So what’s new? SFL and the Science of Learning

by Beverly Derewianka, University of Wollongong

Over some 50 years as an educator at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, I have had the opportunity to observe and participate in waves of pedagogic approaches – each of which has informed my understanding of what is involved in the education endeavour.

In this moment, it is the Science of Learning (SOL) that dominates the space – often presented in the form of a collection of teaching tips (such as spaced practice, avoiding cognitive overload, feedback, explicit instruction, elaboration, dual coding, interleaving and retrieval practice) that result in long term memory retention and guarantee success.

Many of these strategies are simply common sense and have informed good teaching and learning over the decades.

They are not exclusive to SOL, as evidenced in this comparison of the teaching and learning principles grounded in cognitive science from The Deans for Impact and those espoused by a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) approach – though they have been arrived at from different paradigms:

Science of Learning	A functional language approach
The teaching approach best supported by the evidence is explicit instruction of a well-sequenced, knowledge-focused curriculum.	Since the early 1980’s, functional linguists have promoted the explicit teaching of the language and literacy resources needed to succeed across the years of schooling and across the different disciplines. A functional approach has always seen ‘building deep knowledge of the field/subject matter’ as central to the teaching-learning process – not simply ‘prior knowledge’ or ‘background knowledge’ but core subject knowledge that is primarily built through language and other meaning-making systems.
Making content explicit through carefully paced explanation, modeling, and examples can help ensure that students are not overwhelmed.	A functional approach makes explicit not only the knowledge demands of the curriculum but the language and literacy resources required to achieve these demands, including how such learning is paced, modelled, and scaffolded in various ways.
A well-­sequenced curriculum is important to ensure that students have the prior knowledge they need to master new ideas.	Using a genre approach, the teacher typically backward maps from the culminating task of a unit of instruction and identifies a sequence of contributing ‘mini-tasks’ that build incrementally towards the culminating task where new learning is constantly revisited and extended.
We understand new ideas via examples. Teachers can use “worked examples” as one method of reducing students’ cognitive burdens. A worked example is a step-­by-­step demonstration of how to perform a task or solve a problem.	A functional approach has always implemented modelling and ‘worked examples’ as a core practice, such as deconstructing model texts with the class to provide an exemplar for the students’ own writing, and using ‘think-alouds’ to demonstrate how a proficient reader/writer engages in the process of comprehending and composing.
This guidance — or “scaffolding” — can be gradually removed in subsequent problems so that students are required to complete more problem steps independently.	The notion of scaffolding has been integral to SFL pedagogy for decades. The literacy teaching-learning cycle (see below) is based on the notion of gradual release of responsibility and Bruner’s model of scaffolding. The cycle, developed by Rothery and colleagues in the 1980s, has informed teaching practice across Australia and internationally for some 50 years.
Teachers often use multiple modalities to convey an idea; for example, they will speak while showing a graphic.	The teaching-learning cycle integrates all the modalities (reading, viewing, writing, representing, speaking, listening) in the pursuit of building field knowledge. Functional researchers have spent decades examining how each contributes to learning in different ways. Hammond and Gibbons (2005) use the term ‘message abundance – amplify don’t simplify’.
Cognitive development does not progress through a fixed sequence of age-­ related stages. Content should not be kept from students because it is “developmentally inappropriate.”	Agree. Vygotsky eschewed Piagetian stages of learning. Functional linguists have any number of examples of even very young students demonstrating high levels of literacy achievement through explicit teaching using the teaching-learning cycle in line with Mariani’s call for “high expectations – high support”.
We usually want students to remember what information means and why it is important, so they should think about meaning when they encounter to-be-remembered material.	A functional model sees language as a key resource for making meaning – not just in terms of securing long-term memory but meaning-making as the chief goal of learning. Functional theory provides a detailed explanation of how language (along with other semiotic systems) operates to generate the multiplicity of meanings that students need to make in school contexts.
Each subject area has some set of facts [such as letter-sound pairings in early elementary grades] that, if committed to long-term memory, aids problem-solving by freeing working memory resources.	A functional model differentiates between foundational constrained skills and unconstrained skills, which are more concerned with meaning-making. Constrained skills such as phonics, phonological awareness, spelling and handwriting can be practised intensively towards automaticity and fluency to facilitate meaning-making when developing the unconstrained skills such as critical reading and viewing, robust argumentation, precise explanation, thoughtful interaction, and so on. The latter, however, don’t necessarily lend themselves as easily to the kind of structured, systematic teaching as the constrained skills. These require a much more nuanced approach beyond simply acquiring a ‘set of facts’.

As the above comparison indicates, SFL educators have been promoting such principles for the past several decades – arising from a socially grounded theory of language in contexts of use. Unlike the SOL teaching tips, the SFL teaching-learning cycle provides a coherent pedagogical framework that integrates the language and literacy skills needed to generate secure knowledge of the field.

The cycle:

• is concerned with deep learning of content (knowledge of the field) – language and content are inseparable;

• recognises that curriculum knowledge is learnt primarily through the integration of reading, writing and class discussions;

• identifies the language and literacy demands of curriculum tasks;

• explicitly teaches students the literacy and language skills needed to successfully achieve the task outcomes.

The simple solutions flooding current educational policies and materials are appealing. And amidst the pressures of schooling, it is understandable that complexity can be difficult to deal with. And yet, the enterprise of teaching and learning is complex, multidimensional and multifaceted. By adopting the SOL as the sole model of learning, we lock ourselves into a partial (and potentially transitory) view of learning – one that tends to preclude the art of teaching and the experience and expertise that teachers bring to their decision-making.

Unlike certain SOL advocates who proclaim the pre-eminence of (a somewhat reductive version of) cognitive science in education, the Deans for Impact take a more expansive view, acknowledging that “the Science of Learning does not encompass everything that teachers should know or be able to do, but we believe it is part of an important core of what educators should know about learning”.  

The challenge is how to allow other voices to be heard when the SOL voice is so all-pervasive and when there is no agreed-upon term to refer to a more inclusive, comprehensive and nuanced approach to teaching and learning. As educational linguists, we have a great deal to contribute in terms of learning as a social process and of demonstrating the central role that language and other meaning-making systems play in successful learning – dimensions virtually ignored by the SOL.

References

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Hammond,  J.,  &  Gibbons,  P.  (2005).  Putting  scaffolding  to  work:  The  contribution  of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect, 20(1), 6-30.

Mariani, L. (1997). Teacher support and teacher challenge in promoting learner autonomy. Perspectives,23(2).

Piaget, J. (1971). The theory of stages in cognitive development. In D. R. Green, M. P. Ford, & G. B. Flamer, Measurement and Piaget. McGraw-Hill.

Rothery, J. (1994). Exploring Literacy in School English (Write it Right Resources for Literacy and Learning). Sydney: Metropolitan East Disadvantaged Schools Program.

The Deans for Impact (extracts): https://www.deansforimpact.org/files/assets/thescienceoflearning.pdf

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

About the author 

Dr Beverly Derewianka is an Emeritus Professor (Language and Literacy Education) and Professiorial Fellow at the University of Wollongong, NSW.