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Linguistic Resources to Facilitate Science Education


Affiliations
1 Department of English, B. S. Abdur Rahman Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai 600 048, India
2 Sattva Training Academy, Grenville Terrace, Roxburgh Park, Victoria 3064, Australia
 

The present study emphasizes the need to mobilize linguistic resources to facilitate science education. In a multilingual country like India, when students opt for science education through English at any level – secondary, higher secondary or tertiary – they face the daunting task of mastering language as well as science. A study of nearly 1.5 million word corpus of science textbooks has revealed the level of lexical difficulty faced by the learners. Hence researchers have created corpus based word lists for each level on the basis of ‘keyness’ and ‘frequency’. These could be powerful pedagogic tools to facilitate science education.

Keywords

Corpus Study, Linguistic Resources, Keywords, Science Education.
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  • Linguistic Resources to Facilitate Science Education

Abstract Views: 419  |  PDF Views: 117

Authors

Uma Maheswari Viswanathan
Department of English, B. S. Abdur Rahman Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai 600 048, India
A. Shahin Sultana
Department of English, B. S. Abdur Rahman Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai 600 048, India
Suhasini Shankar
Sattva Training Academy, Grenville Terrace, Roxburgh Park, Victoria 3064, Australia

Abstract


The present study emphasizes the need to mobilize linguistic resources to facilitate science education. In a multilingual country like India, when students opt for science education through English at any level – secondary, higher secondary or tertiary – they face the daunting task of mastering language as well as science. A study of nearly 1.5 million word corpus of science textbooks has revealed the level of lexical difficulty faced by the learners. Hence researchers have created corpus based word lists for each level on the basis of ‘keyness’ and ‘frequency’. These could be powerful pedagogic tools to facilitate science education.

Keywords


Corpus Study, Linguistic Resources, Keywords, Science Education.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv118%2Fi2%2F271-273