Transmodalising Multiliteracies Pedagogy for Multilingual Learners’ Science Learning Leveraging Infographics

• In Event: Reimagining K–12 Disciplinary Literacy: Access, Engagement, and Innovation Across Subjects

Abstract

This study explores how transmodalising multiliteracies pedagogy using infographics can promote equitable access and engagement for multilingual learners’ (MLs’) disciplinary learning in upper elementary science classrooms. The research investigates how students engage in science inquiry and communicate disciplinary knowledge through multimodal, multilingual infographic design.

Grounded in the multiliteracies framework (New London Group, 1996) and informed by transmodalising pedagogy (Kress, 2010; Newfield, 2014), this study conceptualizes literacy as a fluid, social process involving multiple modes and languages. Translanguaging theory (García & Li, 2014) further guides the research, emphasizing students’ full semiotic repertoires as integral to disciplinary participation. Together, transmodalising pedagogy and translanguaging offer a conceptual lens to understand how multilingual learners engage in complex science practices through multimodal and multilingual pathways. These frameworks inform the study’s commitment to designing disciplinary literacy instruction that is inclusive, participatory, and culturally sustaining.

As a qualitative study, we utilized a teacher–researcher collaborative model. This study involved co-designing and implementing infographic-based science instruction with fifth-grade ESOL and science teachers in a mid-Atlantic U.S. public school. Data includes 47 student-designed infographics, field notes from two classroom observations, video transcripts of two infographic consultations, 47 exit ticket reflections, and two teacher interviews. Students’ design iterations were examined through a social semiotics lens to analyze multimodal and multilingual meaning-making (Kress, 2010).

Findings show that transmodalising multiliteracies pedagogy fostered both multimodal and multilingual engagement in science learning. Transmodalising multiliteracies pedagogy enabled MLs to reframe science communication as audience-focused, multimodal storytelling. Students drew on home languages, visuals, and strategic layout to transform static data into purposeful public-facing messages. They demonstrated disciplinary agency by designing bilingual infographics that incorporated inquiry findings, visuals, and authentic voice. Furthermore, encouraged to use home languages alongside English, MLs participated more fully in group work, peer translation, and oral rehearsal. This translanguaging approach empowered MLs across English proficiency levels to contribute substantively to science inquiry and infographic production. Teachers observed increased confidence and classroom participation, especially among students previously sidelined in text-heavy instruction. Group work became a site for authentic peer collaboration, where students negotiated content, language, and design. Findings also highlight the pedagogical shift from templated, English-only instruction to open-ended, asset-based design tasks that empowered students as science communicators.

This research contributes to reimagining disciplinary literacy through innovative, equity-centered pedagogy. Transmodalising multiliteracies pedagogy expands how science literacy is taught and assessed by valuing students’ multilingualism and multimodality as epistemic tools. Aligned with the AERA 2026 theme, this study “unforgets” exclusionary language ideologies and “imagines futures” where MLs are positioned not merely as language learners but as knowledge designers and disciplinary participants. The project also models sustainable teacher–researcher collaboration as a mechanism for enacting culturally responsive science education.

Authors

• Sujin Kim, George Mason University

• Xiaowen Chen, George Mason University

• Eden Langston, George Mason University

• Kathleen Ramos, George Mason University