Episode 83 – How to communicate about science in English as a non-native language with Sara Garfield

This week we had the wonderful opportunity to talk with Sara Garfield – a true expert in communicating about science in English as a non-native language.
Sara is a dedicated educator with a diverse academic and teaching background that spans multiple countries and disciplines. Raised in Italy speaking English at home, her early fascination with languages and literature has paved the way for her academic interests and teaching career.
Her undergraduate studies led her to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Modern Languages and Literature from Università Cà Foscari Venezia in Venice, Italy. During this time, she specialised in English and French languages and literature. Throughout her studies, she worked as an English private tutor, proof-reader and translator.
Her true passion, though, has always been teaching and language learning. That is what drove her to train as an English language teacher in London, UK. Seeking to deepen her understanding of language acquisition and pedagogy, she pursued a Master of Science degree in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition at Worcester College, University of Oxford, UK.
Currently, she holds a permanent position as an English language instructor and course coordinator in the Department of Languages and Communication at the College of Science and Technology, University of Bordeaux.
With a diverse teaching background, she has taught English for Specific Purposes and English for Science and Technology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Her teaching philosophy emphasises active pedagogy, student-led learning, and the integration of digital tools for enhanced engagement.
Among her research interests are topics linked to science communication using English as a lingua franca in international settings, teaching methodologies, intercultural communication, and the relationship between language and thought. Her approach is interdisciplinary and dedicated to fostering students’ linguistic, intercultural and communication competencies.

You can follow Sara and learn more about her work here:
www.linkedin.com/in/sara-garfield-816569b9

Transcript

Jen (00:00:22)
Hello everybody. It is so lovely to welcome you to another episode of Let’s Talk SciComm. I’m Jen. I’m so happy to be here.
And I’m so happy to be joined by my very good friend and colleague and… I can never think of all the words to use to describe you Michael, but to be joined by Michael.

Michael (00:00:40)
Hey, Jen. Yeah. I’m waiting to make sure you get all my titles correct.
So I think you might’ve omitted a few there. That wasn’t the most titles I’ve ever had.

Jen (00:00:49)
No, I think I’ve said partner in crime a few times and then you said, “But hang on, what’s the crime?” So…

Michael (00:00:56)
I’m happy to be partner in crime without knowing what the crime is. You can tell me, you can tell me about it later.

Jen (00:01:00)
Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I want to set the scene today Michael, by explaining to you how I met today’s guest.
So I want you to picture this. We’ve had a few fabulous guests recently that I met in Venice. So picture this, you’ve just arrived in Venice. You’re feeling super lucky because you get to go to a conference, a work conference in Venice. How good is that?
So you’ve just arrived at the main train station, and you’re trying to work out what combination of vaporettos, which you know are the cool little boats. Not the gondolas, but the other boats, like the water taxis.
You’re trying to work out what combination of those you need to get to, to get to the little island where Venice International University is located, ’cause that’s where the conference is.
So you get that right. You have these two incredibly picturesque little boat trips, and you arrive at this tiny island, like really tiny island where the university is located.
You go to the check-in, the accommodation check-in, ’cause it’s like college style accommodation at the university.
And ahead of you in the queue, there’s a woman who is speaking in what sounds to you absolutely fluent Italian. And you think, Oh God, it’d be so useful to speak Italian while I’m here in Italy, but sadly I don’t.
And then a little while later, you bump into this same woman while you’re having a little wander around the island. And I kind of said this shy hello, figuring, Well, she’s probably here for this conference.
And I soon discover she speaks fluent English. It sounds like English is absolutely her native language. And I’m like, awesome.
And then we have a little chat, and you find out that actually she lives and works in France and is clearly also fluent in French. So there I am, feeling highly inadequate and thinking what a brilliant linguist this woman is.
But then you go, Hang on, we’re at a science communication conference. This isn’t like a linguistics conference.
And so you’re immediately just completely intrigued to find out what her involvement is in science communication. And I am goning to tell you about that in a moment. We will get to that part.
But let me just start then by introducing our fabulous guest to you.
So Sara Garfield has a bachelor’s degree in Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, which she studied in Venice.
But then she also has a master’s degree from the University of Oxford in Applied Linguistics and Secondary Language Acquisition.
Welcome, Sara. I’m so excited that you’re joining us today.
And we did talk about this in Venice, and now here we are, having a chat on the podcast.
So thank you.

Sara (00:03:33)
Thank you very much. Thank you for your very flattering introduction. And it was nice to go back through the time we met and how we met ’cause that was quite a nice moment.
And yeah, I hadn’t thought about that that way in a while. So that was nice.

Michael (00:03:53)
Oh, well. Welcome, Sara.
Yeah, it must be so great to be able to speak multiple languages.
Very enviable for someone like me who you know, speaks English, but je parle un peu français.

Sara (00:04:06)
Yeah, that is correct.

Michael (00:04:08)
Je j’étudie le Français pour mon bac mais maintenant je ne me rappelle rien d’ici temps-là.

Sara (00:04:16)
It’s… That’s very good.
Someone listening would understand what you’ve just said and wouldn’t…

Michael (00:04:20)
Thank you very much.

Sara (00:04:22)
Probably wouldn’t try and have a, an extended conversation with you given that you hadn’t, you know, said by you, “Admittedly, that you haven’t used it for a while”. So maybe they wouldn’t. They take it easy on you, hopefully.

Michael (00:04:37)
I’m very glad you understood what I meant. I learned one sentence really well in French and that was it, when I studied it in school. It’s a rare opportunity that I get to, you know, to use it.

Sara (00:04:53)
To use it.

Jen (00:04:54)
You did sound very confident then, Michael. I’m fairly impressed.

Sara (00:04:56)
Yeah.

Jen (00:04:57)
That was fabulous.

Michael (00:04:57)
Oh, thank you. That’s what it’s all about.
And you know, while we’re on the topic of language I’m, I didn’t know what a vaporetto was.
And my, actually my first thought was, is that a cocktail? You know.

Jen (00:05:11)
Well, we may have also consumed cocktails together, but that’s another story.

Michael (00:05:16)
How many [vaporettos] you need to get to the next island? That would be very interesting.

Sara (00:05:24)
A minimum of two.

Michael (00:05:25)
Yeah, OK, right. That’s…

Jen (00:05:27)
So Sara, we need to get to… Well, okay, so you’re an expert in linguistics and secondary language acquisition. But yet, going back to the vaporetto, you know, we’re at a science communication conference.
So specifically a conference about science communication training. So Michael, it turns out that Sara has a job that I didn’t even know existed.
So Sara’s job is to teach undergraduate and postgraduate students who are studying science, life sciences, computer sciences, human sciences in France. But she’s not teaching them the science, she’s teaching them how to communicate about their science in English, which is a non-native language for these students.
So Michael, you can see why I was immediately super excited to meet her. Because you know, we teach communication skills to many many many science students in Australia for whom English is you know, a second or third or fourth language. We have students from all over the world.
And you know, we don’t have any specialist training in teaching English or in linguistics or language acquisition. We just kind of make stuff up.
So that’s why we really want to pick your brain, Sara, about teaching communication skills to scientists in a non-native language, which is pretty awesome.
But Sara, we always like to start our podcast episodes by getting to know a little bit about our guests and kind of finding out their background, about how they got into their field, which usually is science.
For you, it’s pursuing a career in language and linguistics. You’ve had all these interesting jobs, interpreter, editor, translator, proofreader. You’ve taught English in all these settings.
How is it that you speak both Italian and English and French as a native? Like, come on, tell us a bit of your story. How do you get to be the language aficionado that you are?

Sara (00:07:17)
Well, I wish I was more so. But yeah, I was lucky enough to grow up bilingual. So my mom’s Italian and my father’s English. So I grew up speaking both Italian and English.
I remember learning German for fun when I was nine, but then I didn’t get any other chances to learn it properly. And then I really fell in love with French in middle school.
I decided very quickly that I’d like to, that I wanted to learn more about languages, but also the culture that goes with it, with the language. So literature and history and civilization of the countries where those languages are spoken.
Initially, I hadn’t thought about teaching. But it was always in, it kind of ran in the family because my dad was an English teacher too.
But the thing that really convinced me that I wanted to teach English was actually doing it as a part-time job. And I found out that I really liked it.
I went on to doing a master’s in applied linguistics, which is basically linguistics, but with a focus on psycholinguistics and language acquisition. So how people learn languages and how native speakers learn languages, but also speakers of other languages learn a foreign language or a second language.
I looked for jobs teaching English in France and I landed on this. I think it was the best job I had as a, a language assistant in the University of Bordeaux. And that was an amazing experience.
It was a great stepping stone into teaching in an academic setting. And what I quickly found out was that unlike teaching general English, teaching English for what we call specialists of other disciplines, so not English majors, but majors in science or psychology or whichever other subject requires not only teaching them general English, but also teaching them very specific English aimed to communicate about their subject area.
I decided to pursue that career. I ended up at the right time, right place and secured a permanent position at the university as a full-time English language teacher in the science department, which is where I work now.

Michael (00:09:58)
That’s great. I’m just curious then about your interest in science. Had you always had an interest in science, or is it something that you found after joining this department where you’re interacting with people with a background in science?

Sara (00:10:14)
So answer to the first question, I’ve never had an interest in science. So even as a, even as a… I mean, I was a humanities person. I was not into the science.
I ended up having to learn a lot about it though. Because if I wanted to prepare for my students, well, I had to understand the material.
So I really had to go into it and make mistakes and you know, really admit that I was well, ignorant in what I was doing. And so I had to really ask and learn and figure it out.
I think I see it as I’m a non-specialist. And so I’m there, I’m basically acting as their lay audience and helping them get their message across.

Jen (00:11:13)
Yeah, it strikes me that you being there is actually you know, this huge advantage to them. Because you know, if they can’t explain it in a way that you, a non-specialist can understand, then that’s a clear sign that they need to develop, you know, more effectively how they’re communicating about their work, right? So it’s great for them that you are there as the audience.
But I’m really interested, Sara, to understand more about whether there’s anything… Like, is there anything specific about science that makes it difficult to communicate about, I guess?
Like, I know that you also translate research articles in the fields of medicine and law and philosophy. You know, you’ve got your head around a lot of different academic areas.
Is science just another field that happens to have its own jargon, just like law does and just like philosophy does? Or is there something particular about learning how to communicate about science because of the, you know, the amount of context you have to know?
Or I don’t know, I’m just interested. Like, is it just another field? Or is there something about science that makes it challenging to teach people how to communicate about it, do you think?

Sara (00:12:18)
There’s a whole process that you need to go through in order to understand the basic principles of scientific investigation.
Whereas maybe more… Like, humanities might be sometimes, not all of the time, but sometimes easier to understand in that there’s no, there isn’t a specific process of research behind it. It’s, I guess, you can access a more general meaning.
Whereas with science, if you don’t know the specific meaning of what a “significant value” is, then it’s difficult to understand what they’re actually meaning. And the jargon is definitely something that either you know or you don’t know.

Michael (00:13:12)
Yeah, that’s really, really fascinating. I mean, there’s so many challenges there going from language that is scientific and words like significant, which means statistically significant. But to a lay person, it means, you know, a meaningful change.

Sara (00:13:27)
Exactly.

Michael (00:13:45)
And then you’ve also got the language in there translating from say, French to English. There’s multiple dimensions, I can imagine. It gets very complicated.
And I guess the way research seems to be is that most of it is actually done in English. And so you’re interacting with students who don’t have English as a first language.
And I’m curious to ask you, you know, if you’re a non-native English speaker, is it more difficult to communicate to a technical scientific audience or is it more difficult to then communicate those complex ideas to a lay audience in English?

Sara (00:14:07)
I think to some extent it’s more difficult to communicate with the lay audience.

Michael (00:14:12)
Oh, interesting.

Sara (00:14:14)
Because when it’s sort of a specialised audience, the vocabulary tends to be understood and that there are certain rules that apply.
And I guess they prepare a lot. I’m thinking about oral presentations now. If they learn their presentation, they can deliver it. The message can get across because they’ve had time to prepare, et cetera.
But if they end up going for coffee with their colleagues or having to talk about it to someone who isn’t from the field or even in a casual, more casual setting, then that’s when it becomes more difficult, I think.

Michael (00:14:59)
Well, that’s really good to know because Jen and I, you know, we teach a lot of students how to communicate their science in English. But of course, we have none of your specialist training or expertise in second language acquisition. And a lot of the students that we teach may not have English as a first language.
So I’d love to ask, you know, what’s something that you think we should really know when we’re working with international students?
We’d really love to hear your advice on how we can do a good job at teaching them these communication skills.

Sara (00:15:33)
One thing I find very useful is a technique called shadowing. It’s based on music, I’d say, because it’s like when you sing along. I don’t know if you remember when we used to have CDs and we had booklets with the lyrics of a song and we’d practice singing along with the singer. And you can do a similar thing with language and language practice.
For example, you could take a short talk or a short presentation from, done by a native speaker and have students reproduce not only the speech, but focusing on intonation, on the rhythm, on the stress of the speech, as if it was a piece of music.
Because sometimes what is hard for non-native speakers is not so much the vocabulary and the grammar, but the meaningful intonation and the meaningful stress that may cause comprehension problems.
And the key, when we talk about non-native speakers is not becoming a native speaker, because that’s not the objective. They shouldn’t be aiming at becoming native speakers, but they should be aiming at intelligibility.
And part of that is actually trying to mimic and then learn the way language sounds and the way meaning can be delivered through not only words, but the way the words are delivered. And so what we call prosody and stress patterns and intonation in linguistics.

Michael (00:17:24)
Yeah, that’s fascinating, really really interesting. We are running out of time. But I do really want to ask you before we switch to the rapid fire questions, what about humour?
I imagine that’s exceptionally difficult because it’s all of those things that you mentioned about intonation and stressing words, but also innuendo or some of these very complex things.
Any advice for teaching you know, students to incorporate humor into their science communication?

Sara (00:17:55)
That’s a tricky one. The thing is it’s culturally based, right? So it’s very subjective and it also largely depends on which culture you come from and which cultural background you have. So humour’s the thing that changes across different cultures, but even across different people.
So I think that’s the most difficult thing to teach. I guess when students reach a certain level of English, they can access that. Maybe just exposing them to different types of humour, maybe just showing them examples. ‘Cause I think the best way to show something or to teach something is first of all, by giving examples, lots of examples.
So they might feel that their style of humour might be I don’t know, a better match for a more, like cynical humour or a more ironic humour, or it really depends.
And obviously they need to be very very aware of cultural customs and you know, rules when it comes to talking about certain topics, taboo topics, et cetera.

Jen (00:19:14)
But I think even if you do know the culture, you can still, humour can still absolutely fall flat.
I mean, you know, we talk often about…

Sara (00:19:21)
Oh yes.

Jen (00:19:21)
It’s got to be really certain if you’re going to try and use a joke as an opening hook to capture people’s attention, you have to be really certain that you think that joke is going to work well with that particular audience, because it’s pretty hard if they don’t think it’s funny.
But I think you’re right, Michael. Like humour is another layer of having to get those, that intonation and that flow. And I love that idea of shadowing, Sara. I think that’s a fabulous idea because you know, we just kind of work on the assumption that if our students spend enough time, if so for our students is different because they’re living in an English speaking country, so they’re operating in English. They’re practicing their English all the time.
And we just hope that if they’re here for some period of time and they practice enough, that their English will get better and better. But that idea of actually trying to mimic what it sounds like to speak English as a native speaker, you know. ‘Cause, yeah, I just think that’s a really fabulous idea, listening to what it sounds like.

Michael (00:20:15)
Yeah.

Sara (00:20:16)
Maybe just to add something, one thing that we’re experimenting with now. And it’s a colleague of mine who does it, so shout out to Florian, but he does improv with students.
And that’s another great way to have them feel more confident ’cause I think a lot of the time especially in France, it’s an issue of confidence and trying out and laughing about you know, mistakes and making mistakes.
And you know, with improv, you can’t prepare, you’ve just got to try. That’s also a great way I think to incorporate language training and communication and there’s also humour involved. So I think that’s a good combination.
And I don’t know if you do it with your students, but I can see that with our students, things like drama techniques and improvisation really work and roleplays and all of that, that really really works.

Michael (00:21:19)
Yeah, that’s great to know. I think we really need to incorporate some more of that. I mean, the odd time I might have a joke in class, depending on how witty I’m feeling in the moment, but I think maybe incorporating jokes into every single class could be a good idea then, just to offer a bit of variety. I like the sound of that.
And you mentioned there, Jen, that you know, it can be even, even when you understand the language and the cultural backgrounds, your humour can fall flat. I don’t have any experience of that but yeah, I… I believe it’s true.

Jen (00:21:54)
You wish, my friend. You wish.

Michael (00:21:54)
I believe it’s true. I do believe you. OK. Well look, we are running to the end of the podcast.
But before we let you go, Sara, we would like to switch gears a little bit and ask you some rapid fire questions. So quick questions, quick answers.

Sara (00:22:15)
Yes.

Michael (00:22:26)
The first one that I’d like to ask is if you could pick an alternative job to what you’re doing today, what would it be?

Sara (00:22:34)
Psychologist. No hesitations.

Jen (00:22:38)
I can relate to that.

Sara (00:22:40)
I would have loved to study psychology in another life, yeah.

Michael (00:22:45)
I’m curious, because you were saying that you weren’t really interested in science until you landed this job.
And have you kind of developed more of an interest then in, apart from psychology I think you said, you might’ve been interested in psychology before you landed the job.
Did you develop more of an interest in psychology after this job?

Sara (00:23:03)
Oh yes, moreso in neuroscience as well.

Michael (00:23:04)
OK. Yeah.

Sara (00:23:07)
Yes, that’s… And biology, yes.
So that, that’s…

Jen (00:23:12)
Excellent.

Sara (00:23:14)
Yeah.

Jen (00:23:15)
Next question. If you could choose a superpower to have, what superpower would you choose?

Sara (00:23:21)
I would choose to know everything about everything.

Michael (00:23:27)
Wow that’s, that’s interesting.
But would you want to know everything though?

Sara (00:23:31)
I would like to know everything.

Sara (00:23:33)
I think I would.
Uhh maybe. Yeah, I think I would. I think I would.
I’d like to have an amazing memory and understand all the different topics that exist in the world.

Michael (00:23:47)
Wow.

Jen (00:23:48)
That’s an awesome superpower.

Michael (00:23:50)
There’s an old Irish folk tale about the salmon of knowledge, where someone accidentally burns their thumb on a salmon and they lick it and they gain all the knowledge of the world.

Sara (00:24:01)
Ooh.

Michael (00:24:03)
Yeah. So I think someone’s beaten you to it already.

Sara (00:24:07)
Oh wow. Maybe I should eat more salmon.

Michael (00:24:07)
Yeah, oh no, it would be interesting, wouldn’t it?
They didn’t really allow, I don’t know in that fable, I don’t know if they elaborated on what was that like. Having all the knowledge in the world.

Sara (00:24:17)
That could be a… Yeah, that could be a, sort of the next chapter of the story.

Michael (00:24:25)
So, okay. If you could go back and give yourself a message, Sara, at the age of 21, what would you say?

Sara (00:24:32)
Ooh. Go out and do what you want. Yes, travel more.

Michael (00:24:39)
Yep, more vaporettos.

Jen (00:24:41)
Great advice.

Sara (00:24:41)
Yeah. More vaporettos.

Jen (00:24:42)
And more cocktails, surely.

Sara (00:24:47)
Ahh, don’t know about that.

Jen (00:24:53)
Okay. Next question.

Sara (00:24:47)
Travelling more, yeah.

Jen (00:24:53)
Yeah, travelling for sure.
What do you think makes a good teacher?

Sara (00:24:57)
Being able to adapt and listen. And knowing that you don’t know.
‘Cos…

Jen (00:25:04)
Except if you’ve had your superpower, you would know everything.

Sara (00:25:05)
Except if I had my superpower. That’s why I’d like my superpower.

Michael (00:25:16)
That’s, that would be great. OK, last question Sara.
What is your very top tip for communicating effectively about science?

Sara (00:25:19)
I would say, if there was just one thing, it would be to think about your audience and think about who you’re talking to, and break it down as much as you can so that even someone who’s never heard about your topic would understand. And use stories and examples to do that.

Jen (00:25:51)
Hear, hear. What wonderful advice.
Sara, I could speak to you all day. Sadly, we can’t do that because I know you need to be at work. You’ve got a work day. But thank you so much for making time to speak with us.
And I’m so delighted that we crossed paths in Italy and we had some really lovely conversations. And just so helpful and insightful for us to hear about the job that you do because I think it’s something that we need to think more about.
And for anyone listening for whom English is not your first language and you are learning these crazy hard skills of communicating about technical topics to different audiences. You know, stick at it because we know what a privilege it is and what an advantage we’re at for those of us who speak English as a first language.
But I just think diversity is a superpower and we need people from all over the world with all different backgrounds and all different approaches to be in STEMM.

Sara (00:26:42)
Absolutely.

Sara (00:26:45)
And there are people like Sara who can help all of us to be fantastic English speakers.
And there are many many ways to keep improving. So keep at it.
And thank you so much for your time today, Sara.

Sara (00:26:57)
You’re welcome. Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Michael (00:27:00)
Thanks Sara.

Jen (00:27:21)
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Let’s Talk SciComm from the University of Melbourne Science Communication Teaching Team. I’m Associate Professor Jen Martin and my brilliant cohost is Dr Michael Wheeler.

Michael (00:27:36)
And if you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode, we’d love you to share it with your friends and family. We’d love you to share your favourite episode online. And you can find us at LetsTalkSciComm on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Jen (00:27:50)
And this season, we are asking for your help to spread the word so that more people find out about our podcast.
So if you enjoy listening, we would love you to tell a friend, but we’d also love you to think about taking a couple of minutes to write us a review.
Whatever platform you listen on, there will be a place for you to leave a review. And we’re going to keep track and award our favourite reviewees some prizes.
We’re thinking about some merch. And we’d also love to reward our favourite review with a free science communication workshop that we will run for you in person or online, depending on whereabouts you are.

Michael (00:28:26)
Ooh, prizes. And if… They sound great. And if you’d like to get in touch to suggest a guest or a future topic, we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at lets.talk.scicomm@gmail.com. And as always, a huge thank you to our production team Stephanie Wong and Steven Tang.