No abstract

This article examines how emergent bilingual students used gestures in science class, and the consequences of students' gestures when their language repertoire limited their possibilities to express themselves. The study derived from observations in two science classes in Sweden. In the first class, 3rd grade students (9-10 years old) were involved in a unit concerning electricity. The second class consisted of 7th-grade students (13-14 years old) working with acids and bases. Data were analyzed by using practical epistemological analysis (PEA). When students' language proficiency limited their possibility to express themselves, using gestures resulted in the continuation of the science activities. Furthermore, both peers and teachers drew on the used gestures to talk about the science content. In some situations, the meaning of the gestures needed to be negotiated. Regardless, the gestures were always related to language. Both students and teachers participated in this process, but the teachers directed the communication toward the goal of the lessons: learning how to talk science. The study contributes to the field by showing the importance of paying attention to and valuing bilingual students' use of gestures as a way to express scientific knowledge. In addition, it demonstrates how teachers might draw on students' gestures to teach science and discusses the importance of creating multimodal learning environments. #

In this study, we examine how bilingual students in elementary school use their languages and what this means for their meaning-making in science. The class was multilingual with students bilingual in different minority languages and the teacher monolingual in Swedish. The analysis is based on a pragmatic approach and the theory of translanguaging. The science content was electricity, and the teaching involved class instruction and hands-on activities in small groups. The findings of the study are divided into two categories, students' conversations with the teacher and student's conversations with each other. Since the class was multilingual, the class instruction was carried out in Swedish. Generally, when the conversations were characterised by an initiation, response and evaluation pattern, the students made meaning of the activities without any language limitations. However, when the students, during whole class instruction, were engaged in conversations where they had to argue, discuss and explain their ideas, their language repertoire in Swedish limited their possibilities to express themselves. During hands-on activities, students with the same minority language worked together and used both of their languages as resources. In some situations, the activities proceeded without any visible language limitations. In other situations, students' language repertoire limited their possibilities to make meaning of the activities despite being able to use both their languages. What the results mean for designing and conducting science lessons in a multilingual class is discussed.

This article concerns how teachers can use physical artefacts as mediating means to support emergent bilingual students' learning in science class. The data consist of non-participant observations in a Swedish 3rd grade (9-10 years old) class working with electricity. All students were bilingual, but in different minority languages and the teacher was monolingual in Swedish. The study focused on four students, all of whom had Turkish as their minority language. The findings show that the teacher used physical artefacts in two different ways. First, the physical artefacts implied that the students experienced the science content by actually seeing it. The students talked about their observations in everyday language, which the teacher then drew on to introduce how the phenomena or process in question could be expressed in scientific language. Second, when students' proficiency in the language of instruction limited their possibilities to make meaning, using physical artefacts enabled them to experience unfamiliar words as related to the science content and thus learn their meaning. The findings contribute to knowledge concerning how teachers can create learning contexts where physical artefacts are used to mediate scientific meaning. ARTICLE HISTORY

This article concerns how different meaning-making strategies are used and related to each other during text reading in bilingual science teaching. A qualitative case study approach was adopted in order collect data in a public school in Sweden. Non-participant observations were made when a Turkish-speaking nineth grade (15-year-old) emergent bilingual student received additional lessons in his mother tongue in addition to regular monolingual science lessons. The purpose of the bilingual science teaching was to support the student’s meaning-making of a text about atoms. A narrative analysis shows how five meaning-making strategies were used and related to each other in various ways, depending on the context. The conversations often started with the meaning-making strategy of questioning. In some situations, relating questioning to rereading without the teacher giving any additional information resulted in the student making meaning. In other situations, this was not enough, and further meaning-making strategies were needed, namely using examples, reformulating, and translating. The bilingual science teaching enabled the student to use his whole language repertoire to make meaning of the text content. Typically, the participants read the text in Swedish and then talked about it in Turkish. However, their discussions about the meaning of scientific concepts did not follow this pattern. Scientific concepts were sometimes kept in Swedish and sometimes translated into Turkish. The translations were continuously related to everyday situations by using examples and reformulation as meaning-making strategies. This detailed analysis of the strategies used contributes to an increased understanding of the meaning-making process in text reading during bilingual science teaching. Educators might draw on these findings to support emergent bilingual students in similar situations.