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Participating, by Design, in Meaningful Activity

  • plopezh24
  • Aug 25
  • 1 min read
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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).


 
 

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