A Literacy Focus in Science: Teaching preservice primary teachers about semantic gravity

Teaching science in middle/upper primary is often associated with difficulties in getting students to communicate their understandings in a scientific, legitimate way. Preparing pre-service teachers to address this issue is particularly relevant now with the increased focus on writing in the new primary science and technology k-6 syllabus [NESA 2024] in New South Wales. This article describes a two hour workshop at the University of Sydney, School of Education with a group of science and technology specialisation students aimed at directing the pre-service teachers’ attention to the role language plays in different kinds of science education activities. In the workshop the pre-service teachers were introduced to the concept of semantic gravity from Legitimation Code Theory as a way of seeing different levels of context dependency of science knowledge in different kinds of practical activities (Georgiou, 2016; Polias, 2016). This gave the students a powerful tool for seeing the importance of paying attention to and addressing the different kinds of language which students need for active participation in different types of science learning activities. This has the potential for supporting students’ development of understanding of science concepts and explaining observations in practical work.