The perception and experiences of teachers about language issues in the biology classroom

This section presents the major findings of this study. All the themes are comprehensively explained below with the participants’ testimonials.

Figure 1. Model of Language Issues in Biology Classroom

Biology is a discipline that has both concrete as well as abstract knowledge. All four participants had the same understanding that biology teaching is a critical process. Therefore, they faced some issues while teaching biology. These issues are described below.

Scientific Terminologies: Limited and Structured

The data analysis reveals that the précised and structured vocabulary creates issues in the learning of biology. There are many terms in biology, but all the terms are limited and structured. As an Interviewee I shared experience that, “Biology has pre-defined limited terminologies. As the digestive system has particular terminologies and those terminologies are used in the whole life kingdoms. It means the same terminologies are applicable in bacteria, animals, even plants’ kingdoms”. Similarly, it was observed that when teachers involved students in the writing activity about the digestive system, students faced difficulties in writing. The main reason which hinders students from writing on the digestive system is the limited and structured vocabulary of the topic. Interviewee II also endorsed that “Students usually complain about these difficult terms that are given in science”. It could be analyzed that students perceive biology as a subject that has no connection with language learning. Basically, this is the misconception that students hold science and language are different domains. Teacher responses and observation data depict that every system and process has structured terms in biology and students are bound to use those terms related to that system such as esophagus, intestines, and stomach.

Scientific terminologies: Difficult spellings and pronunciation

Data analysis discloses that language is the major issue in the teaching and learning of biology. Most of the time, students get a conceptual understanding of any topic but they remain unable to describe their understanding because of long and difficult spellings of terminologies. Interviewee IV shared that, “Every topic has many and tough terminologies. Syllabus density with a bundle of difficult terminologies create problems for students to learn effectively” (Interviewee IV). It shows that students cannot read and spell long terminologies. It is also understood that spelling errors lead to writing errors as both are interconnected. Likewise, the wrong pronunciation of long terms also creates a hindrance while getting a conceptual understanding of the scientific topic. Data also describes that the syllabus of biology has too much content density which creates problems for the students. As more than one concept is described in the same small paragraph. Therefore, the content density and language issues both create difficulties to learn science smoothly.

Ehri and Rosenthal (2007) endorsed that when students start to write the spellings of the words, firstly, they pronounce those words then they write. Similar challenges faced by Interviewee III,

Many of the terminologies like peptidoglycan could not be pronounced by the students as it is quite difficult to pronounce peptidoglycan. So I told them to focus on the spellings. So these kinds of problems are used to create problems daily.

It is analyzed that if students are unable to pronounce the scientific word correctly, how they could be able to write the accurate spelling of that word. So, the lack of good pronunciation practice leads to more mistakes in the spelling and expression in writing.

Scientific terminologies: Specific phenomena

Data analysis elaborates that biology is connected to our lives in many ways. Most of the phenomena students practice in their daily life such as breathing, diseases, and digestion but all these processes have specific terminologies in biology subjects which creates difficulties in the learning of biology. Students feel biology is disconnected due to unfamiliar words. As Interviewee II stated:

Biology has particular terminology and phenomena. Regarding every phenomenon, even if we eat food then we take a rest so it also has particular physiology. When we explained that in biology terminology that it is very different from normal terminology. Then we explained the mechanism process step by step. And procedure as well (Interviewee II).

This highlighted that when the teacher asked for spellings of the long terminologies students faced difficulties while explaining and spelling out the words.

Alienated scientific terminologies

The analysis of data divulges that students do not use biological vocabulary on a routine basis. So, students do not have much vocabulary for writing any scientific concept. It can be because students don't practice scientific vocabulary in their previous classes or social gatherings with friends or at home. That's why they faced difficulties in learning biology. Moreover, when students relate science learning with daily life experiences they become unable to create connections because both languages have diverse vocabulary and meanings. Tobias (1994) also emphasizes that connection among students' mother tongue and scientific language helps to build a bridge between new learning and prior knowledge. If there is no bridge, the acquired knowledge will not make meaningful connections and there will be no accommodation and assimilation. “No practice of scientific vocabulary daily basis” (Interviewee III). The data analysis discovers that every student belongs to a different context and the language that is used at their home is very different from academic language. So, when the teacher compares students' daily life experiences with academic learning, they become so confused because these terminologies seem to be alien to students. In addition, teachers also encounter some sort of difficulties while teaching unfamiliar words to the students.Interviewee IV stated that: Suppose if we are focusing on the parts of the brain. Cerebrum, these are words that are never utilized in our common language. So if I teach unfamiliar words I face some difficulties. Because now we are unable to relate the topic to daily life. Because they never listen to these terminologies [before] at home.

The above response shows that teachers faced challenges while connecting biology learning with students’ daily life because many terms seem alien to students.

Scientific Terminologies cannot be translated into the Native Language

The findings reveal that some of the teaching methods are not suitable in science teaching such as translation. Hence, while using the translation method a teacher could translate the concept but the difficult terminologies and complexity of the concept remain the same. So, most of the teachers faced difficulties while using translation methods in the biology classroom. As (Interviewee I) discussed, when I tried to translate the scientific terminologies in another language students got confused and started cramming the words”. This is also asserted that many terms in biology can’t be translated into the mother language (Sindhi or Urdu) of students. If teachers attempt to translate the scientific terms into students’ mother tongue the key terms remain the same as there are no corresponding words in local languages. For instance, the teacher cannot change the Golgi bodies, cellulose in the student’s native language (Sindhi). As there is no word for such biological terms. Interviewee III shared, “Every topic has many and tough terminologies. Even in the world it is declared that biology has very difficult terminology. Therefore, it is difficult to translate it into mother tongue”. The scientific terminology cannot be converted nor translated into the native language.

Huge Conceptual Density in Biology

The analysis of the data reveals that there is too much content of biology at the secondary level that hinders active teaching. There are 19 chapters in the biology textbook of secondary school and each chapter has many topics with different concepts (Ministry of Education, 2006) Teachers pressurized to complete the syllabus, hence they don't have more time to focus more on language issues in biology. Further, teachers cannot teach every topic effectively which holds a huge concept density. Likewise, there are separate terminologies for each concept in biology, hence, the teacher finds it difficult to teach students several new terminologies of biology present in the 19 chapters. As Interviewee IV shared, “Too much material, facts, and terminologies create difficulty for them. Suppose that the digestive system has more than 50 terminologies required to understand the complete system and its diagram.” It is found that more content in the textbook of biology at the secondary level does not allow us to think of other ways of teaching, resolve their issues in teaching, and reflect on their teaching. It can be said that if there would be fewer chapters in the textbook, teachers should have thought about resolving the language issues in biology teaching and working more on teaching terminology present in each chapter.

Lack of Conceptual Understanding of Scientific Concepts

The data analysis discovers that students come from different schooling backgrounds, hence, they have different levels of understanding depending on their particular school. In addition, the mother tongue of students is varied as well as their previous school’s medium of instruction. Observation data reveals that students which are enrolled in the biology subject have a weak understanding of the subject. When they learn new and different terminologies they face lots of problems. For example, Interviewee II stated that “If the students are coming from rural areas, they are having other problems like they do not have that understanding level which we want them in the level which we are teaching especially related to our board.” (Interviewee II)

Problem with Text Organization in Biology Textbooks

The analysis of data highlights that organization of biology textbooks is also the main factors that creates language issues in the learning of biology. It can be because of less description of terminology and more structured scientific words provided in the textbook. According to Eronen (2018), the organization of the biology books should start from simpler concepts to the most difficult. The topics are related to the life placed at the starting of the books. So students can easily make the connections between daily life and biology learning. “In our context, the organization and language of the book are not provided easily. On the other hand, language has sentences, visual representations, diagrams, and complete organizations and flow charts.” (Interviewee IV)