The Challenge of Teaching Content to English Language Learners. Part II.
Jose Tena Villada
As seen in the last article, teaching content is a challenge for both to teacher and leaners. But, especially in the sciences as well as Math’s, the relation between content and language proficiency becomes critical because classroom inquiry has a lot in common with the work carried out by scientists, and students learn (do) content using language since the study of any of the sc
iences implies inquiry and discovery into the way the world around us works. Science and Math’s, however, have unique semantic structures (passive voice in the case of Science- and symbolic language in the case of Math’s), different kinds of figures of speech as well as certain established activities, like questions and answers. As a result, bilingual students who are only partially proficient in English are put in disadvantage, as they are forced to adapt to this new framework. Clearly, second-language-content learners are tested in a language that is not their own and thus it is not easy for a teacher to know whether it is language or content that is being assessed.
Current literature argues about the importance of learning how to talk content in order to learn content, as well as the relevancy of learner’s first language in order to construct meaning. It must be remembered that learners have their own experiences and use this idiosyncratic experiences to abstract meaning; there are preexisting cultural definitions of the concepts encountered in content classes. From experience, we know that the language during the delivery of content is English. However, English is not the only language used in what happens in the classroom. Therefore, in our case, Arabic turns out to be a tool as students try to grasp new concepts where alternating between the two languages occurs, especially when they work in small groups.
Based on the aforementioned arguments, teachers must explore concepts in ways that are relevant to the learners, so the connection between concepts, lessons and activities are critical for learning to occur. Research conclusions show that activities must help students present, debate and explain concepts to each other. The fact is that, when working is small groups informal conversation between students, concepts are mediated and translated when the language used by the teacher is unfamiliar. Studies have also shown that as students work out new concepts, this informal conversation, their social interaction, becomes very crucial.
Teachers then are faced with the need to possess a repertoire of lesson plans and teaching techniques and to understand when one or another activity is appropriate for a given level of conceptual complexity. In general, students must think about, read about, talk about and write about the concepts presented in class, so they can be synthetized and retained.
Bibliography.
Halin, Lilia et al, Experiences of Teaching the Heat Energy Topic in English as a Second Language. Science Education International. Vol. 23, No. 2, June 2012, 117 – 132. To the paper. To the paper
Carrejo, David J and Reinhartz, Judy. Exploring the Synergy between Science Literacy and Language Literacy with English Language Learners: Lessons Learned within Sustained Professional Development Program. SRATE Journal. Summer 2012, Vol. 21, Number 2. 33 – 38. To the paper
Goldberg, J. et al. Legitimacy and Language in a Science Classroom. English Teaching: Practice and Critique. September, 2009, Volume 8, Number 2, 6 – 24. To the paper
Abdul Gafoor K, and Sarabi M.K. Need for Equipping Student Teachers with Language of Mathematics. Presented in UGC Sponsored National Seminar on Pedagogy and Teacher Education- Trends and Challenges at Farrok Training College, Kozhikkode on 18th and 19th August, 2015. To the paper
