As established by Halliday (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014),1 systemic functional linguistics (SFL) models language in social context and recognises three general social functions for which language is used: (a) enacting our social relationships; (b) representing our experience to each other and (c) organising our enactments and representations as meaningful text. These are known as the ‘metafunctions’: the interpersonal metafunction enacts relationships; the ideational metafunction represents experience and the textual metafunction organises text. When discussing the three metafunctions, Halliday (1978: 113) points out that ‘the textual function has an enabling function with respect to the other two; it is only in combination with textual meanings that ideational and interpersonal meanings are actualized’. The textual metafunction is realised by the choices a speaker or a writer makes in combining the ideas and reality that he or she wishes to express (ideational), along with the relationship that he or she hopes to project and develop (interpersonal). The organisation of the ideational and the interpersonal plays a key role in developing what it is we mean and how we relate to those with whom we want to interact through language. Halliday (1977: 181) states that the function of the textual metafunction is: specifically that of creating a text, of making the difference between language in the abstract and language in use in other words, it is through the semantic options of the textual component that language comes to be relevant to its environment.

It has long been established that parents play a key role in educational achievement. In this paper, we examine parental involvement in children’s foreign language learning and the goal of finding ways to support families as they help their children to acquire a foreign language. The study investigated the ways in which Hong Kong families do and could support their children, aged 5–8, in English learning. The nature of existing parent involvement is described based on quantitative and qualitative data obtained via questionnaires and focus group discussions with a group of parents. In order to explore what parents could do to support their children with school-based requirements for English learning, a focus group of parents participated in a workshop that focused on the practice of reading aloud to their children in English. The results show that Hong Kong parents are involved in supporting their children’s English literacy development in a variety of ways, yet they do not generally embrace culturally specific Western practices such as reading aloud; and furthermore, to adopt such practices might be problematic. © 2015, © The Author(s) 2015.

This study draws on the experience of a cohort of 22 multinational and multilingual students enrolled in a Master in Education ( MEd) distance learning program administered by a British university. It's purpose is to locate the aims and philosophies of distance learning within the experiences of actual distance learners in order to see if learners' needs were being met by the program and to obtain a fuller understanding of core aspects of distance education. The study found that students were, on the whole, satisfied with the course materials, the choice of modules, assignment feedback, and length of time given to complete the assignments, but significant problems surfaced regarding issues of student support, and access to and provision of resource materials. Arguably, these are issues intrinsic to the successful provision of distance learning courses, and the results both concord with aspects of the research literature (Burge Howard, 1990; Chen, 1997; Hyland, 2001; Morgan, 1995; Robinson, 1995; Simpson, 2000; Tait, 2000) and raise some interesting questions regarding the provision of distance education and its ability to meet the needs of learners.