Pushing Boundaries: The Semiotic and Linguistic Meaning-Making of Emergent Bilinguals During Science Instruction

• In Event: 77.042 - Translanguaging Embodied: Students' Expanded Translanguaging Practices Across Contexts

Abstract

Objectives:
This paper explores the ways emergent bilinguals construct meaning from a variety of semiotic resources during technology-mediated science lessons. Findings are presented from two case studies in which students draw on their translanguaging practices and other semiotic resources including images, avatars and written texts. The paper also examines teachers’ attitudes towards students’ multilingual, semiotic resource mixing.

Perspectives:
Translanguaging as a theory and practice approaches languages as “fluid codes framed within social practices” that extend beyond clear cut linguistic boundaries (García, 2009). Online learning spaces also provide opportunities to push modal boundaries through the development of hybrid texts that mix image, shape, color and movement (Ware & Warschauer, 2005; Rowe & Miller, 2016). The present study furthers this scholarship by examining how emergent bilinguals deploy linguistic repertoires and other multimodal, semiotic resources to compose representations of science learnings.

Methods:
The study presents case studies from an afterschool program in a California elementary school and a transitional bilingual class in a New York City middle school. In California, emergent bilingual students (n=8) used ipad to create science journals, mixing images, text and embedded avatars. In New York, emergent bilinguals (n=10) studied an online unit on Evolution, which included videos, photographs, and scientific tables. In both settings, students drew on these semiotic resources as well as English and Spanish to create representations of the science content.

Data sources:
In both sites of investigation, video recordings and screen capture were used to document interactions in the classroom and on technology devices. The video and screen recordings were synchronized and transcribed together, using ELAN, a video annotator. Analytical frameworks from social semiotics (Kress, 2010; Iedema, 2003) are used to analyze students’ compositions for use of color, image, sound, and language. Teacher interview transcripts were coded for attitudes towards translanguaging and other forms of semiotic resource mixing.

Results:
Analysis of transcripts in both case studies revealed that students were engaged in dynamic translanguaging practices during discussions of content materials. Translanguaging was not limited to spoken modes but crossed modal boundaries. Middle school students used Google translate and a messaging tool to share multilingual translations of a text on variation and adaptation. The elementary students manipulated the speech and actions of avatars to record observations of science demonstrations. While translanguaging had clear benefits to the students, interviews with the teachers revealed concern for the mixing of languages in students’ writing. This same concern was not shared for the mixing of other semiotic resources.

Scholarly Significance:
The study’s findings demonstrate the benefits and challenges of incorporating translanguaging and other semiotic resources in content area instruction. In both settings, semiotic mixing was a powerful tool for students’ meaning making and self-expression. However, translanguaging in academic settings, particularly in the written mode is often viewed as more problematic by teachers (Canagarajah, 2011; García & Kleyn, 2016). The paper concludes with a discussion of how to challenge monolingual, monomodal norms in technology-mediated learning.

Author

• Briana Ronan, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo