Multilingual, Multimodal, and Multidisciplinary: Deaf Students and Translanguaging in Content Area Classes

Reviewer 1 Comments

It’s not clear from the start what the thesis of the paper is, and the conceptualisation of translanguaging is confused: Is it a teaching approach, a way of understanding multilingual language use in the classroom, an ideological approach to bilingualism in deaf education? How does translanguaging in this paper relate to theories of learning and teaching in a multilingual context (e.g. see Creese, Garcia et al)?

We have revised extensively and added information that we hope will clarify our intention and approach.

 The constructs of languages and modalities in the context of this paper also need to be clarified and the way in which the authors are going to unpack and use the different terms made more explicit. Specifically, how are the concepts of multimodal translanguaging (51) and multimodal deaf students (61) understood in this paper in relation to research into multimodality in the classroom (e.g. work by Bezemer, Kress, Bourne, Jewitt) - are you making a connection - or are you using the terms to point to the different ways in which signed, spoken and written languages are perceived and expressed? This needs clarity as the thesis and descriptions are developed, and through the recommendations. The use of the term non-verbal also needs clarification – are you distinguishing between linguistic and embodied forms of communication here (65)?

We have extensively revised the manuscript with these comments in mind. We have added details about our approach and explanations of complex ideas where necessary. We have also revised the statement about non-verbal communication. We thank the reviewer for the references, and we have made use of many of them.

 In deciding to focus only on signed and written forms of translanguaging you are taking an ideological stance as there is research that examines how deaf and hearing interlocutors communicate using signed and spoken languages (e.g. Kusters et al). Going back to my earlier point - here or earlier on in the introduction - we need to know where the theoretical development of your paper is situated and specifically what contribution to translanguaging theory is being made (upon which you are then basing your recommendations). It might be helpful to approach this by explaining what the research questions for this paper are, and how are you going about examining these questions.

We have added our focus and research questions in an effort to clarify this stance. We have also added information regarding methodology and reorganized the middle part of the manuscript to clarify for the reader our intention, what we did, and how decisions were made.

Some aspects of the writing need to be approached more critically, for example:-

In assigning teacher ‘attitude’ - some insight into what is actually happening here in terms of perceptions and classroom behaviours, management would be informative ( 42).

We have revised this line.

The issues around bilingualism in deaf education relate to the lack of any research into bilingual pedagogical practice not just to an ideological perspective (113).

We have added a line acknowledging that there is a lack of research in bilingual education more generally.

In the description of translanguaging provided assumptions are made about what works well or less well. It would be helpful to know more about the methodologies used to examine and analyse translanguaging in the classroom in these studies and how reliable these methods are. How much close up work has been done into the learner experience for example and how is this information gathered? My experience is that this is tricky to do and that we should therefore should be careful about saying what teachers 'should' be doing.

We have added more details about the articles included in our exploration of the literature to clarify for the reader the approaches and sources of evidence being used. We have also softened our language in places - though we are making recommendations as our purpose was to draw out lessons for teachers that could be applied in the classroom, we agree that ‘should’ might be a bit strong in light of the volume of evidence.

Is there a word missing line 93?

The ellipses were meant to denote that a phrase has been removed from the quote for brevity. If this is not what was being referred to, please let us know!

Reviewer 2 Comments

 Overall, the references support the authors’ claim but they have several instances of making strong claims without providing evidence. Additionally, this manuscript would be strengthened with a discussion on how translanguaging can be applied in a general education or other content area classroom before diving into science-based classrooms. A number of the same references were used repeatedly. The manuscript would be strengthened by diversifying the references (e.g., line 350: is there other evidence that discussing cross-linguistic differences in how concepts are expressed helps create a more complete understanding other than Swanwick)?

Note from Guest Editors: Authors, if you are using Swanwick’s work as the primary source in order to clearly convey how you are engaging with the idea of cross-linguistic differences, please consider providing this rationale. Or, if you think it is more effective to add additional references as the reviewer suggested, that is an option, too.

We have extensively revised this manuscript, including through the adding of more references and exploring the concept of translanguaging as a general principle in content area classrooms as well as in science in particular.

Line 39: I would suggest rewording this claim to be less strong. While some (maybe even most) teachers perceive students using their other language as disruptive, it is certainly not all teachers. If you are specifically referring to the study cited, you should mention “According to Turkan et al. (2014) when they studied XXX, they found that teachers viewed students’ use of another language in the classroom to be disruptive”

We have revised this wording to soften this statement and agree that it is not true of all teachers.

 Lines 64-74: Your argument for omitting spoken language in this review is acceptable. However, you should reword this section to be inclusive of deaf children who may sign and also use spoken language for academics. Some deaf classrooms utilize spoken language that is accessible to all of their deaf students. I’m not saying spoken language is always fully accessible to deaf students but there are classes in which those particular students rely predominantly on spoken language or equally on sign and spoken language. For those students, speech shouldn’t be limited to just side conversations and work with an SLP as worded here. Those students’ experiences and choices shouldn’t be disparaged in this paragraph. Just as there is not one way to be a unimodal bilingual, there is also no one way to be a bimodal bilingual.

We have added a line that says that there is other literature that explores students who use spoken language and that further exploration of this is outside the scope of the present manuscript. Our intention is certainly not to disparage spoken language, but rather to focus on signed language as equity avenue in translanguaging.

Line 72: minor grammar note: “the work with a speech-language pathologist” Lines 93: If this paragraph is quoted, you need to mark it with quotations.

We revised this line for clarity. However, it is not a quote, so we have not marked it with quotations.

 Line 97: Are you considering the switching between academic and colloquial language “translanguaging” or are they also switching languages during this task? Please clarify.

We have revised our discussion vis a vis academic and colloquial languages, so we believe this has cleared up this confusion.

Lines 97-108: Just to clarify, these are ways in which nonbilingual individuals use translanguaging in science? Please clarify this in the text.

This paragraph was about hearing multilingual students. We have revised and hope this is now clear.

Lines 110-115: Please speak to whether previous practices of “total communication” could be considered translanguaging or not.

We have clarified this statement.

Lines 134-135: The sentence “There is not much we currently know about teachers’ understanding of how students use their language ability to learn science because most of the studies focused on students’ preconceived understanding of difficulties related to the content” is too broad. It is certainly not the case that the field does not know anything about the role of language in science learning. Here are a few examples that touch on this below. And in fact, the rest of your literature review covers this very topic. Please reword to be more specific or to include more about what is known in the literature.

Banilower, E. R. (2019). Understanding the big picture for science teacher education: The 2018 NSSME+. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 30(3), 201-208.

Mercer, N., Dawes, L., Wegerif, R., & Sams, C. (2004). Reasoning as a scientist: Ways of helping children to use language to learn science. British educational research

journal, 30(3), 359-377.

Tan, M. (2011). Mathematics and science teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding the teaching of language in content learning. Language Teaching Research, 15(3), 325-342.

By “there is not much,” we did not intend to imply that we know nothing, but instead that there is much more to learn than there is already learned. We have revised this statement to better reflect this intention and thank the reviewer for the references.

Line: 138: Grammar error: “better sense of their students’ language”

We have corrected this error.

Lines 144-145: please back up the claim that science classrooms are notoriously known for the use of complex lexico-grammatical structures that may alienate students with developing English skills.

We have added a citation for this claim.

Lines 163-165: The requirements for ESL endorsements are likely different now than they were in 2014. Please comment on whether this is still the case (you do not have to speak another language). Also please comment on what “Speak another language” means – be able to fluently participate in a college course in another language is different from being able to carry on a general conversation. And having linguistic knowledge of that language but not being fluent in speaking it is not knowing nothing about another language, as implied here.

We have explored the state’s website regarding teacher certification and have been unable to locate a clear answer as to how many contact hours are currently required, so we revised the sentence to state that this was true at the time of data collection. We have also confirmed via teacher preparation program recruitment websites that teachers who wish to pursue ESL certification in that state are not required to speak any language other than English, and have noted it here. The recruitment materials specifically note, “A common misconception is that ESL teachers are required to be bilingual. This is not true! The great thing about becoming an ESL teacher is that you only need to speak English” (emphasis in original).

Lines 183-186: “It is more useful for the students … science speaks”: Do you mean how science terminology has evolved from colloquial speech over time (as the sentence currently reads) or do you mean how students can evolve their own understanding of science by beginning with colloquial speech to more science-specific jargon. If the latter, you need to reword the sentence to convey that.

We have reworded this sentence for clarity.

Line 228: Please provide a couple more references for others who have discussed translanguaging in educational settings.

We have added more references to this statement.

Lines 236-245: This manuscript would be strengthened by additional resources that contribute to this claim that all TC programs use SimCom. One article is not sufficient to substantiate this claim. This argument as written is reductionistic and doesn’t allow for the fact that some classrooms do adhere to the TC framework more faithfully and as well as Bimodal Bilingual frameworks.

We had perhaps overgeneralized, and did not intend to say that all TC programs use SimCom, but that it happens. We have rewritten this sentence to clarify this intent, although we believe that the quote from de Meulder regarding power relations and spoken language remains important and applicable to our overall argument.

Lines 258-282: There are other ways in which translanguaging can be utilized such as with reading (Sehyr et al., 2017), chaining (Humphries & MacDougall, 1999), vocabulary learning (Morere & Roberts, 2012), and fingerspelling (e.g., Haptonstall-Nykaza & Schick, 2007). Please expand this section.

We explore this in the recommendations for teachers, and have added it in the discussion of translanguaging more generally earlier in the manuscript.

Lines 303-312: Please use quotations to clarify what is directly quoted from the Charamba article.

In our word document, this is a block quote, but for some reason does not show up as such in the PDF. We have added quotes, but want to note for the editors that in publication we believe this should be a block quote.

Lines 303-319: What were the results of the study? Were the children more successful after the translanguaging approach had been adopted?

The paragraph following these lines is a direct quote describing the results of the study. However, this was a qualitative/phenomenological study that did not compare success before and after implementation of translanguaging, but instead described how translanguaging was used.

Line 401: please clarify “habits of mind”

 We have added descriptors after habits of mind.

Line 411: please reference these online STEM resources for the reader’s benefit

We have described on how teachers could find these publicly available resources.

Line 446: “each discipline has its own way of visually communicating” – please clarify how science does this. The next sentence reiterates why it’s important for science teachers to do this without actually clarifying how.

We have revised this section, and hope our meaning is clearer.

Line 450-452: this claim “students who strived…learning experience” is not supported here. Please provide additional citations or soften the claim to “students may imitate the teacher’s language pattern”.

This line was confusing, and we have removed it for clarity.

Line 450: Grammar needs to be edited

This line has been removed.

Lines 460-463: Fingerspelling is likely to be an invaluable asset in this translanguaging process and deserves a mention, particularly with connecting science jargon in English and ASL.

To us, fingerspelling is an inherent part of signed language, and since this paragraph is describing encouraging students to use multiple languages, including signed languages, fingerspelling would arise naturally within this context. We are hesitant to add fingerspelling specifically here as the focus is on broader application of all language knowledge, and while we agree that fingerspelling is valuable we don’t want to over-emphasize its value as compared with other language features which we feel are equally valuable. This is especially true given that fingerspelling is an English-based alphabet that does not help learners understand the meaning of unknown terms.

Lines 464-466: Support this claim with evidence

We have referred explicitly to the interactionist perspective of language development and added a citation here.

Lines 477-481: This connection between ASL and written English has been studied extensively by Wolbers and colleagues and should be mentioned.

We agree and have added two references to Wolbers’ work here.

Line 483: “an limited array” should be “a limited array”

We have corrected this.

Line 490: “little is known” is a relative term. More is known about this topic than is implied with this sentence. Please reword to be more accurate.

We have reworded this to “there is emergent research…”

Line 507: “prepare teachers” – do you mean classroom teachers?

We did mean classroom teachers, and have added the word classroom to clarify.

Lines 506-508: Yes there is a disconnect but some of this may be overcome with strong collaborations between EL specialists, speech language pathologists (which deserve a mention for their expertise in language development and use for mono- and multilingual students, and others.

We agree with this comment, but do not feel it is necessary to explore the contributions of speech language pathologists here as our focus is on classroom teachers and not the numerous other professionals who might work with and support deaf students.

Lines 513-515: More people emphasize language competence than this sentence implies. Hearing levels certainly have been the focus in the distant past but much work has been done focusing on language competence regardless of modality in the more recent past.  Reword to be more accurate.

We have added the phrase “There are increasing studies conducted from a strengths-based perspective being published in the present day…” to the beginning of the sentence  but also added relatively recent citations (2005, 2010) that are focused on hearing levels outcomes such as reading comprehension rather than language competence from a strengths-based perspective, which is our point here. There is certainly improvement in the right direction, but we believe that the emphasis on hearing levels in research is certainly not behind us.

Lines 85-88: It appears you are directly quoting Gee. If you are not directly quoting, you do not need the ellipsis. If you are directly quoting, you need quotation marks. It’s confusing as written.

Yes, this is a direct quote. In the word document it is formatted to be a block quote, which traditionally do not use quotation marks, but for some reason when it is uploaded to the online system it removed that formatting. We have added quotes for now, but believe that it should be formatted as a block quote without quotation marks ultimately. 

Line 95-98: This section is confusing: how does communicating about biology require unique syntax? You might expand this with examples or remove altogether.

We have deleted the remark about syntax

Lines 161-164: “Lemke … meaning by degree”. Sentence is too long. Split into two.

Sentence split into two. 

Line 169: Phrasing and expression matter (not matters)

Corrected

Lines 169-172: “Phrasing … phenomena”. Sentence is too long. Split into two.

Sentence split into two

There are a number of paragraphs that appear to be quotations but it’s difficult to tell if they are quoted directly (e.g., lines 354-356, lines 496-499). Setting it apart as a separate paragraph appears to convey that it is a quotation; if it’s not, consider keeping it in the full paragraph.

These are all block quotes in the word document. We have added quotation marks for clarity but believe that these should be block quotes without quotation marks in the final version. 

Line 554: “The use of modeling the use of different …” – see if you can reword to use a different word for “use” for one of these – it’s hard to parse with the two “use” words nearly back to back.

This sentence has been reworded