Reflection on the teaching of physics I: Reflection on the language of science. I have very little real teaching experience (8 weeks of contract teaching, lower secondary science). Yet even in this short time, I realized that one of the biggest barriers to communicating scientific concepts lies in language itself. Through my classroom observations and the teachings of QCP520, I felt that two of the challenges that I find particularly important are the representation of abstract concepts and the use of English as the language of science. It is difficult for high school students to understand abstract scientific concepts. I think this problem comes from the teacher. As trained physicists/engineers, science teachers have no problem visualizing scientific concepts. However, we should not expect our students to be so capable. As discussed in the tutorial, students operate in the concrete world. They understand the world based on information perceived by their senses. Teachers should not be expected to easily understand and accept abstract concepts governing phenomena such as current electricity, kinetic models, heat transfer, and electromagnetic induction. Our tutorial addressed the use of sub-micro representations (graphs, simulations, etc.) to help students bridge the gap between concrete (macro) and abstract (micro) representations. The use of analogy was also presented as another tool that can help students visualize abstract concepts. (Treagust, Harrison & Venville, 1998) For example, when teaching about current electricity, we can make the analogy between wires and roads and the flow of traffic like current. Resistance would be like traffic jams. If there are two traffic jams along the same road, the traffic flow will be...... middle of paper ......d from http://www.aare.edu.au/08pap/ key08676.pdf Cartillier, J. (March 30, 2012). Science under fire from the “merchants of doubt”: American historian. AFP. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/science-under-fire-merchants-doubt-us-historian-190044894.html Berkman, M. B., Pacheco, J. S., & Plutzer, E. (2008). Evolution and creationism in American classrooms: A national portrait. PLoS Biology,6(5), retrieved from http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/10.1371_journal.pbio.0060124-L.pdfClaude, A. (February 21, 2012). Concerned scientists respond about global warming. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213244084429540.htmlStaver, J. UNESCO, IBE. (2007). Science teaching. Accessed: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/publications/EducationalPracticesSeriesPdf/Practice_17.pdf