Participating, by Design, in Meaningful Activity
- plopezh24
- Aug 25
- 1 min read
Updated: Sep 16
What enables Multilingual Learners to participate fully?
When classroom activities are well-designed and structured, Multilingual Learners can contribute to shared understandings.
Multilingual Learners benefit from sustained talk (in depth and at breadth) and reciprocal interactions (building on and refining ideas) with their peers.
As they become more central participants in mathematical activity, Multilingual Learners’ participation matures over time.
Learn more: Classroom activities such as sorting tasks offer Multilingual Learners rich opportunities to make connections across procedures, representations, and contexts (Chu & Lopez, 2024). One key element is to structure participation carefully, such as having students in a small group of four take out cards one by one and describe them to their peers before sorting collectively, to ensure Multilingual Learners have meaningful ways to participate (Chu & Hamburger, 2019).