Middle school Arabic-speaking teacher and students engaging in reading, analysis, and evaluation of sources through translanguaging in social studies inquiry

Abstract

This study reports on how teachers’ and students’ everyday and disciplinary registers interact as they take up translanguaging to read, analyze, and evaluate sources in middle school social studies inquiry and how collaboration between newcomers and bilingual peers supports these students’ participation in disciplinary and literacy learning through translanguaging. The context is a sixth grade English-medium United States midwestern public school classroom in which the social studies teacher and students are Arabic speakers. Findings reveal that: (1) teachers’ planning for translanguaging promotes students’ agency to take up translanguaging to support bilingual register development for inquiry learning and (2) pairing newcomers with bilingual peers who are able and willing to support them creates translanguaging opportunities to make meaning that promote the inquiry learning and bilingual register development of those students and model for others the benefits of bilingualism. This study identifies supports needed to promote the development of students’ and teachers’ disciplinary registers both in English and the home language to promote translanguaging for subject matter learning in the context of English-medium disciplinary classrooms.