Unlock learning with language

Language is the key to unlocking learning. When our students understand the language used to explain a concept or present an idea, they hold the key to learning. Unfortunately, not all learners possess these language skills – the keys are not handed out fairly.

What words should we teach in science?

We need to expose pupils to these words and this is best done through reading authentic scientific writing

To add another layer of language difficulty, science uses familiar words in science-specific ways and it is these words, rather than the tier three subject-specific words, which can cause the most trouble. It is vital to draw pupils’ attention to these tricky words and how their meaning differs in science. Random, emit, spontaneous and incident are all examples of everyday words with alternative meanings in science.

How can we approach vocabulary teaching?

The first step in vocabulary teaching is identifying which words to teach – those tier 3 subject-specific words and the most useful tier 2 academic words that will help pupils access a text. We need to expose pupils to these words and this is best done through reading authentic scientific writing. This could be news articles or science writing in magazines and popular science books, not necessarily journal articles. However, reading alone is not enough to teach new vocabulary.

I recently delivered training to secondary science teachers using these approaches, but they are suitable for learners from age 7 to 18. Start by providing pupils with a student-friendly definition. Guide children to these definitions, as standard dictionaries can sometimes be confusing. Collins Online Dictionary is an excellent place to start, especially for tier two words. Next, provide sentences from scientific texts so pupils can see the word/s in context. Later activities can include pupils writing their own sentences which can be peer or teacher assessed.

We cannot teach pupils all the words they will ever encounter, but we can start by carefully selecting which keys to give

Flashcards, especially when combined with dual coding, are a really powerful tool, not only for learning new words but also as a scaffold for scientific writing. Dual coding is the process where pupils include a pictorial representation of the word alongside the student-friendly definition. This is not an artistic contest, but a prompt to remind them of the meaning. The combination of picture and definition helps secure the word in long-term memory. They can also be fun too – when teaching evolution to my 10–11 year-old pupils we started each lesson with guessing the words based on my terrible drawings on the board. We progressed to using a series of (terrible) drawings to support our scientific writing about the process of evolution.

Pupils can also test each other or themselves using the Leitner system, where they place the cards into learned or revisit piles, then retest on the revisit pile.

Finally, helping pupils to identify morphemes (unit parts) within words will give them the tools to tackle related words when they come across them. Particularly useful examples include hypo/hyper, photo, exo/endo and therm.

As teachers, we cannot teach pupils all the words they will ever encounter, but we can start by carefully selecting which keys to give – those subject-specific keys that open tier three locks, and those tier two skeleton keys which can be used to unlock learning by understanding academic words in a range of contexts. The much-admired Hogwarts headteacher, Albus Dumbledore, said, ‘Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.’ By explicitly teaching vocabulary we can unlock learning for all learners and, in time, reduce the attainment gap. Wouldn’t that be magic.