School Science Learning and Languages

This article was published in L'Express of 26th August 2003.  

This article aims at presenting the importance and role of language skills in science learning and stresses the need for making systematic and deliberate attempts to ensure that students master the basic skills with a view to enriching their science learning.

Recently during a workshop on assessment criteria, many teachers had queries related to language requirements for sciences. Most of these queries emerged because of teachers’ commitment to ensure that their students obtain good results. However, many had not realised the importance of language skills for sciences. Many science students also share their views. It is not unusual to hear science students say, ‘I don’t like languages.’
Parents of students who opt for science subjects also comment, ‘my son/ daughter is studying science subjects and has no interest for languages.’ The same arguments justify the poor performance in the ‘O’ level language and ‘A’ level GP papers. There is no harm in identifying one’s weaknesses/ interests, which in fact is a positive trait that provides information for appropriate remedial measures. Nevertheless, there is a flaw in these statements, which rest on the belief that science is an empirical subject that proceeds through experimentation and science learning does not require a mastery of language skills. Subsequently, such belief keeps students from persevering sufficiently to acquire the basic language skills. Language classes may be perceived as boring and are attended because these are compulsory. This fallacy, it would not be incorrect to say, affects students’ science learning and subsequently, their performance in science examinations. This is further confirmed by the examination reports at the CPE, SC and HSC levels. In many cases the performance of the candidates would have been better if they had understood the demands of the questions and were able to express their understanding through the answers.

In the following paragraphs, the reasons for strengthening the language skills to improve the learning outcomes in science are discussed. The need for improving the language skills of our science students is urgent because while there is no doubt that language is a key to understanding any subject, its neglect among the science students is seen to be more profound. 

Science proceeds through two types of language.  The first one is the technical and the highly specialised language of science and the other one, the non-technical one, binds it for communication. Students require the mastery of both to understand and use science.

The technical language has its own concepts, terms and processes and these have definite meanings. It uses verbal expressions as well as non-verbal means such as symbols, images, visual representations for effective and appropriate communication.  Some of these are familiar words but have different and specific meaning in science. An understanding of these words can be confounding because of their common and everyday usage in very different contexts. Some of these are observable while the others are not. Moreover, the technical language operates at two levels. At a lower level, it is concerned merely with the communication of the established knowledge of science. At the second and a higher level, it requires analytical skills to proceed. 

The mastery of the technical language is imperative to learn science and also to support future science learning for it can be very discriminatory and can easily put the knowledgeable at an advantage and the ignorant at a disadvantage. The disadvantaged may then lose faith in their abilities to make sense of science, develop some kind of helplessness, perceive science as a difficult subject and retire without any meaningful learning.

Developing the mastery of the technical language undoubtedly is not an easy task. The difficulty is further augmented because of the poor command of the non-technical language skills that are required to put the technical science together in an objective, precise, coherent and expository format. 

Language skills play an important role in investigating science both to make sense of it and for active participation. Students are required to communicate their science learning in writing using both the technical and the non-technical language in a format acceptable to the science community. While writing, the learner reflects not only on the science but also on his own learning, evaluates it and thereby promotes it. Writing thus engages his active participation, plays both the cognitive and meta-cognitive roles and initiates the process whereby the learner becomes responsible for his own learning. However, for this, it is imperative that deliberate attempts are made to develop the writing skills from an early age. Inside the science class, the focus in writing should be on the underlying science and its science specific sentence structure. These will prove handy later when students will take the ‘high stakes’ examinations and science related careers. 

Students also need to develop proper reading skills to make sense of the science text, evaluate it and make informed judgment about it. They should learn to scrutinise it for the main points, follow the train of main arguments, relate it to their cognitive structure and construct their knowledge base as a result of it.  Many parents lament that their children especially boys do not read. The lack of active reading skills can become a barrier to science learning.  There is a need for appropriate and attractive material to engage and maintain their attention in sciences. This may require reducing its readability.  However, at no point this should result in watering down the science content and lowering down its cognitive demand for learners are easily put off if the task is not sufficiently challenging. Moreover, the mass of information available through internet and other sources requires students to have advanced reading skills (e.g., scanning, skimming, critical ability to identify main themes/ ideas, to separate facts from opinions, ability to infer meaning and to draw relevant conclusions, among others).

Students should also learn to talk about science. Talking about science is necessary to reconstruct science. It can correct many inconsistencies that students may have. Besides, it stimulates thinking and reflection on science. In addition, listening skills help in building/ re-building one’s own ideas as a result of listening to that of the others.

It follows from the above that it is important to master the language skills so as to be in a privileged position to understand science and also to become active user of it.