Teacher Guidance with Additional Notes for EAL Learners

These guidance notes, from the National Strategies, are designed to help teachers address aspects of the science curriculum for students whose first language is not English. The guides provide strategies to ensure progression to level six and beyond, explaining clearly what characteristics and skills the students should demonstrate at each step. The guides are:

Effective group talk - developing productive talk to refine thinking and adjust ideas. Students move from unplanned discussions to become reflective, independent thinkers who can analyse information, formulate opinion and argument, incorporate new ideas and critically evaluate a range of opinions.

Aspects of How Science Works (HSW) - developing some of the more challenging aspects of the practical HSW skills. Students develop an understanding of how to interpret graphs and the principle of the ‘line of best fit’. They also identify and explain sources of experimental error.

Research skills - helping students to develop information-processing skills so that they can use and interpret a wide selection of information.

Scientific writing - developing students’ skills in writing using correct scientific terminology and drawing on evidence. They learn to construct extended pieces of writing, and understand the implications of context, audience and purpose.

Understanding misconceptions - developing an understanding of what misconceptions are and how ideas about the world can be different to the accepted scientific ideas. Students begin to explore the idea that some scientific explanations can be counter-intuitive and how misconceptions or alternative frameworks might arise.

Using models - recognising the importance of models in developing scientific understanding and showing how models and modelling are an important mechanism for advancing scientific understanding. Models are an excellent tool for illustrating abstract concepts and processes and are highly recommended for EAL (English as an additional language) learners.