Abstract:
As students move into secondary school the language demands in the specialised subject areas become increasingly more abstract and complex. New Zealand curriculum statements have recognised the role of every teacher in enhancing their students' literacy and the importance of integrating subject-specific literacy (SSL) into content-area classrooms at secondary school (Ministry of Education,(MOE), 2007). International research suggests that a disciplinary literacy (DL) approach that integrates content and language learning can help students develop these advanced literacy skills that are required in specialised secondary school subjects. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which a small group of New Zealand teachers have integrated a DL approach into their classroom practice and to identify factors that have enabled or limited them in taking a DL approach in their teaching. The research study used a qualitative research design and data were collected through eleven one-to-one semi-structured, responsive interviews with six New Zealand secondary school teachers who had been identified as having an interest in literacy. The data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's (2006, 2012) six-phase thematic analysis process. A "disciplinary literacy lens" framework was synthesised from the literature to provide a guide to examine and analyse the data relating to classroom literacy practices. Five major themes were identified from the data in response to the research questions. A major finding from the study was that although none of the teachers were familiar with the term "disciplinary literacy", all of them had incorporated into their teaching some practices that aligned with a DL approach. However, the focus for most of the participants was on teaching subject-specific vocabulary, reading subject texts and writing to show understanding of subject concepts with the primary purpose of ensuring that content was covered for assessment. The two teachers who had a more holistic DL approach to their teaching had undertaken their own ongoing personal professional development. The findings suggest that given a guiding DL framework such as the one developed for this research, in a professional development context, teachers could become even more 'disciplinary' in their approach to classroom literacy teaching.
