Inclusion
How to design bilingual science assessments that allow students to demonstrate understanding in home languages and English.
Thoughtful strategies enable equitable science assessment by validating students' home languages while strengthening English science literacy, fostering authentic demonstrations of understanding, and supporting equitable access to rigorous content for diverse learners.
Published by
Henry Brooks
August 02, 2025 - 3 min Read
Designing bilingual science assessments begins with a clear vision: assessments should capture core science ideas while respecting linguistic diversity. Start by identifying essential learning targets in science concepts, then determine how those targets can be demonstrated using students’ home languages alongside English. The goal is to allow students to express reasoning, observation, and explanation with accuracy, using linguistic resources that reflect their lived experiences. Before drafting prompts, consult language matrices that align science vocabulary with translations and cognates. This planning helps teachers avoid last-minute translation gaps and keeps the focus on conceptual mastery. With a solid framework, the assessment can be accessible, rigorous, and culturally responsive from the outset.
In practice, incorporate bilingual task design by offering parallel prompts in students’ languages and English, ensuring semantics and disciplinary nuance align across languages. Use multi-step tasks that require describing phenomena, collecting data, and interpreting results, but permit students to switch languages or use translanguaging strategies to gain clarity. Provide sentence starters and graphic organizers that function in both languages, enabling students to articulate explanations without being hindered by vocabulary gaps. Teachers can also embed science-specific visuals, models, and demonstrations that support meaning-making independently of language. This approach fosters equitable access while maintaining high expectations for scientific reasoning.
Build assessments that recognize and validate multilingual reasoning styles and practices.
When evaluating bilingual performance, adopt rubrics that separate language demonstration from scientific accuracy, then merge the two to form a holistic score. Begin by listing observable indicators of scientific understanding, such as accurate claims, evidence-based reasoning, and coherent explanations. Then specify language indicators, like clarity, precision of terminology, and the ability to connect ideas across languages. Train assessors to recognize translanguaging as a valid strategy for meaning-making rather than as a linguistic error. Use exemplars in multiple languages to illustrate the standard. By clearly articulating both domains, teachers can fairly assess what students know and can do, while supporting bilingual development as an outcome in its own right.
Design assessment tasks that invite students to generate explanations grounded in evidence gathered through experiments, investigations, or field observations. Allow students to write, draw, or verbalize their reasoning in either language, or a blend of both, depending on what best conveys understanding. Scaffold with prompts that guide students to justify conclusions using data, diagrams, and models. Include opportunities for peer discussion in whichever language is most comfortable, followed by individual synthesis in English or home language. The emphasis remains on science content first, language second, with equal opportunities to demonstrate comprehension through diverse modalities.
Design tasks that invite multilingual, multimodal demonstrations of understanding.
To operationalize these ideas, teachers can create bilingual performance tasks that reflect real-world science challenges. For example, a unit on ecosystems might require students to document observations in their home language, then translate findings into English summary statements. Provide accessible resources such as bilingual glossaries, labeled visuals, and bilingual rubrics that explain success criteria. Incorporate opportunities for students to explain processes, poses questions, and propose experimental designs in either language. Ensure scoring criteria reward accuracy of scientific content and quality of reasoning, while also valuing linguistic clarity and coherence. This balance supports both disciplinary learning and language development.
Another practical strategy involves using choice-based prompts so students select the language medium that best supports their thinking at different stages of the task. Early phases might encourage home-language discussion, while later stages require succinct English explanations or vice versa. By offering flexibility, teachers honor students’ cognitive load and linguistic resourcefulness. Equip students with a toolbox of translation strategies, such as cognate recall, scaffolded sentence frames, and visual organizers. Training students to switch between languages intentionally reinforces metalinguistic awareness, a valuable skill for future science work in multilingual settings.
Provide clear, accessible guidance for students and families about bilingual assessment expectations.
Multimodal assessment opportunities are essential for inclusive science evaluation. Allow students to present findings through a combination of written reports, diagrams, oral presentations, and hands-on demonstrations. In a bilingual framework, students might deliver a short spoken summary in English, accompany it with a labeled diagram in their home language, and submit a bilingual reflection on the process. Provide flexible submission formats and accessible accommodations, such as extended time for translations or the option to receive feedback in both languages. The resulting artifact collection paints a fuller picture of competence than language-restricted formats could ever reveal.
To support reliability and fairness, engage peer review and calibration sessions among teachers evaluating bilingual work. Have teachers practice scoring with exemplars in multiple languages to align expectations about scientific accuracy and language quality. Create a shared vocabulary of success criteria that translates across languages, preventing misinterpretation of terms. Use moderated discussions to resolve disparities in scoring and to refine rubrics accordingly. Regular calibration reinforces consistency, making bilingual assessments a robust measure of student understanding, not a test of translation proficiency alone.
Commit to ongoing refinement through feedback, research, and practice.
Communication with students and families is a cornerstone of successful bilingual assessment design. Provide concise, translated overviews of the assessment purpose, tasks, and scoring criteria. Host brief orientation sessions where families can ask questions and see examples of student work in both languages. Emphasize that the objective is to demonstrate science understanding, not to prove language perfection. Encourage students to use the language that best supports their thought processes, while informing families about how the bilingual tools—glossaries, frames, and visuals—assist in learning. Transparent expectations reduce anxiety and foster trust in the assessment process.
Cultivate a classroom culture that values linguistic diversity as an asset for scientific inquiry. Recognize and celebrate multilingual reasoning as a legitimate pathway to insights about natural phenomena. Provide opportunities for students to share how language shapes their thinking, while maintaining rigorous standards for evidence and reasoning. Teachers can model translanguaging strategies during whole-class discussion, guiding students to articulate ideas in whichever language best captures their observations. By normalizing multilingual discourse, schools reinforce equitable access to science learning and assessment.
The design of bilingual science assessments should be iterative, driven by data and reflective practice. Collect input from students, families, and colleagues on what works and what remains challenging. Use analysis of student work to identify recurring linguistic barriers and conceptual misunderstandings, then adjust prompts, resources, and rubrics accordingly. Pilot new task formats in a controlled setting before scaling them across grade levels. Document outcomes to contribute to a growing evidence base on multilingual science assessments. Continuous refinement ensures that assessments evolve with student needs and curricular goals, rather than becoming static measures.
Finally, cultivate professional learning communities focused on bilingual assessment design and implementation. Share exemplars, rubrics, and translation tools, and invite colleagues to observe classroom practice that integrates language and science learning. Support teachers with professional development on translanguaging, vocabulary development, and accessible assessment design. By building collective capacity, schools create sustainable, scalable approaches to capturing authentic science understanding across languages. The result is a more inclusive, rigorous educational experience where every student can demonstrate competency and grow as a scientist in both home languages and English.
