Strategies for Supporting Emerging Multilingual Learners’ Sensemaking Why are these strategies important? The shifts called for by the Next Generation Science Standards and the NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education require that students have opportunities to authentically engage in science and engineering practices. Science and engineering practices require complex use of language. In order for emerging multilingual learners (EMLs) to have equitable opportunities to engage in science and engineering practices, teachers must be able to both leverage these students’ linguistic resources and address the language needs that they may have. The OpenSciEd instructional materials were designed with many instructional structures and strategies to support EMLs. Below we outline ten research-based strategies for supporting EMLs and when relevant, where those strategies can be found in the OpenSciEd materials. Here, we have grouped these strategies into the following categories: ● Student Engagement ● Students’ Expression of Ideas
● Use of Language for Scientific Sensemaking
● Representation of Content ● Additional Strategies
These groupings capture some of the ways that these strategies appear in OpenSciEd instructional materials, and that teachers can use them to support their EMLs. However, depending on how and why they are incorporated into a lesson, some of these strategies could fall under multiple categories.
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May 2020
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