English Learners as Agents

Alvarez, Laura; Capitelli, Sarah; Loney, Marguerite L. De; Valdés, Guadalupe

doi:10.4324/9780429330667-4

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Collaborative open‐ended tasks are designed so that learners’ experiential, cultural, and multilingual/multidialectal resources support access to and engagement with complex content and reasoning. Linguistically minoritized students are explicitly positioned as worthy conversational partners and held accountable to high expectations (Alvarez et al., 2021).…”

Section: Innovative Classroom Pedagogies: Promising Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education

Uccelli¹

2023

Language Learning

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Which theoretical and empirical insights can inform language‐in‐education research that advances equitable and high‐quality learning at school? In this three‐part article, I first draw from various sources to foreground the urgent need to counteract linguicism and epistemic injustices and to commit to more just and rigorous scientific practices in research and education. Based on findings from my own research, I then argue that more just and rigorous practices need to attend to midadolescents’ individual differences in language learning. In response, I present insights from recent innovative evidence‐based pedagogical frameworks and tools that reveal promising paths forward. I close by calling for research with a dual focus on equity and rigor that supports moving away from “pedagogies of silence,” which silence marginalized students’ voices, damaging their identities and obstructing their learning, towards “pedagogies of voices,” which affirm all learners’ voices while amplifying their language repertoires and their critical learning.

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Section: Innovative Classroom Pedagogies: Promising Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education

Uccelli¹

2023

Language Learning

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“…Existing research points to several instructional practices beyond sentence stems and frames that teachers can use to scaffold emergent multilingual students' participation in content‐area discussions: Creating contexts that invite and leverage students' full linguistic repertoires (Bang et al, 2017; Grapin et al, 2023; Lee et al, 2013); engaging students in inquiry that builds on their experiences (Grapin et al, 2023; Haneda & Wells, 2008, 2010; Segal et al, 2017); crafting open‐ended prompts and designing tasks that require students to grapple collaboratively (Alvarez et al, 2021; Lotan, 2008; Park et al, 2021; Segal et al, 2017); designing multimodal experiences that enable students to make sense of concepts through hands‐on investigation, talk, video, images, reading, and writing (Alvarez et al, 2021; Grapin et al, 2023; Haneda & Wells, 2008, 2010); intentionally sequencing learning tasks over time (Walqui, 2006; Walqui & Bunch, 2019); and establishing inclusive learning environments with relational trust, safety, and clear norms, in which emergent multilingual students are positioned as valued contributors to the community's intellectual work and students feel safe offering emergent ideas and taking risks with language (Alvarez et al, 2021, 2022a, 2022b; Ardasheva et al, 2016; Haneda & Wells, 2008; Lee et al, 2021; Mercer & Dawes, 2008; Park et al, 2021). …”

Section: Scaffolding Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Collaborative sense-making discourse is central to the discipline of science and affords rich opportunities for students' language development (Alvarez et al, 2021(Alvarez et al, , 2022aEvaragou & Osborne, 2013;Lee et al, 2013). To ensure that emergent multilingual students benefit from these opportunities, it is essential that they are able to enter into such classroom discourse as worthy conversational partners.…”

Section: Expanding Conceptions Of Scaffoldingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A successful small group or whole class discussion is not about students performing the correct use of sentence frames or parroting correct answers; instead, it is a crucial space for students to engage in the work of the discipline-investigating phenomena, posing questions and hypotheses, constructing explanations and models of how things work, and drawing from a variety of sources and experiences to craft arguments. Through this collaborative sense-making work, emergent multilingual learners can both expand their linguistic repertoires and communicative resources and develop their scientific understandings (Alvarez et al, 2021(Alvarez et al, , 2022aEvaragou & Osborne, 2013;Lee et al, 2013).…”

Section: Expanding Conceptions Of Scaffoldingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond sentence frames: Scaffolding emergent multilingual students' participation in science discourse

2023

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The discipline of science provides rich opportunities for language development as students engage collaboratively to investigate and make sense of compelling phenomena. Drawing from a design research study conducted in fifth grade classrooms, we describe how teachers can support emergent multilingual students' participation in science discourse. Attempts to support emergent multilingual students in content‐area discussions often emphasize the use of sentence stems and frames. However, we illustrate how an emphasis on sentence frames can interrupt students' collaborative sense‐making when students and teachers focus on language forms and correct written products rather than on the process of dialogic sense‐making. To move beyond sentence frames, we use transcripts to illustrate other more generative forms of scaffolding that support emergent multilingual students' participation in science discourse and disciplinary practices. We describe how teachers can ground discussion in hands‐on investigations, leverage multiple modalities for meaning making, and engage students in moving bidirectionally between writing and talk. These forms of scaffolding center emergent multilingual students in curricular design, rather than conceptualizing scaffolds as ancillary supports provided to certain students.

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Reclassification and Multilingual Learners' Science Achievement

Pacheco,

Curran,

Boza

et al. 2023

TESOL Quarterly

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This study contributes to a growing body of scholarship at the intersection of bilingual education and education policy and examines reclassification, or the transition out of formal English language services in schools, as one potential lever in accelerating or decelerating multilingual learners’ science learning. More specifically, it traces multilingual learners’ science academic achievement vis‐à‐vis science test scores over a six‐year period using the nationally‐representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of 2010–11 (ECLS‐K:2011) data set. We use regression analyses with panel data to explore the relationship of reclassification with MLs’ science achievement at a national scale, and then, how variation in contextual factors (including family, school, and individual characteristics) shapes this relationship. Results show that, after controlling for covariates and prior test scores, reclassification is not significantly associated with differential science test scores when compared to students that retain their EL status. Results further show that reclassification is associated with higher science achievement for MLs who were previously in a dual‐language program but lower scores for those with higher prior achievement. We conclude with implications for the reclassification process, as well as directions for future research on reclassification, multilingual learners, and academic achievement.

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English Learners as Agents

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education

Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education

Beyond sentence frames: Scaffolding emergent multilingual students' participation in science discourse

Reclassification and Multilingual Learners' Science Achievement

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