Language and Middle-School Science: What do Children and Teachers Gain by Implementing Semantic Waves?

This paper presents a small part of a three-year research project integrating
language awareness in science lessons in Danish middle-school science class-
es. The project aims at making knowledge hidden in the language of science
visible to all students, as many students, especially second-language learners,
need more help understanding the abstract science language in a typical sci-
ence class. In this part of the project, we followed a 6th-grade from a Danish
primary school learning about the periodic table of elements and the molecules
that build our material world. In collaboration with the teacher, we adjusted
the lesson plan so that the teaching followed a progression plan from every-
day language to a more appropriate abstract scientifc language. In this pa-
per, we apply semantic gravity analysis from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT)
to student-student and teacher-student conversations and a written text. Based
on semantic gravity analysis of various teaching situations, we argue that a
student’s understanding of science subjects depends on the teacher’s ability to
link common-sense knowledge with scientifc knowledge and the teacher’s abil-
ity to create coherence through special attention to the diferent strengths of
semantic gravity, i.e. experiments and scientifc explanations in conversations.