CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING OF SCIENCE
Brodie (1989) states that encouragement to develop first language skills is necessary if the learner is to develop competence in a second language, and if the learner receives instruction in a foreign language without simultaneous support in his or her mother tongue, both languages as well as the learner's cognitive developmentand school performance will suffer.
Rollnick (1998) pointed out that second language (L2) learners of science fall into two broad categories:
• those who have come to a country having received part or all of their schooling in another language. These learners are usually referred to as learning English as a Foreign Language (EFgnL),where English is the language of instruction;and
• those who are citizens of a multilingual country where the language of official communication and economy is a former colonial language appropriated for social use and who are "officially" taught at school through the medium of that language.
These learners are usually referred to as learning English as a Second Language(ESL) (Rollnick, 1998).
For both EFgnL and ESL learners, the problems of learning science through a second language are often compounded by other factors contributing to disadvantage, such as poor education (Garraway, 1994).
Whilst researchers still disagree on when and how learners should be introduced to or learn a second language, there does seem to be consensus that additional languages enrich learners' own main language and contribute to the other important societal goals such as understanding different cultures. Nevertheless, when learners are compelled to learn through a second language, this can become a serious obstruction to the learners' learning process (Rollnick, 2000).
In South Africa the majority of children in higher primary and secondary schools speak an indigenous language at home, but are taught through the medium of English at school, by teachers who are not home-language speakers of English. If learners do not speak English at home,but are taught through the medium of English at school,the skills of the learners' main language and the additional language are not well developed. This means that their spoken fluency and writing skills are limited and are insufficient for the learners to handle subject matter in English (Rakgokong, 1994). Heugh (1999) claims that by the end of four years of home language instruction, accompanied by English as a subject, (as is current practice in South Africa), learners have acquired a vocabulary of about 800 English words, far short of the 5000 she considers to be necessary to cope with English as a medium of instruction.
Berry (1995) suggested that fluency in the second language does not guarantee success in science. Therefore whilst learners with some conversational-level ability in a second language may appear to be ready for instruction in a second language, this is not necessarily the case. In essence,learners at this level may fail to understand the curriculum
content and will therefore fail to engage III higher order cognitive processes III the classroom.
It should also be borne in mind that language problems in science are not confined to second language learners. Science has a language of its own. Halliday & Martin (1993) suggest that even first language English-speakers recognize scientific discourse as a type of English, but not like the one they commonly use, and they are alienated by it. Garraway (1994) points out that the difference between everyday language and science terminology also leads to first language speakers learning a new language when learning science.
Lemke (1997) maintains that learning science is learning to participate in a new social practice. The learning of a new language is itself part of another social practice, so a learner learning science through a second language is trying to become initiated into two social practices at once.
The most immediately apparent language problem in SCIence IS the vast technical vocabulary with which learners need to become familiar in order to be able to make sense of what they hear, read and have to use when writing in their lessons. As Wellington &
Osborne (2001) note, concept words pose the most problems: first, because they are abstract; second, because language development in science results in some words changing from naming words to concept words; and third, because some may have both everyday and scientific meanings.
While the work described above has confirmed that the language of science can pose difficulties for learners, other research has suggested that the problem is less to do with the technical vocabulary of science than might be expected. In a classroom-based study by Barnes, Britton & Rosen (1969), the observation of the lessons revealed that, when compared with other subjects, not only did science lessons contain the highest proportion of specialist words, but that science teachers also drew extensively on a specialist vocabulary that was not explained to learners - "specialist vocabulary not presented"
(teacher assuming that terms would be understood by learners).
Barnes et al. (1969) also use the term "language of secondary education" to describe words one would expect to find in textbooks and other official documents which set out to discuss topics in an impersonal manner, but which would not normally be encountered except in schools. "Specialist vocabulary not presented" and "the language of secondary education"
all add to the difficulties faced by learners in science lessons.