General description and theoretical framework Facilitating development of complex concepts (from a naïve to an academic level where students can flexibly apply the concepts in different contexts) and transformation of everyday language to an academic language sets a high demand to teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary education. (Boersma e.a. 2005; Westra 2008; Cakir e.a. 2001; Cummins 1984; Mohan 1986; Hajer, 1996; Dong 2002) As an experienced teacher trainer for teachers in biology for secondary education I got fascinated in these problems when visiting my student teachers during their school practice and by discussing these phenomena with other experienced biology teachers and our biology students. In this research we find ourselves on the crossroads of three disciplines of instructive approaches: § To teach and guide students in their development of academic knowledge and concepts (Westra, 2008; Romance & Vitale 2001) § Of teaching and guiding students in their acquisition of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (Cummins, 1984) and content specific language proficiency (Mohan 1986, Lindberg 2004) § Of teaching and coaching pre-service teachers in their development of the necessary didactic/ instructional repertoire for the above competencies (Romance & Vitale, 2001) Research Question and objectives The main research question is: How can we develop the competences in pre-service teachers for diagnosing and developing the use of biologically complex concepts and the thereto belonging content specific language? This question includes different aspects in the fields of linguistics, instruction and education as well as the methods of teacher training. The main objective following this question is to prepare our students better for their professional future by using an evidence based method. The other objective is to make a contribution to theory about teaching and learning complex concepts and language acquisition in a domain specific field by testing the practices with our students.

Research Outline and Methodology The first part of the research aimed at defining the characteristics of the language in the biology domain as used in textbooks and classrooms. What will be the challenges for children learning biology? Second literature was studied about the interrelatedness of learning content and language in particular in biology and about proven strategies on teaching complex concepts and content based language instruction (Brinton, Snow & Wesche 1989, Hajer & Meestringa 2004, 2009). The third part is a design experiment ( Akker e.a. 2006, Westra 2008). We will design a Learning-Teaching Strategy in detailed scenario to prepare students for the competences with tools for diagnosing understanding of concepts and language proficiency as well as remediating occurring problems. Our scenario will be monitored during a case study, followed by evaluation and adaptations in the scenario. Thereafter we will perform a second and, if necessary, a third round.

Preliminary results and expected outcomes I will show the results of the characteristics of the language of biology and the challenges it presents for school children as well as the results of the literature study. A preliminary design of the scenario will also be presented, containing the objectives and expected outcomes of different activities during a course on the didactics of instruction. After the course in which the scenario is used and monitored, the students will do an assignment in which they will have to prove their competence by designing a series of lessons for their classrooms about a chosen biology chapter or subject. We expect that after designing and redesigning we will have a sound and grounded method to coach the students in developing the needed competences. The research is part of a PhD thesis.