Language, culture, ontological assumptions, epistemological beliefs, and knowledge about nature and naturally occurring events: Southern African perspective

Abstract

African students enter the classroom with a rich heritage of traditional beliefs that, if handled sensitively and with understanding, can play an important role in enabling learning of science. Recent developments in the understanding of how students acquire this knowledge may assist in promoting this process. This paper investigates studies situated within the worldview theory that examine the learning of science concepts within a Southern African sociocultural environment by looking at (a) the problems and solutions for students in such settings when they learn through a medium of instruction (L2 and L3) that is different from their first language (L1), (b) the nature of the worldview presuppositions held by African students on selected natural phenomena, and (c) the nature of cognitive border crossing exhibited by students from a Southern African traditional worldview to a western scientific worldview that forms the basis of a Cognitive Border Crossing Learning Model (CBCLM). Two important issues are explored in relation to the language issue: using a discourse-based model to show how accessing either spoken or written mixed discourse may facilitate learners’ comprehension of scientific discourse and allow a teacher to assist in its production, and how code switching is a useful strategy to assist border crossing in the science classroom. The CBCLM is presented as a feasible way of describing how, when, and in what contexts a student shifts from one worldview to another during the learning process.