Het opleiden van taalbewuste docenten natuurkunde, scheikunde en techniek: Een ontwerpgericht onderzoek

Science and technology (ST) are school subjects that use their own language. This aspect of ST is challenging for many students, for instance with regard to the use of concepts, tone, specific forms of reasoning and text structure. Subject teacher can help students to master this language. This study shows how they can be prepared for that in initial teacher education curricula.
Educational design research was used to generate theory about characteristics of such interventions. Case studies were carried out, in which 23 student teachers (mostly career switchers) and 8 teacher educators participated during three years. The findings were formulated as a concrete design and as design principles. These design principled were anchored in data-analysis and in theories from science and technology education and applied linguistics.
For the content of the curricular design a form of content based language instruction was used, that was enriched with genre pedagogy (Sidney school). As a learning object the ‘practical report’ was used, that served to secure coherence across three components of the design:
1.A course about the pedagogy of ST, in which a particular form of language and content integrated pedagogy was studied.
2.An ST content course. In this course the same pedagogy as studied in the pedagogy course, was modelled by a content expert. Courses were: Force and Rotation (physics students), Analytical Chemistry (chemistry students), Electronics and Domotics (technology students)
3.Teaching practice. Student teachers were asked to try the pedagogy in their own classes and to reflect.
The study demonstrates that training ST teachers to respond to their students’ linguistic needs is feasible, provided that language is specified in a way that is relevant for ST teachers, feasible, and complete in terms of a functional theory of language.
Systemic functional linguistics was used as an underlying framework to ‘talk about subject language’. Deconstruction of authentic and school-based texts from science and technology, and joint construction activities were embedded in the curriculum. The study resulted in a design called ‘Kalistte’ and six design principles. Kalistte is an acronym for ‘Knowledge About Language In Science and Technology Teacher Education. The six design principles are concerned with:
1.The overall sociocultural orientation of the design
2.The expected learning outcomes: A specific form of content and language integrated pedagogy that is anchored in genre pedagogy.
3.The major components of the design.
4.The choice for a learning object (practical report) and the underlying rational.
5.Learning activities that help student teachers to conceptualize and concretize the content.
6.Collaboration between science and technology teacher educators, language specialists and specialists in ST pedagogy.
The findings include characteristics of learning materials, e.g. sources for students, assignments, and an instrument PRIL (Practical Report Inventory of Language) that enables teachers to make choices for addressing specific aspects of ST language.
Further research is needed in the area of second language learners, digitalization, other (national) contexts for ST teacher education and professional development.