Sciences telling: an interdisciplinary practice in the initial training of Bilingual Primary Education teachers

Abstract

In this paper, it is showed the challenge of training future teachers of Sciences in a foreign language, based on a resource that fosters creativity, motivation, as well as cooperative and participative work. It is about students, in the third year of Primary Education Degree (Bilingual plan), developing and explaining tales to teach curricular scientific topics of Primary Education during their practical sessions within the subject of Didactics of Experimental Sciences in Primary Education. This activity has been carried out for three academic courses with 162 students in total. The students' opinion has been tested by a questionnaire specifically designed for the practice, with statistically proved reliability and very satisfactory results. Besides, the products generated by the students have been evaluated by an interdisciplinary team using valuing scales obtained on purpose. Finally, it can be concluded that storytelling turns out to be an appropriate resource for the initial training of teachers in Didactics of Experimental Sciences in English, due to its usefulness in the comprehension of the subject, its future applicability in Primary classrooms, and the encouragement of creativity and holistic competences education. The language used has not influenced the quality of the productions.