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Asia-Pacific
Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 6, Issue 2, Article 2
(Dec., 2005) Sabri KOCAKULAH, Evrim USTUNLUOGLU and Aysel KOCAKULAH The effect of teaching in native and foreign language on students' conceptual understanding in science courses
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Discussion
The analysis of responses to conceptual understanding test questions, each of which involved the use of ideas about types of energy, energy conservation and transfer, illustrated the difficulties experienced by students in using such ideas. The discussion which follows focuses on two main issues: the proportions of students using accepted ideas about energy and the types of ideas, other than the scientifically accepted ideas, commonly used by students.
The quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that students who studied "the Energy Unit" in the native language were capable of giving more scientifically acceptable explanations than those who studied in a foreign language. In other words, Ss1 used quite different concepts related to the questions and came up with more response categories, proving that they had more misconceptions. The results of this study are consistent with the results of several studies which suggest that students who have not developed their cognitive academic language proficiency could be at a disadvantage in studying academic subjects and science in particular since this course requires reading textbooks to gain a deep understanding of concepts, participating in dialogue and debate, and responding to questions in tests (Cummins, 1981b, 1982; Krashen, 1982; Krashen and Biber, 1987; Rosenthal 1996; Spurlin; 1995).
As results suggest more Ss1 lack the ability to use coherent conceptual explanations related to energy than Ss2 do, although both groups of students had difficulty in explaining the questions. Results show that more Ss1 used the concept of "force" instead of "energy" and confused "potential energy" with "kinetic energy". Explanations regarding questions 1, 2, and 4 revealed that Ss1 had misconception about "transfer of energy" instead, they used "release of energy", "degradation of energy" and "waste of energy". On the other hand, more Ss2 gave completely correct and partially correct responses when considering "kinetic energy", "potential energy of a string", "heat energy" and "frictional force" as compared to Ss1. These results back up the claims by Johnstone and Selepeng (2001) that students who learn science in a second language lose at least 20 percent of their capacity to reason and understand the process. Claiming that basic proficiency is not adequate to perform the more demanding tasks required in academic courses, Short and Spanos (1989) suggest that students might lack conceptual understanding.
The reason why Ss1 students gave more scientifically unacceptable answers than did Ss2 can be explained by BICS and CALP (Cummins 1981a; 1982). Ss1 may have the language of natural, informal conversation, but lack language proficiency needed to read textbooks and to give scientific explanations in written tests. The fact that students are quite proficient in the grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure of the English language does not mean that they have the necessary cognitive academic language proficiency to learn the subject matter (Cummins, 1981a; Krashen, 1982).
Studies by Cassels and Johnstone (1983, 1985), Pollnick and Rutherford, (1993) reveal that learning in academic courses through the medium of English poses problems for students whose mother tongue is not English. One of these problems is rote-learning. Students who study main courses in a foreign language have difficulty connecting new and old information meaningfully. They can not store much in long term memory and lose information. Linguistic effects are also a result of one's lack of knowledge of grammar, rules of syntax as well as meanings of words used in different contexts. In this study, for example, responses to questions highlighted the idea that for many students the notions of energy and of power are strongly associated. More than one in three students focussed on the concept of power to set an object in motion, and some used the word "power" in a similar way to that in which a scientists might use "kinetic energy".
Copyright (C) 2005 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 6, Issue 2, Article 2 (Dec., 2005). All Rights Reserved.
