"¡Mira, the Coche Has Wheels!" Supporting Young Children and Families' Translanguaging Through Informal Science

• In Event: Supporting Children and Families in Early Childhood Education Contexts Through Translingual Practices and Pedagogies

Abstract

Objectives
In this paper, we discuss the use of informal science education in linguistically diverse preschool classrooms to promote young dual language learners’ (DLLs) science learning and translingual language development. In particular, we explored (1) the different perspectives of caregivers and early childhood (EC) educators regarding the power and potential of informal science to support multilingual language development, and (2) how these perspectives were manifest during informal science family outreach programs.

Study Methods & Theoretical Framing
This project is a collaboration between a research-intensive university and a local science center that was formed to systematically study museum programs and practices for preschool DLLs, their families, and the community organizations who serve them. Participants included children, their caregivers, and EC professionals at 5 different linguistically diverse, federally-funded EC centers in a mid-sized, midwestern city.
Language socialization theory and methodology (Durani et al., 2014) informed this qualitative study, which meant we employed microethnographic methods (Philips, 1983) of data collection. Specifically, we analyzed (1) interview data to explore stakeholders’ perceptions of language learning, linguistic diversity, and informal science learning for young DLLs; and (2) multimodal transcripts of video recorded interactions (Mondada, 2018) to identify patterns in families’ use of language, gestures, and the physical environment during hands-on science outreach.
Findings
Across interviews, caregivers shared a commitment to heritage language maintenance, as well learning English in and through preschool. While parents described the science outreach programs they experienced as generally positive, fun, and engaging spaces that encouraged science-centered family conversations beyond the school walls, they named specific ways they thought these programs could be more supportive of multilingual language development, including hiring staff and choosing content that better reflected the linguistic and cultural diversity of the EC classrooms.
EC professionals described science learning as a place where their DLLs were more apt to participate than other content-based activities. Teachers felt science was particularly advantageous because it was hands-on and didn't require language, and yet their DLLs seemed to pick up English easily during these activities. Overall, teachers described science as a place where their DLLs thrived and seemed to enjoy full participation in the classroom community.
Significance
Analysis of video data taken during outreach programs revealed families incorporated multiple resources for meaning-making during activities, including translation of signage into heritage language, translanguaging to discuss science concepts, and manipulation of objects. Caregivers socialized young DLLs into using translanguaging, multiple languages, and cultural knowledge as resources for science learning.
The significance of findings from translingual interactions of children and their families with hands-ons science activities, as well as teacher narratives about DLLs’ positive experiences with science and language learning, point to (1) informal science as a potential space where DLLs, their parents, and preschool teachers can support translanguaging and multilingual language learning, and (2) opportunities to support EC professionals’ development of more robust and research-supported understandings of how to support translanguaging and multilingual language development for DLLs through playful science.

Authors

• Jackie Ridley, Kent State University
  Presenting Author

• Leslie C. Moore, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author