1) You are being interviewed for a job in a school with students of a wide range of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. The principal asks: ‘How would you teach abstract concepts to a student who just arrived in the country and can’t speak or read much in English?’ Prepare a response that is informed by educational theories which may or may not be constructivism. Illustrate your response with a concrete example of a particular abstract concept in your discipline and how you would teach it.
In my current job I am required to explain scientific concepts and safety procedures to people of all ages and with varying degrees of spoken and/or written English comprehension. Communicating with ESL individuals can be very challenging, particularly when they are required to undergo specific safety precautions. In such situations I have learned to employ diagrammatic and gesturing responses to convey this conceptual knowledge, which, in my experience, has a high rate of success.
This, however, is a wholly different context from that which is found in a classroom – how does one teach an abstract concept to someone with a limited comprehension of English?
If I were teaching my KLA of science to an ESL class I would consider how best to decrease the complexity of the subject to increase the class’ uptake of the knowledge. Using a Social Constructivist method of delivery I would firstly gauge the students’ level of existing knowledge by brainstorming ideas on the board, thereby involving them in the process whilst establishing a foundation for further study to build upon. This would also provide students with the opportunity to comment on each other’s ideas, thus further developing this preliminary work. As is applicable to all science lessons, my focus would be on making the content relevant for these specific students, putting it in a context that matters for them.
For example, if the lesson was focussed on understanding weather patterns, systems and phenomena, a great way of relating it to their lives would be to broach the subject by discussing the weather for that particular day. Is it sunny/windy/cloudy/raining/hailing/snowing/sleeting? Is it cold or hot? Is it ‘seasonal’ or ‘unseasonal’ (i.e. in-keeping with the sort of weather associated with the season)? Is it what was predicted for the day? What is the forecast for the rest of the week? These questions open the topic up for discussion and relatability, as the weather affects us all in some way.
So, today’s weather is cloudy and windy, which is in-keeping with the forecast, but it is ‘unseasonal’ for Summer, so is somewhat unexpected for this time of year – but what does this mean for the students? Depending on their specific backgrounds I would then follow with a brainstorming activity on the sort of weather experienced in other countries – namely their home countries – and how it compares to weather in Australia. This would likely highlight the differences in weather experienced across the world, leading to the question of why such variation should occur. To provide a visual aspect to this exploration of spatial distribution of weather phenomena I would make reference to a map of the world, representing the varying weather patterns with different icons. I would then introduce the concept of weather systems moving across the world – again, using the map as a visual aid – and thinking about this weather movement as a result of the atmospheric transport of air. To assist in illustrating this concept I would then undertake a very simple practical activity about the movement of air, employing the services of a desk-top fan, some cotton wool and a spray bottle. Although quite a rudimentary investigation, this would provide the students with the opportunity to observe how air can move clouds (cotton wool) and water (generated from the spray bottle) – potentially even including a lego man or two for scale! A ball could then be added, to represent the Earth, which would provide a point of reference for the linear movement of air over a spherical object, allowing for the understanding that this is not what happens in reality to occur (unless clouds do fly off into space on occasion – perhaps as a UFO…?)
To link this back to world weather patterns I would introduce the concept of heat as the driving force of this process, drawing a convection cell diagram on the board using the colours logically associated with hot and cold to maintain conceptual consistency. I would then show a predominately visual video showing convection in action, rounding off the lesson with reference to the map of the world from the point of view of convection influencing the movement and distribution of weather in the different areas previously identified.
My lesson follows this basic pattern:
1) Begin the lesson with the relevance and context of the subject in a collaborative manner – current weather, Australia’s weather, home-country weather
2) Visual representation of weather – distribution of weather using a reference map
3) Introduce the concept of air movement using simple, practical task – most people grapple with the concept of air actively moving objects, so simple objects are used to demonstrate this
4) Air not moving in a linear manner – for extension and links back to context, highlighting different situation in reality for Earth
5) Introduce concept of convection – to attempt to introduce complexity of Earth’s situation a very basic introduction to convection is undertaken, using diagrams and a video for visual stimulation and reinforcement
6) Summing up – convection currents are related back to the Earth and weather movement, which is then linked in to the day’s windy weather being the movement of air
As I am unsure of the age and demographic of these particular students I have attempted to set high expectations, with the hope that they will understand the simple and more advanced content, but doing so in the knowledge that further explanation may be required. I have included hands-on activities, collaborative work and auditory and visual sources of information. I have not included any written work, besides that brainstorming and diagrams on the board, as the students’ limited English comprehension would render this as rather ineffectual.
– For Science!
Synergistic Bonding in the Classroom! 