ABSTRACT
The death knell for face-to-face lectures at university has been rung louder and louder in recent years, as teaching is pushed to move online. However, those advocating for online learning have rarely engaged with the functionality of lectures for building highly specialized knowledge and thus what we risk losing by abandoning them. Utilizing SFL, this chapter explores the potential of face-to-face lectures for structuring knowledge, as exemplified through a live lecture of molecular chemistry. In particular, it analyzes the co-expression of language and body language to reveal the dynamic iterations of meaning across various lecture phases. Through these phases, the various ways in which knowledge is presented and negotiated are explored to uncover how these support the apprenticeship of students into specialized knowledge in their fields. In an age of transition to online learning, this chapter presents an important and often lost argument of the significance of face-to-face lectures to knowledge-building in science education and what could be lost without them.
