Abstract

RAQUEL GALAGOVSKY, Lydia; BEKERMAN, Diana; DI GIACOMO, María Angélica  and  ALI, Salvador. Some reflections on the distance between "talking chemistry" and "understanding chemistry". Ciência educ. [online]. 2014, vol.20, n.04, pp.785-799. ISSN 1516-7313.  https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-73132014000400002.

A class of chemistry can be considered as a forum for communication between the expert teacher and novice students, where the languages used are explicit and observable interface of a communicative exchange. In this paper we show, with two examples, how the diversity of chemical languages, instead of promoting student understanding, it can act as a source of barriers to communication in the classroom. Also, will be discussed in two examples how the speech with which the discipline is taught is also generating potential errors in students when they build their idiosyncratic mental models from a cut and simplified speech from the best intentions of make good didactic transpositions. It is argued that an approach to analysis of the situation in the classroom as a communicative encounter between expert and novice leads to a necessary distinction between "talking chemistry" and "understanding chemistry."

Keywords : Chemistry Teaching; Communication; Speech; Teaching; Learning.