Two volunteer BEd student teachers in their fourth year of a BEd degree at a metropolitan university in the Western Cape of South Africa designed and taught lessons to two classes of the same age and ability in grade 7 (ages 12-13), using drama role-plays (intervention) and more conventional non-drama methods (control). Lessons were observed and…

Drama is used to build knowledge and understanding in science as part of a socio-linguistic, constructivist approach. Role-plays, where learners act as analogues for components and processes, help access abstract ideas. However, a problem restricting many science teachers using these approaches has been that they lack sufficient pedagogical…

Using drama to teach science has been promoted as a fruitful teaching method yet there has been almost no theorisation and little research. This paper reports a South African study analysing lessons of four student teachers, all General Education and Training (GET) drama majors. Student teachers each used drama simulations and non-drama lessons to…

South African student teachers were studied to see how they coped with requirements to teach science using argumentation. Lesson observations, plans, reflective logs, post-teaching interviews and assessment of pupils' argumentation were used to compare student teachers' preparedness and interactions with pupils. Two clusters of students were…

This paper explores the argumentation ability of ten science teachers in two South African schools on opposite ends of the resource spectrum. Toulmin's model is used to analyse individual contributions in six group discussions. The findings show that levels of argumentation improve with teachers' involvement in the development of teaching…