Not long ago, I tried to use a video clip from a popular American television comedy about a group of scientists.The characters all have different speaking styles, so I thought it would work well as a model of the way English sentence stress, thought groups, and intonation influence meaning. However, after watching it, my students didn’t ask about the linguistic aspects of the video. Instead, the asked, “What’s a photon?”
Fortunately, I had my smartphone, so I quickly opened the Encyclopedia Britannica and read, “Photon, also called light quantum, minute energy packet of electromagnetic radiation…. Considered among the subatomic particles, photons are light-speed bosons; they are field particles that are thought to be the carriers of the electromagnetic field” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). Unfortunately, that definition seems a little complex, so I copied the text to Google Translate, and read, “Photon, ошондой эле жарык өлчөмү, электромагниттик нурлануунун Мүнөт энергия пакет деп аталган.” According to Google Translate, there’s no way to say photon in Kyrgyz!
What’s the problem here? The problem is that you cannot really translate technical terms unless you understand them. The English phrase “light-speed bosons” makes sense to physicists, but it confuses most linguists. How, then are English teachers supposed to teach the language of science and technology? Do we need to be masters of everything? I
f you approach a language class with the idea that the teacher is the source of all knowledge, then, yes, we must limit all conversations to topics we know. However, if you approach it believing that the world has more wonders than any person can master, so a teacher’s job is to help learners discover the wonders – an approach common in STEM methodology – then we don’t need to know it all. We just need to help the students develop and apply their 21st-Century Thinking Skills (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity) in English.
Communicative Methods + Problems = STEM?
For over ten years now, there has been a growing worldwide call for improvement in STEM education. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education refers to a methodology, not a collection of university subjects. It is not just the instruction of topics like chemistry, biology, construction, or algebra, but a way of teaching them as an integrated tools for solving real-life problems.
For instance, a STEM teacher may ask students, “Imagine that you went with eight friends to a restaurant, and you all ordered plov and salad. The restaurant added a 15% service charge to the total order. How would you know how much each person had to pay before you receive the total bill? Let x = the cost of one plov and salad, and y = the total cost per person.” Students may come up with a formula such as ((x + x + x + x + x + x + x + x) + (x + x + x + x + x + x + x + x)(.15))/8 = y. Or they may decide that ((8x) + (8x)(.15))/8 = y. Or they could decide that x + (x)(.15) = y. The final answer will be the same, but students can solve the problems many ways.
This is very similar to what communicative language teachers have been doing for decades: encouraging learners to combine vocabulary, grammar, listening, speaking, reading, and writing to produce original communication. Communicative methods move beyond “repeat after me” to “tell me something worth knowing.” STEM methods move beyond “describe the process of salinization” to “what are some ways soil by the Aral Sea could be desalinized?” In both cases, the teacher asks questions that require students to use their skills creatively to come up with answers that are beyond the teacher’s knowledge.
Bringing STEM to English Class
What would it look like to apply STEM methodology to your English class? It might look something like this:
Student: What’s a photon?
Teacher: Excellent question! Thanks for introducing your next task! For tomorrow’s lesson, you need to work in groups to tell us the answer. In fact, I would like one group to tell us about photons, one to tell us about bosons, one to tell us about ways that electromagnetic radiation is changing our planet, and one to tell us about plants that like red light and plants that like blue light.
Student: Wait a minute! This sounds like a science class.
Teacher: No, it’s an English class, but we want to use English to talk about life. You will evaluate each other based on factual accuracy, clarity, creativity, and relevance. I will evaluate you based on your language use.
Please notice that the teacher in this situation is not a physicist or biologist; the goal of the lesson is to learn English. However, in this lesson, the students do not learn about English; instead, they learn English to learn about life.
If you wanted to engage your artistic students, you could ask the students to present their findings by making an infographic explaining their findings. You could build writing skills by requiring them to write a report on their findings. You could build speaking skills through group presentations or panel discussions.
What vocabulary would the students learn? Probably at least 10 technical words.
What verbs would they use? A lot of simple verbs, some perfect verbs, and some conditionals.
What kinds of sentences would they use?
A lot of descriptive sentences, and a lot of sentences showing cause-effect or conditionals.
What kinds of language skills would they use? Group conversation skills, reading, writing, listening, speaking…
When you put STEM in the language lesson, you don’t end up with a lesson on the grammar of computer science or the pronunciation of biology; you end up with a lesson on all parts of language being used for genuine communication. And the best part of it is that you, as the teacher, don’t have to know it all beforehand! With a communicative STEM-based lesson, the teacher gets to show the students how to learn!
References
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2019). Photon: Definition. Retrieved July 14, 2019, from Encyclopedia Britannica website: https://www.britannica.com/science/photon
(This post was based on a presentation at #ANTEC2019, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.)
