Abstract/Summary

This thesis presents an investigation into the effects of teaching grammar in a contextualised manner on the writing of Year 9 pupils. It explores the ways in which grammar can be taught as part of a pedagogy which seeks to use Functional Linguistics, more specifically Systemic Functional Linguistics and Cognitive Grammar, as an accessible pedagogy in the classroom. The study used a case-study methodology to explore the impact of teaching grammar using Functional Linguistics strategies on the writing of Year 9 pupils. The study focused on two intervention lessons which introduced grammatical concepts in a contextualised manner. These lessons were recorded and analysed according to the links that participants made between the intervention lessons and the writing which they completed post-intervention. Participants from a whole year group from the target site were included in the section of the study which analysed writing samples. A smaller sample of participants also took part in a ‘think aloud’ section of the study which included recording these participants as they were verbally considering how to construct their pieces of writing. These data were analysed to explore the impact of the teaching strategies used on participants’ metalinguistic understanding. The findings are presented using Systemic Functional Linguistics as a model which explores the participants’ understanding of the writing task. The study is significant in considering how the metalinguistic understanding of pupils can be enhanced using pedagogies related to Functional Linguistics. It also provides a current method of teaching grammar using a pedagogy which is multifaceted and responds to teachers’ calls for the further provision of accessible grammatical pedagogies. It also allows for suggestions to be made as to further advancements which are required in policy and training.