Coherent Metaphor Sequences in the Teaching of Pro- gramming

At Southampton University, we introduced Standard ML into the first year programming course as a vehicle both for teaching programming and for introducing principles of software engineering. The paper first outlines the background of the students and the depth of programming experience prior to joining the course. The class was divided almost equally into those with experience equivalent to A level or BTEC diploma level computing, plus a few professional programmers, and those with very little or no experience. For half the class, then, this is not their first programming language, and such students arrive with existing models of the programming process. The paper looks at which software engineering principles the different parts of the language support. We then consider how the underlying themes and the metaphors implicit in the material cohere with what they already know and what they are learning at the same time.