Parallel Practices: Translanguaging and Scientific Modeling

• In Event: Translanguaging and Disciplinary Literacies: Exploring and Leveraging Translanguaging Across Disciplinary Contexts

Abstract

Objectives. We argue that valuing language diversity and translanguaging practices supports scientific modeling for all students, particularly emerging bilingual students, because translanguaging offers a lens for engaging with science as negotiated and multimodal. Translanguaging theory argues that languages are fluid and dynamic, conceptualizing an individual’s semiotic repertoire as a single system of resources for communicating and meaning-making (Blackledge & Creese, 2017; García, 2009; Pennycook 2010; vanLier, 2002). In this design study, we broadly conceptualize language as a range of multimodal resources to consider how translanguaging can foreground the negotiated and multimodal nature of scientific modeling.

Theoretical framework. In constructing models, scientists make claims about what is relevant and salient to preserve, represent, and analyze about the phenomena they study using multimodal representations that rely on visual, actional, and linguistic systems (Jewitt et al., 2001; Kress, 2000; Latour, 1999; Nersessian, 2017). Science classrooms similarly rely on multiple modes (Lemke, 2000), although formal verbal and written representations are often privileged over other modes (Bezemer & Kress, 2008; Grapin, 2018). In particular, science education with emerging bilingual learners has historically emphasized English learning as a pre-requisite for engagement in disciplinary practices. Instead, we characterize translanguaging as synergistically paralleling core disciplinary practices in science.

Methods and data. In this study, we ask:

1. How does promoting translanguaging in a science classroom foreground the negotiated nature of discourse in scientific modeling?
2. How does framing modes and models as languages in conversation foreground the role of representations in shaping understanding and inquiry in science?

We address these questions in a design study (Cobb et al., 2003) conducted in a 6th grade STEM classroom. Within a 9-week NGSS-aligned ecology unit, the design provides students with opportunities to reason and express their ideas across multimodal representations and to reflect on the ways these representations shape their understanding. We use students’ models, classroom videos, and interviews to understand how leveraging translanguaging shapes students’ opportunities for learning, engagement in modeling practices, and experiences.

Results and significance. Our data suggest that translanguaging shapes the way that students engage in modeling. First, constructing multilingual representations creates opportunities for students to negotiate the terms and languages they use, in some cases leading students to create or appropriate new terms to describe the phenomena (Table 1). Second, framing modes as languages in conversation makes translanguaging practices accessible to both emerging bilingual and monolingual students, as students identify modes, compare the content foregrounded by modes and models, and consider the affordances of their representations for expression and inquiry (Table 2). Putting models into conversation changes how students engage in science, shaping what they understand to be salient in their models, their questions, and their lines of inquiry.
This study contributes an understanding of how framing translanguaging as a core classroom modeling practice can support students in creating and critically evaluating representations. Recognizing and engaging in scientific discourse in this way positions students as authors of the understandings they construct, rather than consumers of established knowledge. This framing supports students’ authentic engagement in scientific discourse.

Authors

• Ashlyn Pierson, The Ohio State University

• Doug Clark, University of Calgary

• Corey Brady, Vanderbilt University