Abstract
The language of teaching and learning challenges Physical Sciences teachers and impacts learners’ achievements. The study aimed to investigate how language literacy is integrated into the teaching of Physical Sciences. A descriptive survey design was adopted. The participants were five Grade 10 Physical Sciences teachers and 211 learners (108 boys; 103 girls) from nine schools exhibiting low academic achievements. Data were gleaned through the Literacy Skills Usage Survey Questionnaire (LSUSQ). The results show that 77.78% of the teachers did not engage learners in report writing and arguments which are fundamental to language literacy, suggesting that integrating literacy in science teaching was inadequate. Learners had difficulties in contributing to word walls, writing reports, and arguing from evidence. The lack of integration suggests that teachers lacked training in integrating language literacy into science teaching. These findings underscore the need for workshops to enable teachers to incorporate language literacy in teaching Physical Sciences.
 
 Keywords: arguing from evidence, integrate, language literacy, reading and report writing
Highlights
Over half a century, Science education scholars advocated for incorporating language literacy in Physical Sciences lessons (Lyon et al, 2016)
To meet the aim of the study, two objectives were used: 1) to establish how language literacy is integrated into the teaching of Physical Sciences in schools; and 2) to identify elements of language literacy, which was integrated into the teaching of Physical Sciences
Language literacy is one of the means through which science learning takes place and the language literacy of learners is expected to increase from one level to another
Summary
Science education scholars advocated for incorporating language literacy in Physical Sciences lessons (Lyon et al, 2016). Teaching through inquiry where learners read, write and talk about Physical Sciences enhances learners’ literacy and content knowledge (Nelson, 2020). Vygotsky (1978) asserts that learning first occurs in the inter-mental plane before it can happen in the intra-mental plane This denotes that a learner cannot understand Physical Sciences content because of LoTL, and that the learner will not take part in science lesson discourses. Science teachers need to address how students use language to communicate with their peers (Vygotsky, 1978) It suggests that some teachers do not integrate literacy in the teaching of Physical Sciences (Bacon, 2020). Learners fail to develop LoTL in Physical Sciences To date, it is not clear how much language literacy integration takes place in Physical Science lessons in South Africa. The study investigated how language literacy was integrated into the teaching of Physical Sciences in Riba Cross District, South Africa
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