This book focuses on how instruction affects English learners’ use of Theme and thematic progression (thematic organization). While thematic organization in learner English has been extensively studied, little research has been done to investigate the effects of instruction on the use of Theme and thematic progression. Adopting a Systemic Functional Grammar approach, this study explores how a ten-week instruction on thematic organization affects Chinese college students’ use of Theme and thematic progression by comparing their English essays before and after the instruction, with native-speaker essays as the research baseline. Second-language acquisition researchers, curriculum developers and foreign language teachers will find this book useful as it not only presents a clear and detailed report of how Chinese college students learn to make better thematic choices, but also provides a well-developed instructional package on Theme and thematic progression.

This book offers a model of classroom discourse analysis that uses systemic functional linguistic theory and associated genre theory to develop a view of classroom episodes as 'curriculum genres', some of which operate in turn as part of larger unities of work called 'curriculum macrogenres'. Drawing on Bernstein's work, Christie argues that two registers operate in pedagogic discourse: a regulative register, to do with the goals and directions of the discourse; and an instructional register, to do with the particular 'content' or knowledge at issue. Each can be shown to be realized in distinctive clusters of choices in the grammar. The operation of the regulative register determines the initiation, pacing, sequencing and evaluation of the overall pedagogic activity. The book sets out the its methodology in detail by reference to a number of classroom texts, and a range of school subjects. Overall, schools emerge as sites of symbolic control in a culture.

Guideline 12: If the Results of Previous Studies Are Inconsistent or Widely Varying, Cite Them Separately

div Composition research consistently demonstrates that the social context of writing determines the majority of conventions any writer must observe. Still, most universities organize the required first-year composition course as if there were an intuitive set of general writing "skills" usable across academic and work-world settings. In College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction, Anne Beaufort reports on a longitudinal study comparing one student’s experience in FYC, in history, in engineering,;

GENRE: AN INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY, THEORY, RESEARCH, AND PEDAGOGY provides a critical overview of the rich body of scholarship that has informed a “genre turn” in Rhetoric and Composition, including a range of interdisciplinary perspectives from rhetorical theory, applied linguistics, sociology, philosophy, cognitive psychology, and literary theory.

Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell, authors with nearly thirty years of experience teaching college writing, know what works in the classroom and have a knack for picking just the right readings. In Patterns for College Writing, they provide students with exemplary rhetorical models and instructors with class-tested selections that balance classic and contemporary essays. Along with more examples of student writing than any other reader, Patterns has the most comprehensive coverage of active reading, research, and the writing process, with a five-chapter mini-rhetoric; the clearest explanations of the patterns of development; and the most thorough apparatus of any rhetorical reader, all reasons why Patterns for College Writing is the best-selling reader in the country. And the new edition includes exciting new readings and expanded coverage of critical reading, working with sources, and research. It is now available as an interactive Bedford e-book and in a variety of other e-book formats that can be downloaded to a computer, tablet, or e-reader. Read the preface.

The book is based on a detailed corpus-based investigation of the structure of noun phrases (NPs) in Singaporean English and Kenyan English with the aim of detecting, on the one hand, typological effects from substrate languages and, on the other hand, simplification patterns known to play a role in such varieties.

Discourse in English Language Education is designed to introduce students to the major concepts and issues in discourse analysis and its applications to language education, drawing on the key research from a range of approaches. This will be essential reading for upper undergraduates and postgraduates with interests in applied linguistics, TESOL and mother tongue language education.