Chemistry Teachers’ Attitudes and Needs When Dealing with Linguistic Heterogeneity in the Classroom - Affective Dimensions in Chemistry Education - page 279

Thinking about those students, the normal reaction is also that they become more
insecure in their language and they withdraw. Their self-confidence and their self-
assurance decrease. Outwardly, those students are mainly quiet and not noticeable
in the classroom. Therefore, most teachers feel like the students understand the
concepts being taught in the classroom and that they don

' t have any questions at all.

Accordingly, teachers don ' t see the need to help those students.

4 Linguistic Issues from Teachers ' Perspective

Teachers are seen as one of the key factors for changing lessons, methodology and
teaching practices (Ernest, 1989 ; Hattie, 2009 ). Ever since the 1980s, researchers
have known the importance of both teachers

beliefs and their perceptions when it
comes to positively influencing and helping to carry out educational reform
(Nespor, 1987 ). This is also true for chemistry teachers

'

perceptions of and beliefs
about language and linguistic issues in the chemistry classroom. There has not been
much research published in this area to date, and that which does exist comes
mainly from American researchers. However, the findings of this research are
similar in many of these studies.
Riebling and Bolte ( 2008 ) concluded in a study of German teachers that chem-
istry educators need to be extremely cognisant of and sensitive to possible linguistic
problems in their classrooms, in order to identify such issues correctly and handle
them properly. Benholz and Iordanidou ( 2004 ) found that this is especially difficult
for teachers who are monolingual themselves. Identifying linguistic deficits in their
students becomes very hard in such cases, with the general outcome being that
lessons are prepared solely to address monolingual students. In her study of
language as a gatekeeper to learning, teaching and professional development,
Moore ( 2007 ) interviewed three Native American teachers in a period of five
months. One of the participants stated that language does have an influence on
students

'

grades. This teacher also mentioned that students often have difficulties in
language use and selection of proper writing style. They feel as if they are being
graded unfairly and often achieve failing marks on standardised tests. However, the
same teacher noted the reason he understood this was the fact that he had experi-
enced the same thing during his time as a schoolboy. All of the teachers in Moore

'

s
study ( 2007 ) viewed language as a barrier for students to learn and understand
science. One teacher said that teaching is a challenge for both teachers and students.
Another discussed tensions arising in the classroom due to language in the same
context. This reveals similarities with some of the research data mentioned above.
Chemistry teachers are generally not trained in dealing with language issues. The
obvious difference, however, is that teachers themselves can be monolingual or
multilingual. It appears that multilingual teachers are more sensitive to the language
and linguistic difficulties of their students. Possibly, this is because many of them
have had similar experiences during their time at school or because learning foreign

'