ABSTRACT
As a global lingua franca, English enjoys an unrivalled status among world languages (Graddol, 2006)—so much so, in fact, that in many countries the teaching of university science is divided between two languages: the local language and English. Worldwide, the use of English is on the increase. For example, European higher education has recently seen a sharp rise in the number of university courses taught in English (Maiworm & Wächter, 2002; Wächter & Maiworm, 2008). Although this movement towards teaching in English has been largely welcomed by teachers and students alike, a worrying aspect is the lack of research into the effects on disciplinary learning that may be related to changing the teaching language in this way. In this chapter, as part of a new modeling of the notion of scientific literacy, we examine the relationship between the choice of teaching language and student learning in university science. Following some preliminary orientation to these matters, we present findings and insights from three research programs that shed light on the following issues:
• student adaptation to being taught in a second language, • the goals of university science with respect to bilingual scientific literacy, and • the relationship between the teaching language and spoken bilingual scient-
ific literacy.
