How Museum Teachers Scaffold Emergent Bilingual Learners’ Meaning-making During Field Trips

Abstract

This study investigates museum teachers’ perceptions of instructional practices for emergent bilingual students (also known as “English language learners”) within a field-trip setting. Through a survey, focus group, and interviews we explore how prepared museum teachers felt to teach emergent bilingual learners and what type of museum practices and resources teachers described as best scaffolds for these students. Findings indicate that museum teachers did not feel confident in their abilities to serve the needs of emergent bilingual learners, but that artifacts and the dialogues surrounding them were perceived as important scaffolds. However, teachers also indicated the constraints of a field-trip setting made scaffolding difficult to enact. The study points to the need for museum teachers to be supported in consistently enacting best practices for emergent bilingual learners.