Discriminatory design refers to systems that appear to be fair for everyone, when in reality they reinforce inequalities. When thinking about this type of design in education, it appears in subtle ways, often in the curriculum, instruction, and types of assessments. These kinds of designs unintentionally disadvantage emergent bilinguals and students with disabilities as well. This can happen when people design and center what it means to learn, communicate, and demonstrate knowledge in limited ways. One place where discriminatory design appears is within curriculum that lacks representation. When texts or materials being taught to students do not reflect students’ culture, language, or lived experiences, students may not see themselves in…

When it comes to designing with translanguaging and Universal Design for Learning, we as teachers must know all of our students’ strengths and weaknesses. That being said, TRUDL is a way of intentionally planning lessons that are suitable for all students. This means that lessons are accessible to all learners through flexible, inclusive design that creates classrooms where emergent bilingual students can engage meaningfully and demonstrate understanding in multiple ways. This allows them to use their full linguistic repertoire. Translanguaging theory recognizes that bilingual students are not dividing their linguistic repertoire. They are not separating their own languages and using them on different days; they use all of their linguistic…

When thinking about designing classroom instruction, you need to consider your students’ identities. Our classrooms are diverse, and our students have multiple parts to their identities. Designing your lessons with the concept of intersectionality is both imperative and culturally responsive. Intersectionality is the term used to describe students with overlapping identities that shape their lives. Students’ race, gender, language, and socioeconomic backgrounds all impact their experiences. For example, you may have a student who lives in a low income neighborhood and is bilingual. This student will have different challenges and strengths compared to a White student who is monolingual and comes from a middle class background. Teachers must know all…

As teachers, we are designers; we create lesson plans that are catered to support and help our students learn to the best of their abilities. With that being said, when designing our lesson plans, we must remember that our students come from different backgrounds and cultures. They may speak different languages, and English may not be their first one. They may even be at the beginning stages of learning English. Therefore, these students would be considered emergent bilinguals. These students may feel shy, lost, or out of place due to having to adapt to a new language. But it is our job as teachers to create our classrooms to be…