Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Pre-service Chemistry Teacher Preparation Unit on Fostering Pedagogical Scientific Language Knowledge

Language, and thus scientific language,is essential for chemistryteaching and learning. To be able to successfully teach the scientificlanguage of chemistry, the Chemish, (prospective) chemistry teachersneed to possess pedagogical scientific language knowledge (PSLK).Thus, teacher preparation needs to focus explicitly on Chemish andits teaching and learning. Therefore, this paper presents and discussesa case study on the development of a seminar unit to foster pre-servicechemistry teachers' PSLK. In concrete, this includes (i) sensitizingpre-service chemistry teachers regarding Chemish, (ii) providing pre-servicechemistry teachers with knowledge about Chemish and methods and toolsto teach Chemish, and (iii) letting them develop their own teachingactivities. The seminar unit's development follows the modelof participatory action research in university teacher teaching. Thispaper presents the first cycle for piloting the seminar unit withinan obligatory chemistry education course with eight pre-service chemistryteachers. The focus is put on the course of the seminar unit as wellas the results of the first evaluation cycle using a mixed methodsdesign. The evaluation reveals that pre-service chemistry teachers'pedagogical scientific language knowledge developed focusing on thethree named components. In the meaning of a cyclical development,results are discussed and suggestions for further changes are made.