� Language Justice, CS and YOU: �A Translanguaging Approach to Computing Education

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LEVEL 1

pila-cs.org

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Facilitation Guide

Below are suggestions for facilitating different activities in this session:

• The “Getting to know each other” (slides 4-9) can be facilitated using a Padlet or other shared platform for virtual or using post it notes for each question if in person.
• The “Unpacking language ideologies” activity (slide 12) can be facilitated using tools like Mentimeter.
• The “Discussion” at the end of Activity 1 (slide 16) can be facilitated by having a reporter from several small groups share out answers to the question. As the group hears participants’ different stories, they can notice variations and patterns in the stories, as well as connections to broader systems. Facilitators may choose to pop into breakout groups to get some volunteers and stories ahead of time.

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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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Today’s Roadmap

• Warm up: Getting to know each other
• Activity 1: Sharing our Stories
• Activity 2: Unpacking Language Injustice
• Activity 3: Translanguaging Lenses to Combat Language Injustice
• Closing and Exit Slip

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Let’s get to know each other...

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Questions 1 & 2:

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What’s your CS teaching context?

1. CS integrated with other content areas
2. Library Media Specialist or Cluster
3. Stand-alone CS and/or Digital Literacy course (e.g. AP, BJC, ECS)
4. Other

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Which grade levels do you teach?

1. PreK-K
2. 1-2
3. 3-5
4. 6-8
5. 9-12

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Question 3:

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What language(s) and kinds of language do you use to communicate with your friends, family, and students?

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To what extent, if at all, do you consider yourself bi/multilingual?

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Question 4:

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What language(s) and kinds of language do your students use to communicate with you, their friends, family, and communities?

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Question 5:

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What comes up when you think about language and equity in your classroom?

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Question 6:

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What questions do you have about supporting multilingual learners in CS?

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Objectives

• Build a community of teachers focused on equity in CSEd
• Reflect on personal experiences and language stories in relation to language injustice
• Explore how issues of language injustice manifest in schools, CS, and beyond
• Share how translanguaging can help us re-frame the education of multilingual learners to promote equity

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Activity 1: Sharing Our Stories

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Unpacking Language Ideologies with Afro-Latina

What lines / words stood out to you?

How did this performance make you feel?

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

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Breakout Discussion

In your breakout group, each person should take 3 minutes to share their answers to the pre-work questions.

Appoint a timekeeper to ensure all get to share.

Questions:

• What are some different kinds of language (spoken, written, embodied, other ways of expression) that you and your family use in and across the different communities you are a part of?
• Have you ever been judged and/or privileged for the way you’ve used language? Have you ever been labeled for your language? How did it make you feel? If not, why not?

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Whole Group Share Out

What are some different kinds of language (spoken, written, embodied, other ways of expression) that you and your family use in and across the different communities you are a part of?

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

¿Qué tal?

What’s good?

你好

سلام عليكم

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Discussion

Have you ever been judged and/or privileged for the way you’ve used language? Have you ever been labeled for your language? If not, why not? How did it make you feel?

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Activity 2: Unpacking Language Injustice

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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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Key Idea: ��Language injustice contributes to inequity in our schools and CS classrooms.

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It’s linked to racial injustice and other forms of oppression.

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Language injustice manifests across the 4I’s

IDEOLOGICAL

• In the U.S., “Standard American English” is privileged over all other means of communication.
• This kind of language is a measure and sign of intelligence and capability.
• It is most reminiscent of how college-educated able-bodied White people speak.

From Fu, Fuller, Posner & PiLa-CS, 2020

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Language injustice manifests across the 4I’s

INSTITUTIONAL

• At school:
• Standardized tests expect proficiency with Standard American English and do not recognize student intelligence if they communicate using language other than “Standard”.

From Fu, Fuller, Posner & PiLa-CS, 2020

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More examples of institutionalized language injustice…

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• School policies have prohibited students from using their whole language repertoires

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• Systems label students as “ELLs”

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• Federal policy until 2015 labeled these students “Limited English Proficient”

Image from Jiménez, 2009

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Language injustice manifests across the 4I’s

INSTITUTIONAL

• At school:
• Bi/multilingual English learners are pulled out during CS “enrichment” time for English learning.

From Fu, Fuller, Posner & PiLa-CS, 2020

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Language injustice manifests across the 4I’s

INSTITUTIONAL

• In tech fields:
• Technologies privilege standard ways of using language

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One more example…

Shoichet, C. E. (2021, December 19). These former Stanford students are building an app to change your accent. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/19/us/sanas-accent-translation-cec/index.html

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Language injustice manifests across the 4I’s

INTERPERSONAL

• In schooling:
• Students teasing each other for their accents.
• Teachers telling Black students they are “articulate” for using not using “street language”.
• Principals not hiring an English teacher because their accent is non-standard.

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In tech:

People in tech fields can exclude based on language (including programming languages!)

https://www.recurse.com/social-rules

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Language injustice manifests across the 4I’s

INTERNALIZED

• Elizabeth Acevedo feeling embarrassed over her mother’s “broken English”.
• A 6th grader feels they are not smart because they read at a “kindergarten” reading level.
• A college graduate thinks they are more articulate than their friends who left high school.

Roberts, 2016; from Vogel & CUNY-NYSIEB, 2016

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Breakout: Think then Discuss

Consider what you just heard, and look back over the previous slides of examples.

• What stood out to you / surprised you about the examples? What would you want to explore more?
• Where do you see examples of language injustice in your schools (policies, routines, curriculum)? What about in Tech? In the wider world?
• In those examples, which language practices and speakers are empowered? Disempowered?

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Linguistic Justice

(Baker-Bell, 2020, p. 2)

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Lau vs. Nichols (1974)

Aspira vs. Board of Education (1974)

Fighting For Linguistic Justice

Alice Cardona Papers, 1973-2004. A Community Struggle for Equal Educational Opportunity: ASPIRA v. Board of Education: AlCa_0009. Center for Puerto Rican Studies Library & Archives, Hunter College, CUNY. Web. 31 Mar 2021.

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Students Resisting Linguistic Injustice!

...yo sé que en la computación no es solo de eso [iReady]… pero otras personas que no han tenido tiempo de usar mucho la computadora o que no han explorado otros horizontes de la computación... van a hacer los exámenes con la computación y van a pensar que sí es computación (Andy, interview 11/30).

...I know that computing isn’t just that [iReady]... but other people that haven’t had time to use computers much, or who haven’t explored other horizons of computing...they are going to do the tests with computing and they are going to think that that is computing (Andy, interview 11/30)

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Students had cogent critiques for iReady’s designers.

Mariposa: I think it's racist because it doesn't have two languages, it only have one. So it’s much difficult for kids that doesn't know English” (Focus group, 6/14)

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Activity 3: Translanguaging Lenses to Combat Language Injustice

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Stop and Jot

How did Elizabeth Acevedo use language in this video to share her message?

How did you make sense of the parts of her poem you didn’t initially understand (if any)?

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Our repertoires DO NOT fit neatly into categories or boxes called “Standard English” or “Spanish”, etc

“Afro-latina

camina conmigo

salsa swagger anywhere she go

como la negra tiene tumbao

azucar.

Dance to the rhythm

beat the drums of my skin…”

• Elizabeth Acevedo

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Translanguaging��When people use their full language repertoires to make meaning, learn, and express in fluid, flexible ways. Those ways go beyond and defy society’s typical categorizations and names for languages.��(García and Li Wei, 2014)

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Translanguaging also happens in contexts we wouldn’t think of as traditionally “bilingual”

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Have you ever…

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• sent a text message made only of gifs or emoji?
• used language that would have been considered “inappropriate” in a situation to help you make a point?
• tried to make yourself understood through gesture when you had trouble? communicating with spoken language?
• used machine translation to help you communicate or understand?
• tried to guess words you don't understand from context?
• chosen to use words from another language to express yourself more fully?
• picked up and started to use a word your students use all the time?

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KEY IDEA:

Not everyone’s translanguaging is perceived as valuable / valid**

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**because of language injustice!

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When we consider our students through a translanguaging perspective, we question:

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• Why do named languages exist in the first place? Who decides what the rules are?
• Why are certain ways of using language (e.g. Spanglish, Black English) seen as more/less “proper” or “academic”?
• How can we elevate speakers of varieties of language typically de-valued in schools?
• How can we notice and learn more about ALL of the ways students communicate?

gilderlehrman.org

Hint:

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Translanguaging Pedagogy

Encourages students to build on their full communicative repertoire for learning, expression, and critical awareness.

Components include the teacher’s stance, design, and moment-to-moment shifts.

(García et al., 2017)

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Video Reflection

What knowledge are the students sharing about language?

How does this teacher’s practice push back against linguistic injustice?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhaIOBuKk14

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Food for thought

Do bi/multilingual and language minoritized students feel welcomed and validated in your CS classroom and school?

Do they have opportunities to build on their translanguaging* for CS learning?

How do the 4I’s play out in terms of language for your kids in CS?

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* their use of language in fluid, flexible ways that may defy language categories like Standard English

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Level 2 Preview

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In Levels 2 and 3, you’ll learn…

• How to notice and welcome your students’ translanguaging
• An approach to curriculum design / modification that builds on your students’ translanguaging
• Translanguaging strategies for supporting your students to make meaning in CS, even if you don’t share their language(s)

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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

Alice Cardona Papers (n.d.). A community struggle for equal educational opportunity: ASPIRA v. Board of Education. Center for Puerto Rican Studies Library & Archives, Hunter College, CUNY. https://centroca.hunter.cuny.edu/Detail/objects/2290

Baker-Bell, A. (2020). Linguistic justice: Black language, literacy, identity, and pedagogy. Routledge.

CUNY-NYSIEB Seminars. (2021, November 4). LIT VID 1 w subtitles 10 20 16 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhaIOBuKk14

García, O., Johnson, S. I., & Seltzer, K. (2017). The translanguaging classroom: Leveraging student bilingualism for learning. Brooks Publishing.

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

Harwell, D. (2018, July 19).  The accent gap. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/alexa-does-not-understand-your-accent/

Holpuch, A. (2015, February 16). Facebook still suspending Native Americans over “real name” policy. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/facebook-real-name-policy-suspends-native-americans

Jiménez, L. (2009). Antonia Pantoja ¡Presente! [Film]. Women Make Movies. https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/antonia-pantoja/

Moll, H. (1727). Negroland and Guinea with the European settlements, explaining what belongs to England, Holland, Denmark, etc. [Print]. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/content-images/08878.0001.det_.jpg

Shoichet, C. E. (2021, December 19). These former Stanford students are building an app to change your accent. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/19/us/sanas-accent-translation-cec/index.html

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