Recognising and Building Upon Multilingual Students’ Identities and Knowledges in Mainstream Science Classrooms

Student composition in mainstream classrooms is becoming more linguistically heterogeneous, and teachers are challenged to facilitate subject-specific meaning-making for students with a wide span of experiences and languages learning together. In science, multilingual learners benefit from the use of multiple languages, variation in modalities, and participation in dialogues through informal language. However, meaning-making depends upon an opportunity to invest identities and to make choices. In this chapter, a resource-rich approach is utilised to emphasise the intertwinement of subject-specific meaning-making, acknowledgement, identity and extension of language. Within the current framework, tasks allowing students to use their semiotic resources when working with natural science representations are explored. The aim is to emphasise the importance of consciousness regarding the parallel development of science knowledge, identity, and language of instruction, and to suggest an approach relevant to the science classroom. By examining two students’ identity texts, the chapter illustrates how multilingual students in different situations include identities and everyday experiences in science texts when they are provided the opportunity, which facilitates both L2 and scientific learning. Tasks allowing students to utilise their semiotic repertoire potentially benefit the whole class, and the result can be cultural dynamism and diversity intertwined with engaged science students and transformative learning.