Avoidance Strategies as a Result of Linguistic Overload in Biology Class

Studies in the field of second-language-learners in German showed that students apply different strategies if they are exposed to a linguistic overload in school. These strategies very often result in behaviour of avoidance. In this paper a case study from biology class illustrates a student named Lela who applies an avoidance strategy: She refuses to read schoolbook texts on her own and the autonomous work on a crossword puzzle too. To capture the reason for Lela’s behaviour this case study uses participatory observation protocols (OP) which are analysed via Key-Incident-Analysis. Results reveal that Lela’s avoidance strategies are not symptoms of laziness or a lack of interest but linguistic complexity in schoolbook texts and missing support of learning language of schooling.