Developing an educational linguistics for English language teaching

The relevance of linguistic studies to educational practices has been an issue hotly debated for some time among specialists in English language education. Many such specialists have questioned the value of any linguistic insights, preferring to rely on various pedagogical theories, most of them not informed by any rigorous examination of language, its nature and functions, or its role in learning. This paper argues the importance of developing an educational linguistics, the better to inform curriculum planning and pedagogical practices in schools. In particular the paper argues the importance of the contributions of systemic functional linguistic perspectives to the development of a model of language and literacy of a kind which can usefully underpin curriculum planning and learning theory. Such a model, while drawing extensively upon other related contemporary social theories, will nonetheless place a functional grammar firmly at the heart of its concerns.