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Language and second teaching in physics learning.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Second teaching is a model of small group activity designed to follow initial instruction. Following Vygotsky's ideas, second teaching works to facilitate individual learning processes. The collective wisdom of a small group acts as a mentor to individual learners. Many nontraditional students do well in a learning environment where second teaching is fostered. Research involving students in an educational opportunity program at a technological university sheds light on small group physics learning and indicates a significant relationship between language development and conceptual physics learning.

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Second Teaching

"Second teaching" (Novemsky, 1994, 1998) is an idea that was developed after a long period of observation of participants in an educational opportunity preparatory program at a public technological university. These students were successful in a small group pedagogical format (second teaching), following the initial presentation of new ideas in lecture and/or text (first teaching). These students were learning introductory physics using Alan Van Heuvelen's Overview, Case Study Method (Van Heuvelen, 1991) that emphasizes conceptual learning and involves small group learning with step-sequenced materials involving explicit stepwise guidance with verbal and visual representations.

Objectives of the Study

The discipline of physics has evolved into a culture of relatively homogeneous individuals who have developed their own established practice with characteristic behaviors and language. The nature of physics communication involves a very precise set of lexical items and linguistic structures that are particular to physicists and those in closely related disciplines.

To many students, standard English enhanced with physics parlance presents severe difficulties similar to the confusion encountered when confronted with a totally foreign language (Hogan & Maglienti, 2001; Lemke, 1990; Orr, 1987; Stoddard, et. al., 2002; Touger, 2000). Formal and precise language structures and vocabulary of scientific discourse tend to be distant from nontraditional physics learners and distinct from the natural language of students' peer cultures. An intervening process seems to be important for non-traditional learners to comprehend physics language and thereby gain access to physics content. An educational experiment at New Jersey Institute of Technology (Gautreau & Novemsky, 1997) provided strong evidence that a reform model of...

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