Many writers have reflected upon the subject of metaphors and analogies, to bring understanding to areas of specific knowledge, and to facilitate knowledge in the development of a scholastic discipline. This paper is part of a Masters dissertation in which high school biology teachers were observed, with the objective of assessing the spontaneous use of analogies in the classroom. It presents the results obtained from a comparison made between the spontaneous use of analogies and the TWA model - Teaching With Analogies (Harrison & Treagust, 1994), which is a model approved in several contexts for teaching with analogies. Observing issues that have been raised by some writers, as for example, Wilbers & Duit (2001) and from observations of spontaneous use of analogies in the classroom it was possible to highlight some limitations of this model.
analogies; biology teaching; science teaching