Critical and creative literacies for science teachers
Critical and creative literacies for science teachers is an ongoing collaborative project in which language specialists, student and in-service science teachers, together with their tutors, across two Higher Education institutions (in Scotland and India), explore their understandings of the key role language plays in the construction and representation of scientific knowledge both in and beyond the classroom.
The main theoretical model of language used throughout this project is a cognitive-discursive one, which acknowledges not only the cognitive, (i.e., how language shapes conceptual thinking), but also the social and the cultural aspects of language. We view knowledge construction in any science pedagogical setting as a dynamic interplay between different genres of science (i.e., textbook science, popular science texts, science in the media, scientific journals), as well as the languages used by its participants (e.g., varieties of English, Hindi, Marathi) both inside the classroom and outside.
This talk reports how a series of online interactive activities affected the workshop participants’ awareness of how the language(s) of the classroom can shape the knowledge construction process for teachers and students. In particular, it will focus on the voices of the participants during four workshops in which the language of COVID-19 was explored.
Linguistics and Knowledge about Language in Education 