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Essential Roles of Language
Mastery for Conceptual
Understanding and
Implications for Science
Education Policies
Liliana Mammino
INTRODUCTION
Science teaching and learning and, consequently, the extent and quality of students’ acquisition
of scientic knowledge, rely on communication: teacher–learner and learner–teacher communica-
tion as well as the communication realized through books and other study materials. Language is
the most fundamental communication tool. It is also the essential instrument for the development
of thought (Bruner 1975) and for any process of knowledge acquisition (Chomsky 1975). Thus,
language is the essential to