“Los dos son importantes”: Integrando Translanguaging Literacy with Matematicas and Ciencias in Dual-Language Classrooms

• In Event: Translenguando en STEM: Conceptualizing Multilingual STEM Education as a Distinct Ontology

Abstract

Dual Language Education (DLE) has historically been meant to support language learning for emergent bilingual students yet recently has shifted to prioritize English monolingual students (Valdés, 1997; Valdez et al., 2016). However, recent developments underscore the importance of the development of critical consciousness (Palmer et al., 2019), integrating flexible bilingual pedagogical approaches, such as translanguaging (Flores, 2019, García, 2009), into DLE programs.

In this paper, we share findings from a research-practice partnership with a US-Mexico border school that focused on developing their dual-language program as an avenue to construct cultural and linguistic educational possibilities. Even though the district is located in a predominantly Latine, emergent bilingual community, students’ linguistic repertoires vary due to the region’s dominance of English education. To support the language practices of students, the district is implementing a cognitive bridge period that incorporates translanguaging to revitalize the multilingual practices of students through the use of culturally relevant and translanguaging children's books to teach across contents. This study focuses on data from five second grade classrooms, and draws on teacher and student interviews, teacher lesson plans for bilingual centers and classroom observations of unit implementation.

Teachers used translanguaging books and planned tasks aligned to the book contexts and weekly learning objectives across all contents. The text became a scaffold to allow students to conceptualize learning and establish metalinguistic connections, creating a foundation for applying mathematics and science content knowledge in subsequent tasks. Teachers reported increased engagement with the cross-linguistic and cross- curricular activities, while students felt that the use of translanguaging books provided opportunities to share their thinking in “their own language or both.”

By avoiding rigid language segregation, translanguaging acknowledges students' bilingual abilities, surpassing the conventional confines of language education, fostering increased fluidity and interaction between the involved languages (Cummins, 2009; Garcia & Otheguy, 2020). Findings from this paper can expand research with emergent bilingual students in predominantly Latine and Spanish-speaking bordertown communities to normalize the multilingual practices of ethnic- and language-minoritized students through the use of translanguaging in schools implementing language revitalization efforts.

Authors

• Rosa Chávez, California State University - Fresno

• Claudia Coronado, Texas Tech University