Science Teachers’ Perception of Bilingual Teaching

Abstract

The Indian education sector now aim to modernize the schools. Projectors, LCDs, teaching software, and other teaching tools are being provided to schools to upgrade the infrastructure in educational institutions. The Introduction of English medium instruction in the schools is also the part of such change. Teachers always act as the conduits for any new policy and reform implementation. (Derrington & Anderson, 2020). Therefore, it is quite important to know the perception of teachers regarding the teaching learning environment. Educating linguistically diverse students has proven to be the most divisive educational subject. (Cruz and Thornton, 2013). Therefore, for an effecting implementation of educational planning, it is quite important to know how much the subject teachers are prepared to work in diverse learning environments. (Ladson-Billings, 2004). The teachers at government schools of Punjab are facing the bilingual environment in the classroom created by students of two mediums.eg. Punjabi and English. This study is aimed to ascertain the government schoolteachers’ perception of teaching science in two languages. The researcher qualitatively examined the classroom experiences of ten teachers, who were teaching science at the secondary level in Punjab government school in 2021- 2022 academic year. The current study adopted an interpretative approach where qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The teachers were also asked to talk about the challenges they face during the bilingual class. Also, the probing questions were asked for participants to explain fully. The researchers coded the responses collected through the field notes and interview recordings. The responses were analysed for themes, commonalities, and distinctions.  Low language competence of students, problem of Indiscipline, extra workload, and time factor were found major constraints to teach effectively to the students of two mediums.