<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Language competences are still a powerful gatekeeper for many students in science learning. Popular approaches to integrating language and subject learning have attempted to make science learning more accessible to all students; however, empirical evidence for the effects of novel teaching approaches is still scarce. The Disaggregate-Instruction-Approach (DIA), which ‘disaggregates’ concept from scientific language learning, offers great potential to address an increasingly diverse population of students in science subjects and beyond. In this paper, we will present a comparative study with 228 public school students who either participated in a teaching intervention aligned with the DIA or designed in accordance with principles of language- and subject-integrated Scaffolding. The findings indicate that learners in both conditions reach substantial learning gains. However, students who received the DIA exhibit very similar learning growth scores regardless of their language proficiency whereas control group students reach a higher learning growth depending on their language competences.</p>
</abstract>

Language competences are still a powerful gatekeeper for many students in science learning. Popular approaches to integrating language and subject learning have attempted to make science learning more accessible to all students; however, empirical evidence for the effects of novel teaching approaches is still scarce. The Disaggregate-Instruction-Approach (DIA), which ‘disaggregates’ concept from scientific language learning, offers great potential to address an increasingly diverse population of students in science subjects and beyond. In this paper, we will present a comparative study with 228 public school students who either participated in a teaching intervention aligned with the DIA or designed in accordance with principles of language- and subject-integrated Scaffolding. The findings indicate that learners in both conditions reach substantial learning gains. However, students who received the DIA exhibit very similar learning growth scores regardless of their language proficiency whereas control group students reach a higher learning growth depending on their language competences.

Transferring language instruction into science education: Evaluating a novel approach to language- and subject-integrated science teaching and learning

Research in Subject-matter Teaching and Learning (RISTAL)

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Language competences are still a powerful gatekeeper for many students in science learning. Popular approaches to integrating language and subject learning...

Transferring language instruction into science education: Evaluating a novel approach to language- and subject-integrated science teaching and learning

Published Online: Jan 03, 2023

Page range: 144 - 162

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23770/rt1860

Keywords
Language- and subject-integrated learning, Language in science learning, Scaffolding, Chemistry Education, Comparative study

© 2022 Robert Gieske et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Transferring language instruction into science education: Evaluating a novel approach to language- and subject-integrated science teaching and learning

Published Online: Jan 03, 2023

Page range: 144 - 162

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23770/rt1860

KeywordsLanguage- and subject-integrated learning, Language in science learning, Scaffolding, Chemistry Education, Comparative study

© 2022 Robert Gieske et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Language- and subject-integrated learning, Language in science learning, Scaffolding, Chemistry Education, Comparative study