No matter your school system, the English curriculum is a critical component of learning for students from all grade levels. From comprehension through to sentence structure, students need a firm grasp of the English language to open up possibilities for their lives. The challenge is, how do we reach the students who are reluctant to learn? Here there is an opportunity to teach English using science as an engagement hook for those students. It’s contextual. It’s relevant. And… it’s fun!

Let’s look deeper at the opportunities that science brings to the English classroom.

Debating Science: Strengthening Persuasive English

Scientists have to put forward their ideas… it’s part of the job! Even if the results are compelling, there are often counterpoints made by other scientific researchers and as such the scientific world is filled with persuasive English. Why not bring this into your English classroom?

Students can research a given contentious topic; it could be climate change, it could be renewable vs non-renewable energies, genetically modified foods, artificial intelligence or many others. Once a topic is chosen, you can encourage students to argue their scientific viewpoints based on their research to develop persuasive speech skills. Alternatively, you could show them strategies for structuring persuasive essays.

Is this also an opportunity to run a pitch session? Students love the format of applying their own ideas based on scientific evidence and showcasing this to a panel of judges. This is all part of helping students construct persuasive arguments with coherent messaging.

Science as a Gateway to Better English Skills

Scientific thinking enhances critical reading and comprehension. Beyond their school life, students will inevitably come across media articles where scientific jargon is present. However, even if they understand the scientific terms, what if they are having trouble following the presented concepts? One of the issues facing society is scientific literacy, and it is exacerbated by the words chosen by authors and the complexity of the sentences used.

So, can you challenge students to simplify a given text? Can you alternatively challenge them to make a simple text become more deeper in meaning? Can you encourage them to use a wider vocabulary building that supports scientific terms and concepts? How might you use scientific report writing to improve their grammar?

In this article, we also explore how you can apply Expository Writing, Narrative Writing, Descriptive Writing, Reflective Writing and more. In short, there are plenty of avenues to explore improving your student’s English skills through science.

Writing Experiments: The Lab Report as a Language Builder

Laboratory report writing is a fundamental skill in scientific writing. There is a known structure and students need to speak in the passive voice. An opportunity exists here to apply simple & safe experiments in your English classroom and then get the students to write a report as a procedural text.

Once the students have written their reports, get them to pass their report to another student and see if the students can replicate their results based on the written methodology. From here students may discover that their partner might have skipped a step in the procedure, or potentially have made the procedure too difficult for others to follow. This is where the learning happens!

Science Fiction in the English Classroom

Students love fiction! So why not use this as a way to get students to analyse texts and discuss the content in your classroom? A very popular program called STEMreads exists where students read all manner of science fiction books and they then come together to discuss the science. Integrating science fiction literature to engage students in discussions on real-world scientific concepts. These science fiction stories are also creative writing prompts that can inspire a new story by the students.

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Reading Science: Boosting Comprehension and Analysis

Of course, scientific articles and popular science books are a treasure of text to comprehend. You can find free articles on science through services such as Science Alert and from there you can showcase techniques for summarizing and critically analyzing scientific texts.

Example:

Provide students with a simplified scientific article or excerpt (e.g., on climate change, habitats, or human biology). Students read individually or in pairs, then answer structured comprehension questions.

Comprehension Questions:

• What is the main idea or hypothesis described in the text?

• List three new scientific terms you learned and explain their meaning.

• Summarize the key findings or points in your own words.

Analysing Scientific Diagrams

Showing the 4-stroke power cycle in an engine

Science is filled with diagrams. But what do they mean? Do your students understand what is being presented to them?

Give your student a scientific diagram (like the water cycle, plant anatomy, or a cell diagram). Now challenge them to answer targeted questions focusing on interpretation, vocabulary, and descriptive writing.

Comprehension Questions:

• What process or concept is this diagram showing?

• Identify and label at least three key components in the diagram.

• Write a paragraph clearly explaining the diagram in your own words.

• What did you find most interesting or surprising in this image?

Here is a repository of animated infographics to get you started.

Visualizing Science: Descriptive Writing through Observation

Observation is an important skill in science. Scientists need to take careful observations of the world and describe in detail what is happening whilst also explaining the phenomena at hand. Why not bring your students outside of the classroom to observe nature around them. What can they see? Why are they seeing that? Challenge students to create descriptive paragraphs based on what they are observing and use activities and worksheets for developing observational and sensory language.

Speaking Scientifically: Presentation Skills Development

Creating and then delivering an oral presentation can be a daunting task to a student. There will be students in your class who will however thrive if they can present on a subject that relates to them. A scientific topic might be the avenue they need to lose the nerves and therefore can concentrate more on their public-speaking skills through student science presentations and structuring an effective oral presentation.

All presentations need introductions, the body content, and a conclusion. The science is a hook for the presentation and you can help the student improve their language clarity and presentation style just like you would do in a traditional oral presentation.

Science Journaling for Reflective English Learning

Keeping a journal on a student’s experiment is a natural linkage to the English curriculum. Students can reflect on what is working, what is not working, posit new ideas and dismiss ideas proved not to be correct. Your students can use reflective writing through a journal to document their daily or weekly thoughts, which will be both an avenue for personal expression as well as critical thinking.

You can choose for a science journal to be an informal task, or it could be a way to provide meaningful feedback that improves written fluency through formative assessment.

Over to you

English fluency is an essential component of many subject areas. This includes science! As such, there are plenty of opportunities to engage your students in your English classroom through scientific investigations that still meet English curriculum outcomes. As always, safety in science is always paramount and so be careful when simply replicating an experiment from the internet. Check-in with a science teacher in your school, or you can use the >200 free science experiments we have curated to help you teach science safely.

Happy teaching,

Ben Newsome

Primary science teaching book!

“Be Amazing! How to teach science, the way primary kids love”

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