MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE ROLE OF ENGLISH AND SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE ON NATURAL SCIENCES LEARNING

Abstract

South Africa has eleven official languages, and yet only two languages, English and Afrikaans are the Languages of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) in schools. Language is important in shaping the learning and teaching environment in a classroom. Teaching Natural Sciences in English in a multilingual classroom can be challenging when learners are not proficient in the language of LoLT. That complexity is exacerbated by the nature of scientific language which is designed and considered to be academic concise, precise, and authoritative, making scientific concepts inaccessible to most learners. This is an unfortunate situation because in science classrooms, learners are expected to read, comprehend, write, articulate, and use English and subject-specific terminologies. The authors of the current paper argue that both English language and scientific language create a learning barrier for the learners whose home languages are different from English, the LoLT. It is against this background that the current study being reported herein sought to determine multilingual learners’ perceptions of the role of English language and scientific language in their learning of Natural Sciences. In a qualitative research design two grade 8 and 9 Natural Sciences classes and their teachers were selected from two high schools in township areas using purposive sampling technique. Data collection involved focus group interviews with learners and individual interviews with the teachers. Each teacher was observed once whilst teaching Natural Sciences to grade 8 or grade 9 classes. The qualitative data collected was subjected to content analysis and two main themes were obtained: 1. Learners’ perceptions that English language and scientific language limit their understanding of scientific concepts; and 2. Teachers’ assistance in mitigating challenges imposed by English language and scientific language experienced by English-second-language speakers. Learners from the two schools indicated that both English language which is their second or third language and scientific language imposed many challenges in their learning of Natural Sciences. These challenges included failure to read, write and understand Natural Sciences content. Those learners showed excitement at the prospect of learning science in their home languages as they were not comfortable with being taught in English. Teachers used code switching and hands on activities to mitigate language challenges in their classrooms. The study findings thus have implications for both curriculum policy implementation and continued teacher professional development