Investigating South African Grade 12 physical science learners’ meanings of everyday words when used in the science context

Abstract

The general poor performance in physical science in South Africa is a cause for concern. The reasons for this situation includes lack of basic content knowledge by science teachers, unprofessional attitudes, ineffective teaching approaches, lack of resources and failure to understand the language of science by the learners. This study investigated South African grade 12 learners’ meanings of everyday words when used in science context. The study focused on grade 12 physical science learners from four different government secondary schools in Johannesburg. These learners had different home languages and socio-economic background. Data was obtained through a questionnaire given to learners followed by group interviews with the learners. A face-to-face interview with each physical science teacher from each school was also conducted. This study reveals that learners face difficulties with meanings of everyday words when used in science context as was reflected by their response in the questionnaire. The physical science teachers from the four secondary schools were not aware that everyday words (nontechnical words) are misunderstood by the learners when they are teaching them. As such teachers were not explaining the meanings of these words to learners in their context of use. Also the teachers did not know the difference between technical words and non-technical words. The study seeks to make the science teachers aware of this problem so that they can take time to explain the meanings of these words when teaching and this might improve understanding of science concepts. It is hoped that if there is shared meaning of words used in the instructional language between the teacher and learners it would improve the general performance in physical science.