Imagine a classroom where learning English isn’t just about memorizing grammar rules or repeating endless vocabulary lists. Teaching English through the eyes and context of Science is an intriguing and engaging way to support multilingual learners in and outside of the classroom.
Why is Science a Good Way to Learn English?
Science is hands-on, ignites curiosity, solves mysteries, and in context – is all around us in everything we do. Therefore, it makes for a great subject to teach English because everyone can relate in some way.
Science offers students an electrifying gateway to English because it blends the thrill of discovery with the power of words. From decoding DNA secrets to debating the ethics of space travel, Science invites learners to dive into honest, riveting conversations and texts that make English come alive.
Because Science is universal – it’s not just a subject; it’s a story-driven adventure that can hook young minds, spark curiosity, and build confidence. The topic proves that language isn’t a barrier – it’s a bridge to learning everything around us.
Connecting English and Science for Multilingual Students
When you can connect a student’s real life to the outside world, it makes learning a new language fun and engaging. Acquiring and practicing English becomes more straightforward when students have nature at their fingertips – and they can touch, see, smell, and easily engage with the ecosystem around them.
Scientific topics can introduce social (BICS) and academic language (CALP) because students can work together in a group setting, increasing their chances of growth in grasping both types of language.
What are BICS and CALP?
BICS (Basic interpersonal communication skills) refers to conversational fluency – the ability to talk about objects or experiences in face-to-face and familiar contexts. BICS is associated with social and conversational language acquisition. CALP (Cognitive academic language proficiency) is the oral, written, and academic language multilingual students acquire in English.
Below is a video example of a teacher working with a multilingual student. In this video, she briefly shows the difference between BICS and CALP.
Science Encourages the Development of Critical Thinking Skills, Speaking, Reading, and Writing
Also, Science encourages critical thinking skills, speaking, writing, and provides the environment for ongoing communication as students discuss hypotheses, make predictions, and explain results. Collaborative group work further strengthens their speaking and listening skills by sharing ideas, debating findings, and working together on scientific inquiries.
When students enjoy learning, they can see that education is not meant solely to focus on their English skills; it’s about using those skills to see and explain how the world works around them. Learning in this manner makes it more meaningful, rewarding, and motivating.
Whether your multilingual students are dissecting a frog or mixing chemicals, anything is more exciting than grammar drills (although those have their place too)—and that engagement keeps them invested in learning English.
Finally, Science is a universal topic. A student can read about a discovery in other languages from anywhere in the world and connect the language to something bigger than just a classroom assignment.
Since you can do many activities with Science and your multilingual students, below are some science experiments explicitly designed for multilingual learners, ensuring they’re fun, educational, and language-rich.
10 Engaging Science Experiments for Multilingual Learners
The Magic of Baking Soda and Vinegar Volcano
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- What You Need: Baking soda, vinegar, dish soap, food coloring, a small bottle, and a tray.
- Language Focus: Action verbs such as pour, mix, watch, build, create, along with descriptive adjectives such as bubbly, colorful, messy, smoky.
- How It Works: Students pour baking soda into a bottle, add a few drops of dish soap and food coloring, and then pour vinegar.
The chemical reaction creates a foamy “volcano” eruption. Encourage students to describe what they see and predict what will happen next, using phrases such as the following: “It’s bubbling!” or “The color is changing!”
Floating Paperclip Challenge
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- What You Need: A bowl of water, paper clips, tissue paper, and a small piece of cardboard.
- Language Focus: Cause and effect terms can include words such as because, so, whether, why, and you can use Science academic terms here too (CALP) such as surface, tension, float, sink.
- How It Works: Challenge students to make a paperclip float on water using a piece of tissue.
Discuss surface tension and have students explain their observations in English, such as “The paperclip floats because of the water’s surface tension.”
Homemade Slime Exploration
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- What You Need: Glue, borax (or contact lens solution), water, food coloring, and mixing bowls. Language Focus: Materials vocabulary such as glue, solution, borax (CALP) and process verbs such as stir, stretch, expand.
- How It Works: Mix the ingredients to create slime, a favorite among students.
As they work, teach them to describe the texture (“It’s sticky!”) and ask open-ended questions such as, “What happens if we add more water?”
Egg Drop Engineering
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- What You Need: Raw eggs, straws, cotton, tape, and cardboard.
- Language Focus: Problem-solving language can include words such as design, protect, test along with teamwork terms such as working together, helping each other, collaborating as a team or group.
- How It Works: Students work in small groups to design a protective structure for an egg dropped from a height.
This activity encourages collaboration and using English to plan and explain their designs, such as “We used straws to cushion the egg.”
Invisible Ink with Lemon Juice
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- What You Need: Lemon juice, paper, a candle or lamp, and a small brush or cotton swab.
- Language Focus: Past tense verbs such as wrote, heated, mixed, and descriptive words such as secret or invisible.
- How It Works: Students write a message with lemon juice on paper, let it dry, and then heat it gently to reveal the message.
Use this to practice for storytelling and scientific explanations. For example, you can start with, “The heat makes the lemon juice turn brown, can you tell me why?”
Below is a video example of a chemist sharing how to create Invisible Ink with lemon juice. You can use simple videos like this one to encourage both social and academic language learning – along with acquiring new vocabulary words.
Water Cycle in a Bag
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- What You Need: Ziplock bags, water, blue food coloring, tape, and a sunny window.
- Language Focus: Cycle vocabulary using words such as evaporation and condensation (CALP), along with transition words that can include first, second, then, finally.
- How It Works: Fill a bag partway with water, add a drop of food coloring, seal it, and tape it to a window.
Over the days, students observe the water cycle in action. Have them narrate the process in English with a peer or in a group presentation. Encourage students to use transition words for their stories. An example sentence to start of stories such as, “First, the water evaporates, then it condenses.”
Balloon-Powered Car Race
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- What You Need: Balloons, straws, bottles, wheels (from bottle caps or CDs), and tape.
- Language Focus: Action verbs that can include words such as run, race, and move along with comparative adjectives such as faster and slower.
- How It Works: Students build small cars powered by air from balloons.
As they race their car creations, they can practice their vocabulary words describing speed and motion such as, “My car is faster than yours!”
Static Electricity Butterfly
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- What You Need: Tissue paper, a comb, and a piece of wool.
- Language Focus: Cause and effect, and you can use words such as when and because. Scientific terms such as static and charge are academic words (CALP).
- How It Works: Students cut out butterfly shapes from tissue paper, then use a comb (rubbed with wool) to make the butterflies “dance” with static electricity.
Encourage students to explain what happens when they rub the comb with the wool in a verbal or written assignment.
Growing Crystals with Salt
- What You Need: Salt, water, a jar, string, and a pencil.
- Language Focus: Future tense verbs such as will grow or will change, along with strong observation words such as clear or shiny.
- How It Works: Dissolve salt in hot water, tie a string to a pencil, and suspend it in the jar.
Over days, crystals will form. Students can practice predicting and observing using phrases such as, “The crystals will grow bigger tomorrow.”
Density Tower Challenge
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- What You Need: Honey, water, oil, dish soap, rubbing alcohol, food coloring, and a tall glass.
- Language Focus: Comparative language using words such as heavier and lighter, along with scientific terms like density and layer (CALP).
- How It Works: Students carefully pour each liquid into a glass to create layers based on density.
Discuss why some liquids flow, and others sink, using English to compare. For example, start off with a question, “Honey is heavier than water, and how do you think that happens?”
