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Translanguaging Designs for Computing Education:��Embedding Code into Conversations �With Multilingual Learners

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LEVEL 3

pila-cs.org

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Facilitation Guide

Below are suggestions for facilitating different activities in this session:

  • The “Journeys to School” activity (slides 17-21) can be facilitated in small groups in-person or in small-group breakout rooms virtually.
  • The accompanying handout to this level (available to be copied here) has background context and scaffolding for three activities. This slide deck is designed to use the handout for Activity 1, “Journeys to School” (slides 17-21). The handout’s Activity 2 (Behind the Scenes) and Activity 3 (Andy’s Experience) correspond to Activity 2 in this slide deck (slides 22-29). While slides 22-29 do not directly incorporate the handout, if time permits, the handout can be used to enrich teachers’ engagement with these slides.
  • For the reflection component of Activity 3 (slide 32), participants can write in a personal document/journal or add reflections to sticky notes (in person), chat (virtual), or a platform like Padlet (in person or virtual).

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Participating in Literacies and Computer Science (PiLa-CS) is a Research Practice Partnership promoting equity in computer science ed for emergent bi/multilingual learners.

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The Game Plan for EECS Levels 1-4

Level 1

Self work: Reflect on your own experiences and make connections to issues of language injustice shaping CS education at the four levels of oppression.

Level 2

Classroom connections: Develop a stance that notices and values your students' diverse language practices, consider how you make shifts in the moment to build on those resources.

Level 3

Design: Learn an approach to designing and/or modifying CS units that embed code and CS into conversations that your students -- bi/multilingual and otherwise – are already having.

Level 4

Advocacy: Consider how these theories and approaches might shape your advocacy work to support building and system-wide change for especially bi/multilingual and language-minoritized learners.

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Translanguaging Theory

Translanguaging Pedagogy

Describes how people use language and defy traditional categories as they do it.

A framework for mobilizing students’ diverse language practices in teaching & learning

Stance

Shifts

Design

Level 2

Level 3

Level 1

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Level 3 Objectives

  • Explore an approach (not a curriculum) that can promote equity in computing education for all students, but especially bi/multilinguals.
  • Unpack classroom examples to apply theories that can help you support emergent bi/multilinguals.
  • Identify resources to inspire your own classroom designs.

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Roadmap

  • Warm up: Levels 1 and 2 refresher
  • Activity 1: Experience an activity as a student �[whole group & breakout]
  • Activity 2: Make links to theory, unpack the activity from a teacher’s perspective �[whole group]
  • Activity 3: Translanguaging strategies �[individual reflection]

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Warm up: Levels 1 and 2 Refresher

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Remember when...

We discussed being judged, privileged, or labeled for our language.

“I was embarrassed

by my grandmother’s

colorful skirts

and my mother’s

eh brokee inglee

which cracked my pride

when she spoke…”

  • Elizabeth Acevedo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPx8cSGW4k8

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Language injustice

�The systematic denial of people’s rights to use the language practices of their families, cultures, and communities.

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The systematic privileging of certain groups’ language practices over others’.

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The ways people make sense of the world and communicate DO NOT fit neatly into categories or boxes called “English,” “Spanish”, etc

“Afro-Latina,

Camina conmigo.

Salsa swagger

anywhere she go

como

'¡la negra tiene tumbao!

¡Azúcar!'

Dance to the rhythm.

Beat the drums of my skin…”

  • Elizabeth Acevedo

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Everyone has a unique language repertoire of resources they use to communicate

¿Qué tal?

What’s good?

你好

سلام عليكم

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Translanguaging

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A theory that recognizes that people use their full language repertoires to make meaning, learn, and express in fluid, flexible ways.

Those ways go beyond and defy society’s categorizations and names for languages.��(García and Li Wei, 2014)

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Developing a translanguaging stance…

Andy

John

  • Chose to write directions in English to match their Scratch audience
  • Uses “Span-English”
  • Andy also used a language used amongst gamers and in fanfiction
  • Use of gender neutral pronouns for self and game character
  • Terms used in the gaming community
  • Gaming lingo; bilingual Fandom lingo; Both English and Spanish and coding; cotalk; Coding Language; Art
  • Speaks multiple languages, though he calls Tigrinya “his language”
  • Willing to use English, although someone wrote he is “not fluent”
  • He corrects misconceptions people may have about Eritrea
  • Uses Scratch code & sprites to tell his story
  • Computer generated voices in Scratch portray ages of siblings traveling.
  • Homeland is significant - flag as symbol
  • His Scratch project + use of Tigrinya connect him, his mom, teacher, and Sara

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Making “shifts” in the moment to build on students’ translanguaging

As "Qué lo qué" plays from the Scratch robot voices, two students sitting at opposite corners of the classroom begin to giggle. One boy says aloud "Es americanita esa."

You know that sometimes, students use the word "americanita" to refer to white women. Another student changes the language of the text-to-speech voice to Italian and laughs, saying. "Es acento campesino."

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How do we enact translanguaging “shifts”?

  • Anticipate moments

In the moment…

  • Notice and regulate your emotions
  • Listen / think again with translanguaging in mind (centering students, their language practices, communities)
  • Brainstorm / try out responses
  • Reflect

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ACTIVITY 1: Translanguaging Design

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Experience “Journeys to School” Unit as a Student

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Imagine a classroom where students...

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draw on all of their language resources to learn CS, language, and subject area content

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Let’s Explore a Scratch Project / �Exploramos un proyecto en Scratch

Scratch Project

What did you discover about this project? What is this project about? How do you interact with it?

¿Qué descubriste sobre este proyecto? ¿De qué se trata? ¿Cómo interactúas con ello?

Is there something not working about the project? What is it?

¿Hay algo que no funciona en el proyecto? ¿Qué es?

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Scratch and Language Breakout

  • Goal: With 2 partners, debug the project and reflect on the process.
  • In your breakout
    • Head to the Scratch Project
      • For an extra challenge: Change the language of the interface to Spanish or another new language.
    • Make a copy of our handout
    • Follow the handout prompts to help you engage with the activity, starting on page 5
      • Pick one person to be the Driver (screensharing) and one to be the Navigator (verbally guiding)
      • A third person should keep track of the communication and sense-making resources the team uses to help you (pg. 6 of the handout)

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Think like a student

What stood out to you about this challenge?

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What resources (internal / external) did �you use to help you with this challenge?

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ACTIVITY 2: Translanguaging Design

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Go behind the scenes of the Journeys to School Unit

Ms. Guílamo’s Spanish/English Bilingual

6th Grade Social Studies Class

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3. Design

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The planning of the classroom space, the elements of instruction and assessment, and the strategies to be used with bilingual students.

Three components of the Translanguaging Classroom… (García et al., 2017)

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Let’s think like a teacher...

What do you think were the teacher’s �objectives for this activity? How do you know?

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Journeys To School Project

This teacher initiated a conversation that brought together elements from three types of literacies

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She also considered students’ specific language backgrounds and interests.

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Community Literacies

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  • Tell multilingual family stories and personal memories
  • Photos / maps

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Computational Literacies

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  • Game design process (prototyping, testing, feedback, revising)
  • Sequencing code
  • Reading code
  • Remixing code

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Disciplinary Literacies

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  • Compare - contrast geographies of E. Hemisphere with another location
  • Develop empathy for people in other places
  • Issues of educational equity
  • Explore the relationships between humans and geography

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Journeys to school project

Journeys To School Project

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Here’s what she was going for...

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Students translanguage as they learn in all three circles and at the overlaps

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Andy’s Participation in this Unit

LINK TO PROJECT

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/332366137

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  • Created a more “fantastical” journey to school than what teacher expected
  • Chose to write directions in English to match their Scratch audience and uses “Span-English” to verbally share it
  • Andy also used a language used amongst gamers and in fanfiction
  • Use of gender neutral pronouns for self and game character
  • Used terms used in the gaming community, bilingual Fandom lingo; code; art

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In a nutshell our approach...

  • Builds on and leverage students whole language repertoires
  • Asks: What conversation is this code a part of?
  • Treats coding as meaning-making and participating in conversations that require leveraging language and literacies across communities

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Activity 3: Putting it into practice

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Let’s get into Translanguaging Designs

General Translanguaging Strategies

(we’ll take a look today)

Holistic Translanguaging Unit Design Approach

(next time)

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Applying Translanguaging Strategies

Skim the packet of translanguaging strategies linked here.

Find one strategy that resonates with you (starting on page 2).

Write about / reflect on how you would use it within a CS lesson plan you have supported or taught before.

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For next time…

Read Chapters 13 and 14 from the book Advancing Educational Equity in Computer Science.

Chapter 13: Literate Programming and Code as a Language Resource�Chapter 14: What Conversation Is This Code a Part of?

Come prepared to share a quote that stood out to you and why it resonated.

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Sponsored by the National Science Foundation under NSF grant CNS-1738645 and DRL-187446. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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References

Acevedo, E. (2015, September 21). Afro-Latina [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPx8cSGW4k8

Computer Science Educational Justice Collective. (2025). Advancing educational equity in computer science: A guide for educators and their allies [Pressbooks 1st digital edition]. SUNY Press. aeecs.pressbooks.sunycreate.cloud

García, O., Johnson, S., & Seltzer, K. (2017). The translanguaging classroom: Leveraging student bilingualism for learning (1st Ed.). Brookes Publishing.

García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism, and education. Palgrave.

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