Pedagogical Language Knowledge: An Investigation of a Science Teacher Candidate’s Student Teaching Strengths and Struggles

Summary

In today’s increasingly linguistically diverse classrooms, all science teachers require expertise in supporting students’ language development simultaneous to content-based classroom instruction. Current science-oriented K-12 teaching frameworks and standards promote a vision of learning and doing science that entails engaging students in language-rich science practices. The purpose of this case study was to follow one teacher candidate’s developing pedagogical language knowledge. Of specific interest was his instructional decision-making in regard to integrating science and language learning. This study provides insight into the strengths and struggles of a novice teacher during his student-teaching experience. Overall, findings indicate that his knowledge and understandings about science, language, and science-language integration proved more sophisticated than his implementation, and at times, his practices were contradictory to the more sophisticated views that he held. This case offers an example for other teacher educators seeking to better prepare teacher candidates for the integration of language and content.