LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 19:12 December 2019
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Students’ Views of Science Education Challenges in Morocco:
A Focus Group Study

Hicham Lahlou, Ph.D.

Abstract

Students’ perspectives of science education are of critical importance as they constitute one of the major stakeholders whose views are necessary for any enhancement of science education. The main objective of the present paper is to identify the extent of the effect of the change in the medium of instruction from Arabic to French at tertiary level on students’ learning of science and thus on the quality of science education. To this end, the study employed focus group interview to explore students’ experience and perspective of science education. The main focus was on the linguistic and educational factors that negatively influence learning science. The results show that the most dominant factors that influence students’ understanding of scientific concepts relate to proficiency in French, translation from and to Arabic, learning through practical work, and communication. The findings have important implications for science education, language policy, and science curriculum design in Morocco in particular, and in other non-western contexts in general.

Keywords: Morocco, science education, medium of instruction, proficiency, translation, quality

Introduction

In many non-western countries like Morocco, where science is taught in the local language at school level and western language at university level, students face tremendous challenges. First, most of them have a limited command of the second language. Second, translation from western languages to non-western languages is not highly successful because several senses of words may change in the translation process (e.g., Cobern 1996; Kawasaki 1996; Aikenhead & Ogawa 2007, Lahlou & Hajar, 2016; Lahlou, in press). Third, there is a considerable gap between the meaning of a word in everyday speech and scientific language, the ignorance of which may impede learning scientific concepts and ideas (e.g., Duit and Kesidou, 1988; Strömdahl, 2007). As Logan (1981) says, the conceptual background of a student is constructed in their language, which is dissimilar to the scientific background. First of all, a student may study in his or her local language or pidgin. Second, they gradually learn in a different language, like English. The next stage is to study science in English. This causes students’ science concepts to be kept along with their traditional concepts, creating confusion between the students’ culture and “science culture” (Logan, 1981).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Hicham Lahlou, Ph.D.
School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia
11800 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
hicham@usm.my / hlahlou2003@hotmail.com
Tel: (60)172601189
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