Enriching university students’ use of logical connectors (LCs) in bilingual written scientific argumentation (BWSA)

Abstract

Bilingual scientific literacy (BSL) is one of the educational domains gaining prominence in twenty-first century societies. University bilingual science courses are legitimate and desirable scenarios for the promotion of bilingual written scientific argumentation (BWSA) as part of BSL. Recent studies indicate that the use of ‘logical connectors’ (LCs) or ‘linking words’ is a critical aspect of BWSA. The problem is that very little evidence is available on how to enrich university students’ use of LCs in BWSA. The goal of this study was to determine how a formative assessment-based pedagogical strategy (FAPS) could help students enrich the use of LCs. We examined the BWSA produced by 70 students (34 females and 36 males, 15–27 years old) in Colombia during a university Spanish-English bilingual science course. The findings show that the strategy provided participants with opportunities to enrich the use of LCs in their written argumentation in Spanish and in English. Finally, the potential implications for university bilingual education are discussed.