Science is considered as separate and unrelated endeavor from language. Yet, its terms and peculiar concepts and even phraces such as "language of science" point to the opposite. Students learn to describe daily experience's in the light of a special language first, then learn the theories and are enable to conduct experiments. Science teaching however prefer a one shot approach instead of a chunking method i. E first year induction on terms and scientific description of familiar experience's i. E "hurry on, you ll miss the boat" becomes "your position Will change if you dont hurry on, and you can not bridge the displacement with your long jumping ability" or "now your position coincides with boat you should board because later it Will acquire speed which now it has not as long as your position coincide" etc. Inertia is another term that students take time to digest with poor results. If induction lessons occured, this problem would be overiden.
You are right to identify this issue about scientific language. Way back in 1960 I started my Mathematics & Sciences Degree course over 4 years. Many students did not have English as a first language. Even if you speak English, the language for science is different. Anyway, along with Mathematics % Sciences we had to take a special course in scientific language which was via learning about Life & works of famous scientists (Marie curie, Neil Bohr, Einstein etc). All that course was in technical or scientific English. All that proved to be useful grounding for my Scientific & Statistical works which still do. Working with fresh PhD students as a Statistical consultant, I always reminded them about differences between the spoken English and the scientific English. I certainly benefitted from that course in Scientific English which teaches one to say things precisely without using woolly phrases. Whoever designed that course for us did a great job. Just my experience in relation to the issue you are highlighting…thanks
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