Teaching science to French-speaking students in English Canada using an instructional congruence model involving discourse-enabling strategies

Abstract

Outside the province of Quebec in Canada, most Francophones live in a minority-language context in which English dominates the linguistic and cultural landscape. In North America and the world, the English language has become the lingua franca of the scientific community and of society, generally. Enhancing the teaching of science for Francophones will require providing a rich array of discursive opportunities in the minority language while moving students from contextualised to decontextualised language. Cormier (2004) developed a model for teaching science to minority Francophone students where reading, talking, and writing are core activities. The authors present a revised model that better addresses the needs of all linguistic minority learners in the science classroom.