January 23, 2012

Second Language Acquisition in the Study of Science

I have often heard the complaints of many students crying that they are “just not good at science” or “science is so hard” as I walk into a science classroom. As heartbreaking as this is since at the heart of my education philosophy is the belief that anyone is a scientist, especially our young students, I can completely sympathize with their frustration.

Traditionally science content has been placed as one of the most difficult disciplines for good reason: it can be tough stuff to master. In many ways science itself has its own very particular language and discourse; and sometimes the terms alone can be challenging to understand. For many students, it only becomes more complicated when the teacher adds the abstract processes to which the words correspond. Historically science teachers have been some of the worst offenders in regard to refusing to teach reading skills and language building skills in the science classroom. In fact, Leigh Hall in the article Teachers and content area reading: Attitudes, beliefs and change noted a study by David Donahue in 2000 in which science teachers were questioned about their views respecting literacy. The results were appalling; “approximately half of the pre-service science teachers believed that science class was a place where students did not have to focus on reading and writing” (Hall, 2005). Now add to this huge mix, a student who is just beginning to acquire a new language: suddenly a science classroom becomes a very daunting place.

Schools are a great blend of all sorts of students–students with a great diversity of needs which teachers and schools must plan to meet throughout the six to seven hour school day. One of these particularly critical needs is for our ENL and ESL students. Like all students these new language learners have various developmental needs including needs for competency and achievement, positive peer interaction, community engagement, and physical activity just to name a few. But in addition, these students need extra support as they transcend through the various stages of acquiring a new language. As authors Jane Hill and Kathleen Flynn identify in Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners these students move through the five stages of acquiring a new language at varying speeds and at varying times. It is critical that as teachers we are able to assess these students, identify which stages they are in and plan activities which aide them in their learning.

This is a very student centered philosophy of education, but as both the articles we read this week contest, it is the only effective way to aide our ENL students. In their article Teaching Learners of English in Mainstream Classrooms: One Class, Many Paths Authors Linda Levine and Mary McCloskey elucidate the many factors which affect children acquiring a second language. These factors range from classroom environment and organization, to error correction and language load, and are all important to consider for creating a truly student focused plan for instruction (INTASC 1, 2, 3, 7). When teachers can plan appropriately for instruction they not only aid the native speakers in the room, but also assist the students who are just beginning to learn a new language. One of the best ways a teacher can plan for this is to facilitate an atmosphere where students feel comfortable taking risks in learning.

In my own experience, I have seen little attempts at this type of instruction in working in a science classroom. As mentioned above, science is a difficult subject for many students, not only our ENL students, because of the significant content literacy requirements of the subject matter. In addition, intrinsically science is about asking the hard questions, therefore, science teachers have to work diligently to set students up to feel safe asking and answering these dilemmas. In discussing content literacy specifically, science teachers have to begin to acknowledge that we must teach reading and language skills as an integrated part of the science curriculum. By planning for instruction through designing activities where students are working together, learning from each other, all while in the appropriate zone of proximal development (as mentioned in both articles) science teachers can improve not only the language acquisition of their ENL students, but also of the other diverse learners in the class (INTASC 8).

At the conclusion both of these articles, I was left wondering about how I can build the context of my classroom. Levine and McCloskey, as well as Hill and Flynn, introduce the idea of academic and social language. ENL students typically pick up social language within the first few years of intensive exposure to the second language. Often these students are mistaken for proficient because they may speak colloquially very well; however, this is not a necessary indication of their academic language which takes between five and seven years to develop to grade level proficiency. Levine and McCloskey classify these two types of language as one being context-embedded (social language), while the other is context-reduced (academic language). Because students, regardless of mastery of language, learn best when they have context for, relevancy towards, and emotional connections with the material, I want to specifically plan for this in my lessons and curriculum building. Most importantly this type of lesson planning would lead to allowing my students multiple opportunities to integrate their knowledge and ideas, and situate themselves in the pursuit of science in a variety of formats at whichever level they are ready (Common Core: Anchor Standard Literacy in Science).

Ultimately, I do not expect these lessons to be easy to plan. But to that end, acquiring a second language is not an easy endeavor either. I would hope through this commitment to engaging my students in this type of instruction, creating a positive and student focused classroom, and integrating literacy and language goals for all of the levels of student, native speakers and ENL students alike, we can work together to make significant gains in learning about science. Maybe then we will begin to see a shift where all students begin to see themselves as scientists actively analyzing and critically thinking about the world around them using academic language.

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