Pedagogical Language Knowledge: An Investigation of a Science Teacher Candidate’s Student Teaching Strengths and Struggles

ABSTRACT

In today’s increasingly linguistically diverse classrooms, all science teachers require expertise in supporting students’ language development simultaneous to content-based classroom instruction. Current science-oriented K-12 teaching frameworks and standards promote a vision of learning and doing science that entails engaging students in language-rich science practices. The purpose of this case study was to follow one teacher candidate’s developing pedagogical language knowledge. Of specific interest was his instructional decision-making in regard to integrating science and language learning. This study provides insight into the strengths and struggles of a novice teacher during his student-teaching experience. Overall, findings indicate that his knowledge and understandings about science, language, and science-language integration proved more sophisticated than his implementation, and at times his practices were contradictory to the more sophisticated views that he held. This case offers an example for other teacher educators seeking to better prepare teacher candidates for the integration of language and content.

KEYWORDS:

• Science
• English learners
• student teaching
• pedagogical language knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All names in the paper are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Division of Undergraduate Education [1660794].

Notes on contributors

Lara K. Smetana

Lara K. Smetana, Ph.D., is the Associate Professor of Science Education in the School of Education at Loyola University Chicago. She is also the Principal Investigator for the LUC-Noyce Scholars Program.

Jenna Carlson Sanei

Jenna Carlson Sanei, Ed.D., is an Assistant Professor of Science Education at Concordia University Chicago.

Amy Jennifer Heineke

Amy Jennifer Heineke, Ph.D., is the Associate Professor of Bilingual & Bicultural Education in the School of Education at Loyola University Chicago.