La estructura de PTC-R54G con PALO y Gdn 139

When teaching and learning physical science concepts, knowledge has to be built such that there are connections between concepts, and the distinction between every day and scientific ways of explaining are explicitly highlighted (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). This is fundamental to science learning because both teachers and learners need to make links between existing science concepts and their contextual meanings, and new concepts with their contextual meanings. To advance the idea of concept connections, Scott et al. (2011) posit that Pedagogical Link-Making (PLM) is concerned with ways in which teachers and learners make connections between ideas and concepts in the ongoing meaning-making interactions during classroom teaching and learning. PLM argues for a teacher to scaffold and guide learners in the comprehension of new knowledge for scientific understanding (Driver et al., 1994; Mortimer & Scott, 2003). As such, the depth of understanding science concepts and their contextual meanings depends on the depth of links as organized by the science teacher (Scott et al., 2011).

PLM requires high and appropriate science teacher content knowledge in order to successfully make science conceptual links (Scott et al., 2011). Mortimer and Scott (2003), and Scott et al. (2011) identified three forms of link making which includes links to support knowledge building, links to promote continuity, and links to encourage emotional engagement. This study focused on link making to support knowledge building and highlights the importance of connections between different kinds of knowledge, including everyday knowledge of words to assist learners develop a deep understanding of the subject matter (Scott et al., 2011). There are 6 approaches that can be used to support knowledge building which are: making links between every day and scientific ways of explaining; making links between scientific concepts; making links between scientific explanations and real world phenomena; making links between modes of representation; moving between different scales and levels of representation; and analogical link making. However, this study only focused on making links between scientific ways of explanations and everyday ways of explaining, and on analogical link making.

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3.4.1 Approach 1: Making links between every day way of explaining and

scientific ways of explaining

According to Scott et al. (2011) science learning inevitably occurs against a background of everyday/spontaneous ways of talking and thinking about phenomena. In some areas of learning there might be an overlap (or similarity) between the everyday and scientific ways of explaining and in other areas they might be quite different. The effective understanding of science is associated with the depth of links made by the teacher during teaching, including making links between everyday word usage and science word usage (Scott et al., 2011). In places where there is an overlap between meanings of a word, teaching involves making links to integrate the scientific way of explaining with every day words, and where there is a difference in meanings of words, teaching involves making links to differentiate the scientific way of explaining from everyday views (Scott et al., 2011). In making links between scientific concepts, a teacher recognizes how the scientific concepts fit together in an interlinking system, because the usefulness of concepts comes from their connections to one another for a concept system to be developed (Scott et al., 2011). The nature of explanation is fundamental in teaching generally, and making links between scientific explanations and real world phenomena requires teachers to be knowledgeable about the subject and its relationship with the real world (Scott et al., 2011). Even though Scott et al.‘s (2011) concepts of differentiation and integration refer mostly to everyday words used as science concepts (energy, speed, heat), their concept of differentiation and integration is equally applicable also to everyday words used in science classroom context. The teacher‘s differentiation and/or integration of EWS meanings are critical because learners link the everyday words into hierarchical systems of school science conceptual knowledge leading to a deeper understanding of science content knowledge (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). Figure 3.2 shows diagrammatically integrating and differentiating ideas.

Figure 3.2 Intergrating and differentiating everyday and scientific views (Adapted from Scott et al., 2011, p.7).

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3.4.2 Approach 2: Analogical link-making

Some teachers use familiar and known analogies to effectively explain scientific concepts. Likewise, in this study there were some teachers who used analogies to explain both the technical and the non-technical words of science teachers‘ language. Basically, the teacher assists learners to understand the scientific concepts through the use of known and relevant analogies. The use of relevant and adequate analogies during teaching also helps to build science knowledge from what learners already know. The use of analogies is beneficial for teaching both technical and non-technical words including EWS. Analogies are effective in teaching science but when used careful thought must be applied in selecting and teaching with analogies. One of the cautions to be considered by teachers is making known the short comings of an analogy as it may propagate the development of alternative concepts (Dagher, 1995). As argued further by Dagher (1995) analogies may bring conceptualisation of knowledge in learners but, if not well chosen and when its short comings are not explained to learners, it may mislead learners. In light of this view of Dagher, some rural physical science teachers did not make clear the intentions of their chosen analogies and the individual concepts demonstrated through the used analogies were not explicitly explained. This might have, in some cases, proved the analogy to be useful in having the idea of what the teacher would have been talking about but not enhanced comprehension of specific concepts taught.

3.4.3 Communicative Approaches

Teacher talk and learner talk has been categorized into four communicative approaches (Mortimer & Scott, 2003; Scott et al., 2011). These four categories distinguish between the interactive and non-interactive talk during teaching. The teacher talk is interactive when involving the participation of the teacher and learners and non-interactive if only involving the participation of the teacher. Moreover, interactive and non-interactive talk can be dialogic and/or authoritative. Dialogic communication involves the teacher and learners paying attention to more than one point of view, more than one voice is heard and there is exploration or interanimation of ideas, while authoritative communication involves focussing on one point of view, only one voice is heard and there is no exploration of different ideas (Scott et al., 2011). Table 3.1 shows the four categories of communicative approaches as being interactive-dialogic / interactive authoritative or non-interactive-dialogic / non-interactive-authoritative communicative approach

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and also describes each approach. These approaches would help unearth strategies that teachers use during classroom teacher talk and possibly uncover teacher‘s use of language in differentiating and/or integrating between everyday meanings of EWS.

Table 3.1 Four categories of communicative approaches used in classrooms (Adapted from Scott et al., 2011, p.19)

Communicative Approach Description

Interactive/dialogic The teacher seeks to elicit and explore students ideas about a particular issue

Interactive/authoritative The teacher leads students through a sequence of instructional questions and answers

Non-interactive/dialogic The teacher is pulling together and presenting students ideas and also drawing attention to the differences between everyday and scientific points of view

Non-interactive/authoritative The teacher is presenting a specific point of view.

3.5 Chapter summary

Vygotsky acknowledges the primary importance of talk in social situations as a necessary first step to the individual learning; however, this study advanced the importance of talk by examining in detail the teacher talk of the science classroom, particularly the use of EWS of STL, seeing how it might underpin effective teaching (Vygotsky, 1978; Mortimer & Scott, 2003). This chapter discussed Vygotsky‘s concept of mediation and Scott et al.‘s concept of pedagogical link making in relation to the study. Language is a mode of communication used to mediate science content and contextual meanings of the science text (Lindkvist, 1981; Tesch, 1990; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). The contextual language of science is composed of words that have science specific meanings, which differs from the everyday meanings of the words (Mayring, 2014; Oyoo, 2012). Importantly, the word understanding is crucial in science conceptual understanding (Haug & Odegaard, 2014) because words are components of language and language is knowledge of the content (Brown et al., 1989). Thus, in the context of this study, mediation views science teachers as the knowledgeable others (Vygotsky, 1978) who should be aware of difficulties with language issues (including difficulties with EWS) (Oyoo, 2017), while mediating both the technical and non-technical words of STL. The combination of mediation and PLM allowed this study to gain an in-depth understanding of teacher‘s use of everyday words used in science classroom contexts. Mediation also assisted this study to understand the factors that shape science teacher‘s understanding and therefore teacher‘s pedagogic approaches to EWS during science lessons, which means mediation helped give context to which STL including

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EWS are used. All the aspects of the conceptual framework (mediation, PLM, and social language of science) were important for this study due to the different methodological and analytical roles they played.

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