Supporting Multilingual Learners’ Sensemaking in Science Through Translanguaging

• In Event: Science Education Research, Remedy, and Repair: Addressing Identity, Language, and Racism Across Science Education

Abstract

Purpose
This conceptual paper highlights how translanguaging as a framework supports students' sensemaking of scientific phenomena in K-8 science classrooms by providing teachers with an approach to (re)design science lessons. While translanguaging occurs in all classrooms regardless of a school’s language program (García, 2011), this paper argues that the science classroom provides a language-rich context that allows teachers to create opportunities for students to utilize their full linguistic repertoires through translanguaging.

Theoretical Framework
García and Wei (2015) describe translanguaging as “the flexibility of bilingual learners to take control of their learning, to self-regulate when and how to language, depending on the context in which they are performing language” (p. 230). García and Leiva (2014) argue that translanguaging allows for flexibility in using linguistic resources to make sense of the world and liberate multilingual learners' voices. In the context of science, translanguaging has many benefits, including supporting multilingual learners in sense-making (Author, in press).

Techniques
The three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013) and a teacher planning tool (Bybee, 2014) are highlighted. Science teaching and learning through the three dimensions of the NGSS (explained in the full paper) provide opportunities for teachers to approach science in a manner that situates students as scientists and engineers. This is much different from how science has traditionally been taught in classrooms through memorization, far removed from the experience of learning through inquiry. Utilizing Bybee’s (2014) 5E instructional model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate) with a translanguaging approach allows teachers to plan an instructional sequence with a purposeful focus that will enable students to use translanguaging to support sensemaking of the selected phenomena.

Substantiated Conclusions
When teachers create shared experiences for students to engage with phenomena, language-rich opportunities emerge as students make sense of phenomena and share ideas. Therefore, rather than thinking about language as a precursor to science learning, what would it look like if both language and science learning were planned to be experienced simultaneously?

To address this question, science lessons should be reimagined and redesigned using a translanguaging framework, with language and science as complementary outcomes. To do so, the following research-based practical steps are offered to plan for translanguaging during science.
Select a performance expectation and identify a phenomenon
Contextualize how the shared phenomenon will be experienced
Determine the translanguaging opportunities students will engage in based on the selected NGSS dimensions
Plan additional language opportunities
Bridge scientific language and registers as needed

An essential aspect of translanguaging is recognizing how our students can use their existing language resources, including their home language, to engage in sensemaking.

Significance
Translanguaging in science education is an understudied field. Lee (2023) reminds us that language is not a precursor to learning science. More research needs to be conducted to inform the scientific classroom about the application of translanguaging, especially considering that we are utilizing the NGSS today.

This paper aims to provide teachers with ways to cultivate transformative pedagogical approaches in the K-8 science classroom, including the NGSS.

Authors

• Melissa Arabel Navarro, San Diego State University

• Jennifer Yanga-Peña, El Monte City SD