Systemic functional grammar (SFG) has been more and more used in different contexts and for different purposes as a tool to help us understand how languages are used to make meaning. In this text, we try to put forward the idea of using SFG in the teaching of reading English for Academic Purposes to undergraduate Philosophy students at a public University in São Paulo, by suggesting ways of operationalizing SFG concepts and their usefulness in helping students to cope with lexicogrammatical aspects of philosophical texts written in English.