_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: E-mail: prospermosha@yahoo.com; Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science 25(1): 1-15, 2018; Article no.JESBS.40999 ISSN: 2456-981X (Past name: British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, Past ISSN: 2278-0998) From Access to Quality Secondary Education: Developing Language Supportive Textbooks to Enhance Teaching and Learning of Biology Subject in Tanzania Prosper Gabrieli 1* , Eliakimu Sane 2 and Richard Alphonce 1 1 College of Education, University of Dodoma, Tanzania. 2 College of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Dodoma, Tanzania. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration between all authors. Author PG designed the study, performed the analysis, wrote the protocol and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Author ES managed the analyses of the study and proof read the manuscript. Author RA managed the analyses of the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI: 10.9734/JESBS/2018/40999 Editor(s): (1) Doutora Laurinda Leite, Professor, Institute of Education, University of Minho, Portugal. Reviewers: (1) Anthony Andrew, Eastern University, Sri Lanka. (2) Mehmet Durmaz, Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus, Turkey. (3) Niu Ruiying, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sciencedomain.org/review-history/24312 Received 13 th February 2018 Accepted 18 th April 2018 Published 24 th April 2018 ABSTRACT This paper reports findings from the development of Language Supportive Biology Textbook (LSBT) for Form I students in Tanzanian secondary schools to address the challenge of language barrier to learning. The LSBT was thus developed to facilitate smooth transition from Kiswahili to English language medium of instruction in learning Biology. The study used a participatory action research design that involved 2 experts from Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE), 2 Biology specialists from universities, 1 language specialist from UDOM, a total of 12 Biology teachers and Form I students from 12 rural secondary schools located in Dodoma, Lindi and Morogoro Regions in Tanzania. Accordingly, we designed and prototyped a Biology textbook that is language accessible, supportive and relevant to Tanzanian context. We presented Biology content using a variety of illustrations and Original Research Article