Metalinguistic Awareness

Purpose 5

ALLOW STUDENTS TO CONNECT LANGUAGES TO DEEPEN THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF LEARNING.

Bilingual Socratic Seminars

Socratic Seminars in World Language Classes

Socratic Seminars for Elementary Emerging Bilingual Students

This activity transforms a traditional Socratic Seminar into a bilingual discussion space where multilingual learners use all of their linguistic resources to engage deeply with complex texts or ideas. Students participate in structured academic conversations that encourage them to make meaning by connecting across languages using their home language to clarify, question, or expand on ideas. This format supports critical thinking, builds confidence, and fosters inclusive dialogue rooted in students’ lived linguistic experiences.

Materials:

A discussion worth text that can either be fiction or non-fiction
Sentence prepared questions or teacher provided prompts
Sentence starters in both English and students' home languages
A socratic seminar expectations chart for respectful dialogue
Optional translation support, dictionaries, or multilingual glossaries

Procedure:

Choose & Prepare Text: select a culturally relevant, high interest text that lends itself to multiple interpretations. Introduce it ahead of time, giving students time to annotate and reflect in both English and their home language.
Model Multilingual Discussions: demonstrate how students can

Ask questions in English and then expand in their home language
Use their home language to clarify a term or summarize a peer's idea
Say, "In my language, we would say..." to highlight nuances

Set Expectations: introduce the norms or expectations to the class. You can create these together or simply share them with the class at the beginning of the seminar. Expecations for a successful socratic seminar should include
- active listening
- building on others' ideas
- agree/disagree with classmates in a respectful way
- polite ways to ask for clarification
- allow all students to voice their ideas

4. Conduct the Seminar: Divide students into an inner and outer circle (or small groups). Allow them to use both English and their home languages to express, support, or challenge ideas. The goal is not translation, but translanguaging for meaning making.

5. Reflect & Debrief: After the discussion, ask students to reflect on how switching between languages helped them understand the text, the topic, or one another.

6. Assessment: observe students during the seminar to see how they

draw from multiple languages to make meaning
engage with text and others' ideas
build deeper understanding through language connections

7. Optional Assignment: have students reflect on how they used languages within the seminar and what new ideas or understandings they came up with when they heard others speak in different languages.

Emoji Debate Board

7 Speaking Activities with Emojis

Emoji Worksheets

This activity uses the universal language of emojis to spark multilingual discussion and interpretation. Students are shown a single emoji and asked to identify the emotion it represents and explain it using both English and their home language. This strategy builds emotional literacy, supports vocabulary development, and allows multilingual learners to draw on their full linguistic repertoire to make meaning. It also highlights how emotions may be expressed or interpreted differently across languages and cultures.

Materials:

A digital whiteboard or chart paper
Pre-select your emojis
- If using chart paper, you may need to print and pre-cut out the emojis you want to use
Sentence starters in English and various home languages

Procedure:

Present the Emoji: display a single emoji on the board (e.g., 😠, 🤔, 😢, 😃). Let it stand alone with no label or context.
Explain the Task: tell students that they will be called up two at a time to
- - - name the emotion that is represented by the emoji
    - explain what it might mean when someone might feel this way
    - they must use both English and their home language in their response
Model an Example: pick an emoji to model you think allowed and response.

For example:

Emoji: 😕

"In English, I would say this is 'confused'. In Portuguese, I might say 'confuso'. Someone might feel this way when they don't understand directions in class or when reading a difficult text.

4. Students Engage in the Activity: Create two teams. Two students will come up at a time (one from each team) to debate the meaning of an emoji. Students are shown the emoji and they have one minute to quietly think about their response. If students need to confer with their team after the one minute is up, they may. Continue until all students have come up at least once.

5. Group Discussion & Compare Interpretations: have a discussion about what students noticed and if their understanding of any emoji's has changed after the debate.

6. Observe and assess students during the debate, focusing on how effectively they attempt to express the emoji’s meaning in both languages. As an optional extension, have students complete a brief reflective writing before the discussion, explaining how they used language to clarify the emoji’s emotion. This can serve as an additional graded component.

Resources:

Hammond, L., & Lopez, C. (2020). Socratic-seminars-for-emerging-bilingual-students ... CO-CABE. https://www.cocabe.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Socratic-Seminars-for-Emerging-Bilingual-Students-Elementary-and-Beyond.pdf

iSL Collective. (n.d.). 49 emoji English ESL worksheets PDF & Doc. iSL Collective. https://en.islcollective.com/english-esl-worksheets/search/emoji

Nosova, I. (2023). Try this seven speaking activities with emojis. American English State. https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/7_61_3_seven_speaking_activities_p44-48_1.pdf

Otero, A. (2018, January 10). Socratic Seminars in world language classes. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/socratic-seminars-world-language-classes/

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