MANY parents are vexed by the difficulties faced by their children in learning science, as reflected in Tuesday's report ("The art of writing science answers").
There may be two groups of students who face difficulties in learning science.
The first group may comprise students who understand the scientific principles but cannot write precise explanations due to a lack of writing proficiency.
The second group may comprise students who cannot understand the scientific principles due to a lack of reading proficiency, and thus cannot explain correctly.
Both problems can be traced to the students' lack of English proficiency - in reading (comprehension) and writing (explanation).
Students must build sufficient English language proficiency before learning science.
For instance, through vocabulary skills, students can learn and appreciate the different shades of meaning in words.
Through reading skills, students can learn how to identify the sentences that convey meaning through explaining links between two ideas, through cause and effect or compare and contrast.
With the necessary vocabulary and knowledge of sentence structure to convey the intended meaning, it would then be reasonable to expect our students to write accurately and explain with precision when it comes to scientific principles and observations.
The learning of science helps instil a sense of curiosity of the world in our children.
But teaching science without equipping our students with the necessary language skills will surely frustrate their efforts and douse their burning curiosity.
Tham Tuck Meng
