Reflection on the teaching of physics I: Reflection on the language of science. I have very little real teaching experience (8 weeks of contract teaching, lower secondary science). Yet, even in this short period of time, I have realized that one of the biggest obstacles to communicating scientific concepts is language itself. Through my classroom observations and QCP520 insights, I have found two of the challenges that I find particularly important are the representation of abstract concepts and the use of English as a scientific language. It is difficult for secondary school students to understand abstract scientific concepts. I believe this problem lies with the teacher. As trained physicists/engineers, science teachers have no problem visualizing scientific concepts. However, we should not expect our students to be as capable. As discussed during the tutorial, students operate in the concrete world. They understand the world based on the information perceived by their senses. Teachers should not be expected to readily understand and accept abstract concepts that govern phenomena such as actual electricity, kinetic models, heat transfer, and electromagnetic induction. Our tutorial discussed the use of sub-micro representations (graphs, simulations, etc.) to help students bridge the gap between concrete (macro) and abstract (micro) representations. The use of analogy has also been touted as another tool that can help students visualize abstract concepts. (Treagust, Harrison & Venville, 1998) For example, in teaching current electricity, we can provide the analogy of wires as roads and the flow of traffic as current. Resistors would be like traffic jams. If there are two traffic jams along the same road, the traffic flow will be ...... middle of paper ......d from http://www.aare.edu.au/08pap/key08676.pdfCartillier, J. (2012, March 30). Science under fire from the "merchants of doubt": the American historian. AFP. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/science-under-fire-merchants-doubt-us-historian-190044894.htmlBerkman, M. B., Pacheco, J. S., & Plutzer, E. (2008). Evolution and creationism in American classrooms: A national portrait. PLoS Biology, 6(5), Retrieved from http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/10.1371_journal.pbio.0060124-L.pdfClaude, A. (2012, February 21). Worried scientists respond on global warming. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213244084429540.htmlStaver, J. UNESCO, IBE. (2007). Teaching Science. Excerpt: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/publications/EducationalPracticesSeriesPdf/Practice_17.pdf