“Doing" science, using language Professional development to promote science and language integration with a focus on multilingual learners

Abstract

This article describes the design and implementation of a series of four professional development workshops to engage middle school science teachers and English as a New Language teachers in “doing” science and using language. The workshops were guided by three design principles: (a) identify local phenomena that are compelling for students, (b) engage multilingual learners in doing science and using language, and (c) leverage multilingual learners’ linguistic and semiotic resources. The results indicate that after participating in the workshops, teachers expressed having a better understanding of how science learning and language learning are mutually supportive of each other with all students, especially multilingual learners. In addition, they emphasized that engagement in science and engineering practices provided opportunities for rich language use, which was an instructional shift from frontloading of vocabulary and concepts. As the workshops took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, we acknowledge the role of digital technologies to support remote instruction and professional development.