Lexis Education’s Director, Brian Dare, will present at the 2024 New Arrivals Program Professional Learning Conference on 16 August 2024 in Melbourne.
Topic: Understanding the power of the lexicogrammar
As students across all levels of schooling engage in learning across the curriculum, they are expected to comprehend and compose a range of texts. These texts can vary from the spoken texts of the teacher and others to the complex multimodal texts of their textbooks to the multiplicity of texts they produce in response to the tasks set for them. While other meaning-making systems are involved, language typically plays a fundamental role.
For English EAL/D students, who are learning a new language at the same time as learning in that language, this is a huge challenge. A key question here is how can we best support our English language learners in accessing the meanings of this complex textual landscape.
In this presentation, I will draw on a functional model of language to show how we can support students with both comprehending and composing by attending to one of the fundamental areas of the language system: the lexicogrammar where words and groups of words combine to make meaning within the clause. I will argue that building our EAL/D students’ capacity to see how words ‘chunk together’ to make meaning is one of the most powerful and fundamental understandings we can develop in our students.
In doing so, I hope to show such an approach will not only be highly effective in helping the students make meaning in English but also open the potential for contrasting how the patterns in their own languages compare and contrast with English. In this way, we will not only support their capacity to use English but also highlight the value of the languages they bring to the learning context.
Grab your ticket here.