“Slowly, Slowly, Slowly it Becomes this is What Accepted Practice is”: Factors Affecting Functional Grammar Teacher Training in Australian Schools

Australia has a long history of scholars bringing a functional approach to teaching grammar into pedagogy to support student literacy. This study explores how the ideas and practices from the approach make their way into teaching by investigating the implementation of a teacher training program, Lexis Education, through the perspective of the teacher trainers. Using nine interviews with twelve trainers, the study asks what factors have supported and challenged the implementation of the program in the Australian context. Utilising the substantialising framework as an analytic tool to categorize factors affecting teacher education into domains of influence reveals aspects of the national and local environment, the professional field, and the experiences and beliefs of individuals that affect the work. The discussion explores how these factors, even those common across other educational settings, interact and affect the implementation of teacher training initiatives in that particular context.