The presence/absence of Plain English in selected Senior Phase science material for educators

Abstract

At senior secondary and even tertiary levels, many South African science learners have a poor grasp of basic scientific concepts and processes. This is often blamed on poor teaching, as science teachers must create a connection between subject content and learners, and lay the foundation for a more advanced and technical understanding of science. Many local teachers are underqualified; moreover, gaps in language understanding may have a knock-on effect on science teaching. For more than 90% of South Africans, English is not their home language, but English is the primary medium of education in South Africa and the lingua franca of science. This is problematic because many science teachers are not necessarily fully proficient in English (any more than the learners in their classrooms), which makes it difficult for these teachers to digest the subject matter they must teach. If teachers are not comfortable with their subject matter, learners will be inadequately prepared. This exploratory study investigates whether and how using plain language, in this case, Plain English, to communicate subject matter to Senior Phase Natural Science teachers who lack English language proficiency can help them to understand the curriculum and subject content. In theory, plain language ensures clarity of information by explaining difficult/misleading terminology, and by implementing various other strategies to communicate complex information clearly. It can make basic and more advanced scientific concepts more accessible to teachers, ensuring a less problematic transfer of knowledge and a foundation for a more advanced scientific vocabulary. Plain language also ensures a stronger correlation between the writer’s intent and the reader’s interpretation. This pioneering study goes beyond identifying the challenges of multilingualism in South Africa, by proposing proactive use of Plain English to make pertinent information accessible to Natural Sciences teachers. The study adopts a mixed methods approach, combining a literature review on plain language with a qualitative study (interviews). Preliminary plain language criteria were identified from the literature and a few sample Plain English revisions were prepared. Then ten structured interviews were conducted with science teachers currently working in the Senior Phase to establish their qualifications and experience, their views on the resources available to them, whether these resources communicated concepts well, and whether the application of the selected Plain English criteria to the samples improved their understanding of problematic areas in the curriculum and additional teacher resources. Their views on communication via the Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS) document for Senior Phase (Gr. 7- 9) Natural Science varied. However, there was fair consensus that the Plain English revisions were clearer than the original versions, suggesting that the CAPS document could be improved by implementing these criteria. The respondents used different guides, and their views on these resources varied. Some liked the fact that the information presented allows for an individual teacher’s interpretation, but others felt that the guides needed to be more specific. The respondents agreed that the guides would be improved by consolidating the information presented in the learner and teacher guides to create a more complete resource for teachers. The preliminary plain language criteria were then refined, and three Senior Phase Natural Science resources were then selected for analysis in terms of these criteria and their readability was tested using a combination of readability measures. Samples from these resources were then revised according to the criteria and again tested for readability using the same combination of readability measures to quantify the readability of the original samples and the revised ones. These tests demonstrated that the most-used section of the CAPS document (according to the teacher interviews) could be dramatically improved by implementing the selected plain language strategies. The analyses of samples from the learner and teacher guides showed that several plain language writing techniques have already been implemented in these guides, but also that the teacher guides could still be improved. It is recommended that the information in the learner and teacher guides be consolidated in the teacher guides to make a more complete resource for teachers. Based on the data gathered from the interviews and the readability tests, it is concluded that Plain English can be used successfully to enhance readers’ ability to understand and absorb important science information.