Bridging the Gap between Conceptual Change Research and Bilingualism

Breakout Room I

Strike & Posner (1992) identified a flawed assumption, held by themselves, when conceptualizing conceptual change, namely, assuming that learners have well-articulated conceptions, or misconceptions, about most topics, which is unrealistic. Unfortunately, many current investigations on the same topic heavily rely on students' verbal expression and are still subject to such criticism. One way to address the expressed concern is to examine the theoretical and methodological cracks from a new angle. Given the reality of Ontarian science classrooms accommodating culturally and linguistically diverse students, this study proposes to extend Zhou's (2012) cultural perspective of conceptual change to bridge conceptual change and bilingualism. From this perspective, international students in Ontarian science classrooms are seen as language learners, and conceptual change as a bilingual class of such students, gathered to solve a common problem using a common dynamic source code. The bilingual metaphor of conceptual change in science education is relevant to teaching linguistically and culturally diverse international students. To date, a comprehensive theoretical framework of such conceptual change is still out of reach. In this study, a dynamic system approach, based on conceptual change, in time, is sketched for more inclusive science education and promoting a further extension of the multicultural perspective of conceptual change.