New Perspectives in Science Education

Science subjects are often considered difficult by students both at school and at university. One reason for this is the multi-faceted nature of the language of science. For many first-time students of science, whether in school or at university, the language of science is a forbidding barrier to the understanding of science. School teachers are now more aware of the problem but this less so of lecturers at university, who consider that teaching the language of science (apart from nomenclature) is not their job. All science subjects have a high density of new, unfamiliar technical words but they also use non-technical words with different meanings, they frequently use symbolic language (including mathematics), they require facility with logical connectives and they use specific sentence constructions. Most teachers focus only on teaching the technical vocabulary of science, which for beginners is akin to learning a foreign language, but ignore the other aspects of language.

Communication is an important part of science and there can be no teaching or learning, and indeed no thinking, without having facility in the use of language, both in the student’s everyday language and in the language of science. Societal changes in the last 20-30 years have meant changes in the background and preparation of students: literacy levels are lower in general, and students read less; in addition, many countries are increasingly multi-lingual and more students are learning science through a second language. Both factors mean that the teacher cannot assume high levels of proficiency in the national language either for native or non-native speakers.

Science literacy depends on the two pillars of language and mathematics, and when either of these is deficient the learning of science is hindered. The talk will look at various strategies that science teachers can use to help reduce the language barrier.