Language And Science: The Role Of Language In Science Education

The role of language in science was taken for granted, however, this chapter by Sutton (1998) addressed this issue by highlighting the influential role of language in science education. Sutton’s focus was mostly on the written aspect of language, however, there are other aspects that are influencing science education and consequently affecting the teaching and learning processes. One of these aspects is the language science is represented with, such that the language science is being represented in textbooks might be different than the students’ or teachers’ mother tongue. This raises challenges for teachers and for students, whereby teachers had to bridge the gap between scientific terminologies and students’ mother tongue. To elaborate, from my experience in practicum, I noticed students struggled to express their thoughts using accurate English and scientific terminologies. For example, once I asked students to describe the life cycle of butterflies based on a figure that I had provided, a

By incorporating NOS in science textbooks, not only we will be addressing the problem suggested by Sutton (1998), but, also, as teachers, we will be reinforcing scientific expertise needed in to develop active citizens while attaining two roles in scientific understandings that are “knowing how” science was established and “knowing that” which is constituted of facts and scientific knowledge (Bellous &Siegel, 1991). Finally, Sutton’s chapter provides a concise framework for teachers and research scholars to view science teaching and scientific knowledge from a different perspective. Such that the science content and teaching should be viewed from the scientists’ perspective to the extent that collaboration between scientific community is needed to reach such