Introduction

Across the globe, teachers are grappling with how to best support diverse learners in developing the language resources they need to succeed in school and society. Traditional approaches to language such as grammar and vocabulary drills have proven to be insufficient as they have presented language as decontextualized and removed from the schooling purposes it serves. In recent years however, many national curricular materials and language frameworks have turned to a functional approach based on systemic functional linguistics ( Christie & Derewianka, 2008 ; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014 ; Martin & Rose, 2007 , 2008 ; Schleppegrell, 2004 ) to design curricular materials and language standards. Standards that are framed by functional linguistic concepts include the California ELD Standards (2012); the WIDA ELD Standards ( 2020 ), and The Australian National Curriculum for English ( ACARA, n.d. ). The influence of a functional approach can also be seen in the increasing emphasis on contextualized and purpose-driven language descriptions in curricula frameworks, such as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in Europe ( Council of Europe, 2020 ), English syllabi in Singapore (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 2022), Indonesia (Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2022), and Hong Kong ( Education Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2025 ). These frameworks and supporting resources support teachers to attend to all aspects of development: learning to use language; learning about language, and learning through language (using language as a tool to learn new concepts and knowledge) ( Halliday, 1993 ). Representative reports of the successful implementation of these functionally informed curricula can be found in Acevedo et al. ( 2021 ), Accurso and Gebhard ( 2021 ), Humphrey (in press for 2026) , Kartika-Ningsih ( 2023 ), Pun and Jia ( 2025 ).