Structured informality

The notion of‘structured informality’ is proposed in Lim (2011, 2019) and Lim, O’Halloran, and Podlasov (2012), based on observations from Mei’s lessons. Structured informality is where a specific combination of semiotic choices made in the classroom is coordinated to construct a conducive learning environment for students where explicit display of power dynamics between the teacher and students are managed. Through specific semiotic choices which function to maintain a didactic structure for learning, other semiotic choices are made to mitigate the hierarchical distance between the teacher and students.This achieves a degree of rapport building and solidarity between teacher and students uncommon in more traditional authoritative classrooms.

Savery and Duffy (1995) propose that a teacher should structure the learning experience just enough to make sure that the students get clear guidance and parameters within which to achieve the learning objectives. However, the learning experience should be open and free enough to allow for the students to discover, enjoy, interact, and arrive at their own understanding and construction of knowledge.

In Systemic Functional Theory terms, structured informality is constructed in the classroom when the teacher projects a range of interpersonal meanings which are juxtaposed against an organised presentation of ideational and textual meanings in the knowledge structure of the lesson. The ideational meanings in the classroom, which are how knowledge is represented in the lesson, are cogently expressed in a well-structured manner. The textual meanings in the classroom are expressed in the organisation of the knowledge via well-designed stages as they unfold progressively in the lesson microgenres to structure the learning experience. However, the interpersonal meanings in the classroom, specifically the teacher-student relationship, are kept generally informal, with overt authority and power avoided, in order to construct a collegial learning environment.

Structured informality is especially relevant for the Pre-University level, where this study is conducted, because the students are adolescents. As the Ministry of Education commissioned study in Singapore explains, adolescence‘is a time of identity formation, of asserting independence and of changing relationships’ (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2010: 23). As such,‘[t]his generally leads to adolescents showing less deference to their teachers compared with primary school pupils’ (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2010: 24).

Hence, structured informality, with clear structure in the presentation of ideational and textual meanings in the lesson but with informal interpersonal meanings, can arguably facilitate effective teaching and learning. This is because skills and content knowledge are transmitted in a collegiate setting where the adolescent students are put at ease as a result of specific choices in the enacting of the interpersonal relationships between the teacher and students.

The emergent meaning of structured informality, as observed in Mei’s lesson, provides insights into how a specific learning experience can be designed by the teacher through multimodal classroom orchestration. This pedagogy may be particularly pertinent for classrooms where the adolescent students are generally more reticent and reluctant to verbalise their opinions and participate in the lesson.

Structured informality in the classroom is an example of effective multimodal classroom orchestration. It shows how teachers can design a collegial learning experience, within an ordered series of lesson stages with structured knowledge representations, and where students are encouraged to participate actively in their learning. With structured informality, teachers can design a learning environment where students are encouraged and are comfortable enough to engage with, participate, and challenge the teacher and the knowledge representations, as part of their learning.

In this chapter, we have explored how the combination of semiotic resources can work together to express the pedagogy of the teacher. Drawing examples from the case studies of Lee and Mei, we have considered how the contextualising relationship across the embodied semiotic modes and semiotic technologies can bring about both semantic convergence and semantic divergence. The semantic divergence can bring about ambivalence or work productively towards expressing the emergent meaning of structured informality where the formal ideational and textual meanings and informal interpersonal meanings interplay to facilitate more engaging and participative learning experiences for the students. Developing this semiotic awareness can support the apt use of multimodal embodied modes and semiotic technologies to design unique learning experiences.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

• 1. How can teachers use their bodily resources and different teaching tools to express their pedagogy?
• 2. How can teachers design for 'structured informality' in students' learning experience?