Multilingual learners (MLs) and their teachers are facing significant challenges in online learning environments: Students and teachers are often unfamiliar with online learning, not everyone has regular access to adequate technology, many students and teachers do not have strong online technology skills, and many of us are experiencing stress that causes us not to be able to operate well higher order thinking and complexity. For those teachers and ML students who do have access to adequate technology, this article outlines some ways to make online lessons more accessible to ML students. Future articles will address how to make quality home learning packets for students who do not have adequate access to technology.
What’s Difficult for MLs in Online Learning Environments?
Educational researchers and online content developers have created a large body of research and practical suggestions for making online learning more accessible to students with disabilities. However, they have paid little attention to the needs of multilingual learners (MLs) in online learning environments. In the few studies that address this issue, researchers have found that MLs may
Need more time to process and share information because they typically read and write more slowly than native speakers (Zhang & Kenny, 2010)
Be confused by written and oral discussions that contain unfamiliar cultural references (Terrazas-Arrellanes, et al., 2013; Zhang & Kenny, 2010)
Experience anxiety in posting responses for others to see because they fear that others will not understand what they are trying to communicate (Zhang & Kenny, 2010)
Supporting reading and writing
Make sure that you give your ML student plenty of time to read texts and write responses. Consider using simplified texts and encouraging beginning and intermediate language students to respond to writing prompts using bulleted lists and graphic organizers. For high-quality simplified texts, Newsela (https://newsela.com/) and Tween Tribute (https://www.tweentribune.com/) have articles adapted to multiple reading levels from national newspapers. The articles cover many content area topics. Some articles are translated into Spanish and are adapted to multiple reading levels in Spanish.
Cultural integration
People make meaning by connecting what they know to what they are learning. If educational environments do not integrate multiple perspectives and cultures into curriculum and instruction, then students who come from cultural backgrounds that are different from the dominant culture will have fewer connections between what they know and what they are learning. Integrating multiple cultures and perspectives helps all students to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the concepts that they are learning and better prepares them for an interconnected diverse world.
Teaching Tolerance has an online professional development page for learning more about integrating culture in the curriculum and instruction. The page provides an overview of the topic, examples, and videos to support understanding. Their website includes classroom resources such as lesson plans and suggested teaching strategies to help teachers implement culturally sustaining teaching.
Creating a safe space for communicating
Multilingual learners often hesitate to express themselves through writing and speaking because they worry that others will not understand them, will tease them, or will think that they are not smart. Teachers can create a safer environment for communicating by emphasizing effort and problem-solving rather than correctness (Johnston, 2012). If the point of speaking or writing is to respond to an idea or share one’s thoughts, then teachers should not correct MLs’ language because the over-use of correction often leads to MLs avoiding writing and speaking (Krashen, 2009). Instead, save language lessons for writer’s workshop and focus on one or two of students’ specific communication challenges at a time.
Some students will still hesitate to speak or write for fear of making mistakes. In online responding you can have students use grammar checking software such as the grammar function on Microsoft Word, Grammarly, or ProWritingAid. For oral responses, you can provide students time to write before responding and encourage your MLs to type their responses into the grammar checking software. They can do the same for written responses.
Comprehensible Input
Like in person classes, online classes can also be difficult to understand for MLs. However, with some support online learning can provide a language and meaning rich environment for MLs. The key to helping ML students understand the key concepts you are teaching is comprehensible input, communicating in ways that MLs can understand. This learning support includes making concepts more visible through multimodal learning and sheltered language.
Videos
Videos can provide visually rich information that supports student comprehension of key concepts. Some educational video sources like Khan Academy and TED Talks even provide videos with closed captioning and/or transcripts in multiple languages. Other videos provide visually rich information about key concepts that you teach students. Try National Geographic for both humanities and STEM subjects.
Images
The idiom, a picture is worth a thousand words, is a guiding principle in working with MLs. Images can help MLs connect what they know to what they are learning. Visual representation provides a context for MLs to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words and make meaning about new concepts. My favorite online resources for photos include
Graphic organizers
Graphic organizers can capture essential information and show relationships between concepts. Teachers can make graphic organizers to present information with fewer words. Adding images to graphic organizers can make them more effective for MLs. If students have technology proficiency, they can make their own graphic organizers to share their ideas without getting bogged down by language. Here are a few sites for making graphic organizers online:
Even with all the suggestions in this article, online learning will still be challenging for both MLs and their teachers. In these times of “new normal” we need to be patient with ourselves, our students, and our colleagues. Do what you can with the resources and energy that you have and find a group of colleagues who teach what you teach so that you can share lesson plans and resources.
Citations
Johnston, P. H. (2012). Opening minds: Using language to change lives. Stenhouse Publishers.
Krashen, S. (2009). The Comprehension Hypothesis extended. Input matters in SLA, 1(4), 81-94.
Terrazas-Arellanes, F. E., Knox, C., & Rivas, C. (2013). Collaborative online projects for English language learners in science. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 8(4), 953-971.
Zhang, Z., & Kenny, R. (2010). Learning in an online distance education course: Experiences of three international students. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 11(1), 17-36.
The photo at the top of the article is licensed through Creative Commons, City of Seattle Community Tech.
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