Webinar Series
How Emergent Bilingual Students Problematize Phenomena Through Translanguaging
Date+Time
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The MƒA Equity Webinars Series invites nationally recognized educators to share ideas that support equity within STEM. Following an interactive presentation by the speaker, Master Teachers have the opportunity to discuss how these ideas might be applied in their own school environments in small groups. Teachers from MƒA, other Master Teacher programs, and people interested in learning more about MƒA are invited to attend.
How might we support emergent bilingual learners to make meaning of the natural world? Policies, research, and common pedagogical practices claim that English fluency is a prerequisite for learning science. In this talk, Dr. Enrique Suárez uses the construct of Translanguaging -- making use of the full linguistic repertoire, including features from multiple languages -- to question that assumption and explores how these students benefit when we allow a range of communication practices. Drawing from studies in formal and informal science learning environments, he will analyze how young emergent bilingual students leverage their translanguaging practices when co-constructing ideas.
Dr. Enrique (Henry) Suárez is committed to making science learning equitable for all students and teachers, emphasizing the importance of learning about the natural world through investigation. Specifically, Dr. Suárez’s research focuses on designing learning environments that create opportunities for elementary-aged emergent, multilingual students to leverage their conceptual resources and translanguaging practices for learning science. Henry also works to support pre- and in-service teachers to identify and respond to students’ sense-making repertoires as intellectually generative in science. Dr. Suárez received his Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2017. Before working in classrooms, Dr. Suárez spent 10 years studying the accelerated expansion of the universe. He grew up in Venezuela, has lived in all continental time zones of the US, and enjoys making arepas for friends and family.