreign language (FL) instruction, reading remains on ... more Despite efforts to integrate all levels of foreign language (FL) instruction, reading remains on the periphery of beginning language study. Reading extended texts is outcast to an even greater degree. This article addresses this issue by presenting the design, results, and implications from a study involving beginning college-level language students who read a 142-page romance novel in their first semester of German. During the semester, the treatment group (N = 27) followed the same standard first-semester syllabus as the comparison group (N = 32), but replaced all standard reading assignments in the textbook with daily in-class readings of the romance novel. The effects of the treatment were assessed on the basis of the two groups’ results on a) three departmental exams and b) a pretest and posttest consisting of written recall protocols of four texts and vocabulary-related questions. A statistical analysis of these two measures yielded two central findings. First, students were able to read a full-length authentic text in the first semester. Second, the treatment group performed as well as the comparison group on the three department tests and the posttest, which runs counter to arguments that time spent in class reading adversely affects beginning language learners’ second language (L2) development. Curricular and pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.
Advanced Foreign Language Learning: A Challenge to College Programs, 2004
This paper examines the prevailing departmental, professional, and research practices in collegia... more This paper examines the prevailing departmental, professional, and research practices in collegiate foreign language (FL) learning and argues that, as it is currently conceptualized, collegiate FL learning needlessly limits the opportunities for developing advanced language abilities. In response to this predicament, alternative approaches to FL learning are proposed that center around more comprehensive and integrated curricular planning that recognizes the long-term nature of FL learning. Specifically, in contrast with the current privileging of spoken language use, individualistic approaches to language use, and naturalistic learning, this paper advocates a genre- and discourse-based orientation to FL learning that reflects a social understanding of language use.
Despite Cultural Studies' impact on foreign language departments nationwide, it has typically onl... more Despite Cultural Studies' impact on foreign language departments nationwide, it has typically only influenced the upper-division and graduate levels. Seldom have its theories and practices been applied to lower-division teaching and foreign language teaching methodology in general. This article addresses this need by reporting on procedures used in a study conducted with first-semester students to investigate the possibilities of using extensive reading of authentic texts as the basis of an inquiry-based foreign language curriculum.
After a brief introduction which argues that authentic texts’ peripheral role in lower-level foreign language teaching has prevented critical inquiry from being effectively implemented in beginning classes, this article describes the pedagogy of the study's experimental sections. In the fourth week of their first-semester German class, students began reading a 142-page authentic popular novel following a procedural model outlined by Swaffar, Arens, and Byrnes (1991). Working predominantly in class and in pairs or groups, the students first previewed a text segment to establish its major events and characters. Then, they looked for the textual language used to characterize these people and events. Following that, they focused on the text’s macro-syntax by linking events between segments. Next, they reproduced textual language to make statements about the text. Last, they identified the text's references to values, behaviors, and activities that have cultural significance and implications. Central to these identification tasks is Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic power; students examined how the various events and behaviors in the novel were assembled and weighted in order to locate which characters and behaviors had the most political and social capital in the text. Once students recognized those with the most capital, they gained access to the underlying system of thought within the text. They then attempted to extrapolate this analysis onto a larger plane and assess the broader culture out of which the novel arose. By carrying out this entire procedure in the target language, students developed their ability to read, write, listen, and discuss with accuracy.
Results on standardized language exams and a semester post-test reveal that students from the experimental section benefited from the inquiry-based approach in comparison with a control group that followed the standard first-semester syllabus. As a final point, this article will discuss the implications of such findings for the development of a coherent foreign language curriculum that prepares beginning students for the type of cultural analysis required of them at the upper level of foreign language study.
This paper begins by reviewing the current practices in foreign language teaching in light of Bou... more This paper begins by reviewing the current practices in foreign language teaching in light of Bourdieu's theories of language and power to show how failing to assess discursive intent prevents students from understanding the strategic use of language. Bourdieu's model is then proposed as the basis for a pedagogy that authorizes students to use their existing cognitive skills in order to assess a text's discourse and uncover its verbal and nonverbal strategies. To illustrate this alternative pedagogy, pedagogical techniques used to teach a short video segment from German television in a third-semester Business German course will be discussed. Each of the techniques encourages students to look for the significance of the video's visual as well as verbal discourse. To help exemplify both the authorizing process and the pedagogical effectiveness of this new approach, these techniques will also be compared with input exercises that ask students to register information without assessing discursive intent. As a final point, this paper will discuss oral and written exercises that build on students' insights from their analysis of the video's visual and acoustic features.
For some time, foreign language proficiency theoreticians and practitioners as well as execu- tiv... more For some time, foreign language proficiency theoreticians and practitioners as well as execu- tives in international business havc identified critical thinking as an essential skill. Despite this demand, the leading world-wide examinations for assessing oral and written communicative competence in Business German, the Priifung Wirtschaftsdmtsch Intmnational [International Business German Examination] (PWD) and the Zertijikat I)mtschfur den Bmuf [German Cer- tificate for Professional Purposes] (ZDfB), test only students' information retrieval skills and fail to assess their critical thinking abilities. This article proposes to integrate critical thinking and problem solving into the exams and to contextualize the tests' tasks in a more authentic business setting without compromising the PWD's and ZDfB's content. These proposals should then be researched using qualitative as well as statistical methods in order to develop a stronger test. For each component of these exams, this article offers ways to include an as- sessment of the students' ability to reflect on, analyze, and critically evaluate business infor- mation. Parallels are drawn to the A C F L ProJicienq Guidelines. Given the enormous influence of the PWD and the ZDfB on Business German curricula worldwide, these improvements will contribute to a more realistic preparation of Business German learners for their successful participation in the global marketplace.
Conference Presentations by Hiram Maxim
While L2 writing research has examined different developmental indicators, it has typically relie... more While L2 writing research has examined different developmental indicators, it has typically relied on learner performances on course-based, rather than curriculum-based, composing tasks. In other words, the writing development being investigated is not reflective of a larger curricular project with programmatic goals and objectives. This presentation explores this issue through a multi-year longitudinal and cross-sectional investigation of German L2 syntactic complexity, based on a learner corpus consisting of writing data collected across the four years of an integrated undergraduate program at a U.S. university. The presentation begins by contextualizing the study in terms of the literacy-oriented curriculum, wherein writing development is driven by the use of genre-based writing tasks throughout the four-year program. The specific genre-based tasks at the end of each of the four curricular levels receive particular attention in this study because they were designed to elicit writing performances prototypical for the end of each level. Next, an analysis of the performances on these prototypical writing tasks according to different complexity variables (mean length of sentence; mean length of clause; clauses per sentence; lexical density; degree of coordination; degree of subordination) is presented from both the cross-sectional (n = 87) and the longitudinal (n = 9) learner corpus. Differences in complexity measures across curricular levels and the degree to which complexity can predict the curricular level of a given student are reported with specific emphasis on the complexity patterns that develop within an articulated program of study that has clearly stated goals for learners’ writing performance across the curriculum. Then, the presentation compares these curriculum-specific findings with complexity findings from related L2 writing research in order to determine the degree to which existing predictions of writing development are supported by this curriculum-based data. Last, implications of these findings for building models of foreign language writing instruction are discussed.
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Books by Hiram Maxim
Editions by Hiram Maxim
Articles / Chapters by Hiram Maxim
The paper addresses this issue, first, by arguing for a comprehensive reconsideration of textual appropriation’s critical role in any language learning. It locates textual borrowings within the gradual appropriation by all learners of a range of L2 textual features into their language use. For L2 learners and L2 instruction this highlights a need to understand in explicit terms the type of language that a specific text uses at the lexico-grammatical, sentential, and textual level. Next, the paper outlines the pedagogical sequence implemented at the advanced level of a four-year integrated, content-based collegiate FL curriculum that explicitly attends to the textual language of the assigned thematically clustered readings. The paper then presents data from classroom observations, learner interviews, and analyses of learner writing to characterize how 6 advanced FL learners viewed and responded to this explicit instructional approach to narrow reading and writing development, focusing in particular on their approach toward and the type, degree, development of their textual appropriations across two semesters. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this learner-based perspective on textual borrowing for L2 reading and writing instruction.
The article presents that overall theoretical argument and then describes how genre-based tasks have been used (1) for selection and sequencing decisions within an existing content- oriented collegiate curriculum in the German Department at Georgetown University; (2) as a way to inform pedagogical choices that target advanced levels of L2 ability, particularly the crucial area of vocabulary development; and (3) to devise genre-based tasks that assess L2 learners’ language abilities and content knowledge across the curriculum and also help to further specify learning objectives and curricular choices.
This article addresses this issue of inadequate preparation of graduate teachers within a divided department by presenting the case of one department that instituted an expanded view of TA education consisting of two central components: implementing a more coherent, less divisive curriculum and assigning the responsibility for educating TAs to the entire faculty. By teaching in a curriculum that does not distinguish between language and content, TAs come to a better understanding of the longitudinal nature of language learning and of the pedagogical choices that allow for effective language instruction. Teaching in a curriculum without divisions also allows faculty to interact more with graduate teachers, to understand their pedagogical concerns, and to offer constructive advice. Within such a departmental and curricular framework, it is hoped that TAs can receive a more complete socialization into the range of intellectual pursuits that constitute a department and FL study.
After a brief introduction which argues that authentic texts’ peripheral role in lower-level foreign language teaching has prevented critical inquiry from being effectively implemented in beginning classes, this article describes the pedagogy of the study's experimental sections. In the fourth week of their first-semester German class, students began reading a 142-page authentic popular novel following a procedural model outlined by Swaffar, Arens, and Byrnes (1991). Working predominantly in class and in pairs or groups, the students first previewed a text segment to establish its major events and characters. Then, they looked for the textual language used to characterize these people and events. Following that, they focused on the text’s macro-syntax by linking events between segments. Next, they reproduced textual language to make statements about the text. Last, they identified the text's references to values, behaviors, and activities that have cultural significance and implications. Central to these identification tasks is Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic power; students examined how the various events and behaviors in the novel were assembled and weighted in order to locate which characters and behaviors had the most political and social capital in the text. Once students recognized those with the most capital, they gained access to the underlying system of thought within the text. They then attempted to extrapolate this analysis onto a larger plane and assess the broader culture out of which the novel arose. By carrying out this entire procedure in the target language, students developed their ability to read, write, listen, and discuss with accuracy.
Results on standardized language exams and a semester post-test reveal that students from the experimental section benefited from the inquiry-based approach in comparison with a control group that followed the standard first-semester syllabus. As a final point, this article will discuss the implications of such findings for the development of a coherent foreign language curriculum that prepares beginning students for the type of cultural analysis required of them at the upper level of foreign language study.
Conference Presentations by Hiram Maxim
The paper addresses this issue, first, by arguing for a comprehensive reconsideration of textual appropriation’s critical role in any language learning. It locates textual borrowings within the gradual appropriation by all learners of a range of L2 textual features into their language use. For L2 learners and L2 instruction this highlights a need to understand in explicit terms the type of language that a specific text uses at the lexico-grammatical, sentential, and textual level. Next, the paper outlines the pedagogical sequence implemented at the advanced level of a four-year integrated, content-based collegiate FL curriculum that explicitly attends to the textual language of the assigned thematically clustered readings. The paper then presents data from classroom observations, learner interviews, and analyses of learner writing to characterize how 6 advanced FL learners viewed and responded to this explicit instructional approach to narrow reading and writing development, focusing in particular on their approach toward and the type, degree, development of their textual appropriations across two semesters. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this learner-based perspective on textual borrowing for L2 reading and writing instruction.
The article presents that overall theoretical argument and then describes how genre-based tasks have been used (1) for selection and sequencing decisions within an existing content- oriented collegiate curriculum in the German Department at Georgetown University; (2) as a way to inform pedagogical choices that target advanced levels of L2 ability, particularly the crucial area of vocabulary development; and (3) to devise genre-based tasks that assess L2 learners’ language abilities and content knowledge across the curriculum and also help to further specify learning objectives and curricular choices.
This article addresses this issue of inadequate preparation of graduate teachers within a divided department by presenting the case of one department that instituted an expanded view of TA education consisting of two central components: implementing a more coherent, less divisive curriculum and assigning the responsibility for educating TAs to the entire faculty. By teaching in a curriculum that does not distinguish between language and content, TAs come to a better understanding of the longitudinal nature of language learning and of the pedagogical choices that allow for effective language instruction. Teaching in a curriculum without divisions also allows faculty to interact more with graduate teachers, to understand their pedagogical concerns, and to offer constructive advice. Within such a departmental and curricular framework, it is hoped that TAs can receive a more complete socialization into the range of intellectual pursuits that constitute a department and FL study.
After a brief introduction which argues that authentic texts’ peripheral role in lower-level foreign language teaching has prevented critical inquiry from being effectively implemented in beginning classes, this article describes the pedagogy of the study's experimental sections. In the fourth week of their first-semester German class, students began reading a 142-page authentic popular novel following a procedural model outlined by Swaffar, Arens, and Byrnes (1991). Working predominantly in class and in pairs or groups, the students first previewed a text segment to establish its major events and characters. Then, they looked for the textual language used to characterize these people and events. Following that, they focused on the text’s macro-syntax by linking events between segments. Next, they reproduced textual language to make statements about the text. Last, they identified the text's references to values, behaviors, and activities that have cultural significance and implications. Central to these identification tasks is Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic power; students examined how the various events and behaviors in the novel were assembled and weighted in order to locate which characters and behaviors had the most political and social capital in the text. Once students recognized those with the most capital, they gained access to the underlying system of thought within the text. They then attempted to extrapolate this analysis onto a larger plane and assess the broader culture out of which the novel arose. By carrying out this entire procedure in the target language, students developed their ability to read, write, listen, and discuss with accuracy.
Results on standardized language exams and a semester post-test reveal that students from the experimental section benefited from the inquiry-based approach in comparison with a control group that followed the standard first-semester syllabus. As a final point, this article will discuss the implications of such findings for the development of a coherent foreign language curriculum that prepares beginning students for the type of cultural analysis required of them at the upper level of foreign language study.
This paper addresses this issue by presenting how one undergraduate program has used the construct genre to integrate the teaching of language and content across all four years of the curriculum. Defined as staged, goal-oriented, socially situated communicative events, genres call on specific lexico-grammatical items to realize their communicative goal and thus exemplify to learners how language functions to make meaning. To demonstrate genre’s potential to provide a program-wide framework for integrating language and content, this paper will present how specific genres from each of the four curricular levels (recount, fairy tale, plot summary, political debate) are used to deliver content while also modeling targeted language features. Furthermore, the paper will illustrate how each of the genres also serves as the basis for learners’ own level-specific language production.
This paper focuses on this issue in terms of a central concern, namely that of text selection and sequencing in an integrated curriculum. It demonstrates how research from a systemic-functional perspective that has developed discipline-specific text topologies (Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Coffin, 2007; Martin, 2002) and a context-based text topology/typology (Matthiessen, 2006) can provide a useful framework for the selection and sequencing of texts as genres for the purposes of integrating language development and content learning. Specifically, the paper will illustrate how one collegiate FL department is currently redesigning its curriculum based on these text topologies in order to establish a discipline- and language-based pathway for the learner to move from beginning to advanced levels of ability. The envisioned textual trajectory of the entire curriculum will be presented. Concrete examples of how content was selected and sequenced based on its textual representation come from the three completely revised levels of the curriculum (levels 1-3) where the progression begins with the socio-semiotic process of recreating, moves to an emphasis on reporting, and continues with a focus on expounding.
To contribute to a more differentiated understanding of advancedness, particularly its gradual development in instructed settings, this paper examines advanced writing through an analysis of data that are (1) longitudinal and span a time period that can be assumed to be meaningful for the development of advancedness (approximately 150 hours of instruction across three curricular levels of a U.S. undergraduate German program); (2) embedded in an instructional environment that has implemented principled, articulated curricular and pedagogical practices for the development of advancedness; (3) analyzed within a systemic functional linguistic framework to understand with the Mode variable particular patterns of theme selection and progression across the three curricular levels.
By analyzing how developing advanced learners use theme to organize and prioritize certain interpersonal and experiential meanings to achieve textual coherence and by relating this evolving use of theme to the learners’ developmental trajectory, the paper aims to contribute to a better understanding not only of the nature of advancedness but also of its development by adult instructed learners.
On the cline between congruency and incongruency, the passive voice leans towards the pole of incongruency as it does not conflate the Subject of the clausal Mood structure with the Actor of the clausal Transitivity structure. In German, the passive voice occurs frequently in written texts of more formal registers and is thus tied to the sphere of secondary discourses of public life. Presenting an additional challenge to English-speaking learners of German is the general discouragement of the use of the passive voice in English.
Set in a systemic functional linguistics framework, this study traces 14 learners’ written use of the passive voice as they gradually move from the congruent sphere of a narrative to the more incongruent spheres of expository writing. This study utilizes an analysis of the evolving configurations of Mood and Transitivity structures of the clauses in written texts produced by the learners in order to illustrate how the passive voice develops longitudinally in a particular instructed setting. Through such an analysis, this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the development of advancedness in adult instructed learners.
To contribute to a more differentiated understanding of advancedness, particularly its gradual development in instructed settings, this paper examines these proposed characteristics of advanced writing through an analysis of data that are
• longitudinal, rather than cross-sectional, and span a time period that can be assumed to be meaningful for the gradual development of advancedness (approximately 150 hours of instruction across three consecutive curricular levels of a U.S. undergraduate German program)
• embedded in an instructional environment that has implemented principled, articulated curricular and pedagogical practices for the development of advancedness;
• analyzed within a systemic functional linguistic framework in order to focus on the central notions of experiential and logical meaning, and the analytical categories used to describe the transitivity system within simplex clauses (e.g., processes and circumstances) and the logico-semantic system in clause complexes, which enables the construction of diverse logical relations for experiences.
By analyzing the intraclausal and interclausal resources evolving advanced learners use and by relating them to the learners’ developmental trajectory, the paper aims to contribute to a better understanding not only of the nature of advancedness but also of its development by adult instructed learners.
The paper addresses this issue, first, by arguing for a comprehensive reconsideration of textual appropriation’s critical role in any language learning. It locates textual borrowings within the gradual appropriation by all learners of a range of L2 textual features into their language use. For L2 learners and L2 instruction this highlights a need to understand in explicit terms the type of language that a specific text uses at the lexico-grammatical, sentential, and textual level. Next, the paper outlines the pedagogical sequence implemented at the intermediate level of a four-year integrated, content-based collegiate FL curriculum that explicitly attends to the textual language of the assigned thematically clustered readings. The paper then presents data from classroom observations, learner interviews, and analyses of learner writing to characterize how 10 intermediate L2 learners viewed and responded to this explicit instructional approach to narrow reading and writing development, focusing in particular on their approach toward and the type, degree, development of their textual appropriations across two semesters. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this learner-based perspective on textual borrowing for L2 reading and writing instruction.
In this curricular context task is closely related with three other central components of the curriculum: content, text, and genre. Because of the curriculum’s content orientation, texts play an essential role as the carriers of content and vehicles of instruction. The construct of genre, particularly the distinction between personal genres and genres found in more public settings, is then used to sequence the content and corresponding texts.
Within this genre-based textual environment, tasks are developed based on specific genres treated in instruction. Specifically, each genre-based task within the curriculum is structured so that learners must attend to 1) the properties of the genre they are producing in order to be able to 2) discuss effectively the content foci while 3) incorporating the language features that characterize the genre. As learners progress through the curriculum and perform genre-based tasks at each instructional level, they follow an articulated trajectory toward attaining advanced-level abilities. Examples of speaking and writing tasks will be presented to highlight how the tasks interact with content, text, and genre in order to support a four-year curricular progression.
The paper addresses this issue by arguing for a comprehensive reconsideration of textual appropriation’s critical role in any language learning. It argues that a genre-based, literacy-oriented approach enables the necessary broader view by locating textual borrowings within the gradual appropriation by all learners, but particularly more advanced learners, of a range of L2 textual features into their language use. It assumes that literacy is particularly well described as genre-related and involves making informed, situated choices about socially acceptable language use. For L2 learners and L2 instruction this highlights a need to understand in explicit terms the type of language that a specific genre uses at the lexicogrammatical, sentential, and textual level.
To exemplify this explicit instructional approach, the paper will first present the pedagogical sequence that was implemented at the intermediate level of a four-year integrated, content-based and literacy-oriented collegiate FL curriculum in order to attend to the generic features of the personal story, the primary genre used to explore the level’s six thematic units. The paper will then present quantitative and qualitative data on the lexicogrammatical features that 30 intermediate L2 learners incorporated into their genre-based writing during one academic year, focusing in particular on the type, degree, and development of textual appropriations across the two semesters.