Elements constituting and influencing in-service secondary chemistry teachers’ pedagogical scientific language knowledge

Abstract

Chemish – the scientific language of chemistry – is crucial for learning chemistry. To help students acquire the competencies to understand and use Chemish, chemistry teachers need to have a sound knowledge of teaching and learning Chemish: Pedagogical Scientific Language Knowledge (PSLK). But still, despite the importance of this knowledge, the question remains what exactly it is. Based on a model for science teachers’ PSLK developed through a systematic review, this study seeks to validate the developed model by interviewing experienced chemistry teachers, filling the model with more detail, and examining further and systematising chemistry teachers’ PSLK. Therefore, semi-structured interviews with 19 German secondary chemistry teachers are conducted. The interviews are analyzed both deductively using the results of the systematic review and inductively following the approach of Grounded Theory. Finally, the elements of PSLK resulting from the systematic review, as they are knowledge of (i) scientific language role models, (ii) the development of the concept before the development of the scientific language, (iii) making scientific terms and language explicit, (iv) providing a discursive classroom, (v) providing multiple resources and representations, (vi) providing scaffolds for scientific language development, (vii) communicating expectations clearly, and (viii) specific methods and tools for teaching and learning the scientific language, could be validated and described in more detail, and even new elements, as they are the knowledge of (ix) the motivation when learning scientific language as well as (x) the knowledge of lesson preparation and follow-up, could be identified and described through the interviews. Furthermore, elements influencing the development of and PSLK itself are characterized. Implications to foster Pedagogical Scientific Language Knowledge during teacher preparation will be given.

Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Pre-service Chemistry Teacher Preparation Unit on Fostering Pedagogical Scientific Language Knowledge

“…To ensure that the perspective of practice in schools is involved as well and to avoid a discrepancy between the researchers as theoreticians and teachers as practitioners, a lower secondary chemistry teacher is also included to help with the development with the seminar unit. In addition to one chemistry teacher in the development team, the systematized PSLK of German chemistry teachers is used as a sound knowledge base of practitioners for the development of the unit. Also, the pre-service teachers attending the seminar unit are a part of the development team since they not only participate but also actively contribute to the improvement of the unit through their feedback .…”

“…In doing so, the university chemistry teacher educator can get an idea of the pre-service chemistry teachers’ work along the way. The main purpose of this task is to help the pre-service chemistry teachers develop an awareness of Chemish in general which is found to serve as an amplifier and filter regarding PSLK , (compare RCM by Carlson and Daehler) and to sensitize them about the massive number of (scientific) terms used within chemistry textbooks.…”

“…This type of teacher knowledge was first mentioned by Markic and has been further elaborated within two of our studies. We developed a model of PSLK which portrays elements constituting and influencing PSLK. , In the developed model of PSLK along the lines of the refined consensus model (RCM) of pedagogical content knowledge, the foundation of pedagogical scientific language knowledge is formed by the teacher professional knowledge bases with a focus on Chemish. These are more precisely the following: (i) content knowledge, (ii) assessment knowledge, (iii) curricular knowledge, (iv) knowledge of students, and (v) pedagogical knowledge.…”

“…How these knowledge bases finally result in pedagogical scientific language knowledge is influenced by the learning context and the teachers’ amplifiers and filters, the last of which includes, for example, the scientific language awareness of the chemistry teacher, as one can only teach scientific language consciously when one is aware of it. Scientific language awareness can be divided into the awareness of (i) grammar and discourse norms of scientific language, (ii) scientific terms and their morphology, (iii) semantic relationships between scientific terms, (iv) the difference between scientific and other language registers, (v) the abstractness of the concepts behind the terms, and (vi) recognition of scientific language teaching as a task of a science teacher. , Pedagogical scientific language knowledge itself is finally comprised of ten elements: knowledge of scientific language role models as students’ scientific language is influenced by media, social surroundings, and teachers knowledge of the development of the concept before the development of the scientific language as it is important to have a basic understanding before introducing scientific terms knowledge of making scientific terms and language explicit to draw students’ attention to scientific terms, e.g., by discussing their morphology knowledge of providing a discursive classroom as it is important for students to learn using scientific language in an anxiety-free learning space by including multiple dimensions of language knowledge of providing multiple resources and representations as, e.g., pictures, diagrams, hands-on experiments, to minimize the abstractness behind scientific terms knowledge of providing scaffolds for scientific language development in different ways, e.g., oral through questions, visual through letting students draw, and written through sentence patterns knowledge of communicating expectations clearly in terms of how and when scientific language is to be used knowledge of specific methods and tools for teaching and learning the scientific language during different steps of the learning process, e.g., summarizing terms in a glossary knowledge of motivation when learning the scientific language as Chemish should not overwhelm students knowledge of lesson preparation and follow-up as Chemish needs to be part of lesson objectives, and therefore, a broad curricular and content knowledge is needed …”

“…Given these research results, we agree with Rollnick as she states that (scientific) language is a key point in science teacher education as “(i) the appropriate use of language strategies in teaching science [···] need to be modeled by teacher educators and (ii) the importance of language awareness of the pre-service teachers themselves as teachers of language and science” has to be pointed out. This is why the purpose of this study is to develop a seminar unit that focuses on fostering pre-service chemistry teachers’ pedagogical scientific language knowledge (PSLK) with the help of the systematized PSLK of German chemistry teachers, following the research questions: RQ1: How can an innovative seminar unit for promoting pedagogical scientific language knowledge in pre-service chemistry teacher training be designed and implemented? RQ2: How does the seminar unit foster pre-service teachers’ scientific language awareness and their pedagogical scientific language knowledge? …”