What do international school teachers believe about translanguaging and AI and how does this impact their classroom practices?
MLRC researchers, Esther Bettney Heidt and Mariana Castro, in partnership with The Responsible AI for Learning (TRAIL) Lab, led by Shamya Karumbaiah, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology alongside UW-Madison graduate students, Alina Guha and Gyeongri Kim, are currently exploring this question. The team first conducted a survey, completed by 105 international school teachers, including many MLRC School Network members, to develop a clearer understanding of the intersection of translanguaging and technology in linguistically diverse, international school classrooms.
Initial survey findings indicate international school teachers’ translanguaging beliefs strongly correlate with their classroom practices, suggesting teachers are integrating multilingual approaches in their classrooms. The research indicates that while AI is seen as a potential support for translanguaging, teachers’ current attitudes toward AI do not yet correlate with their practice, highlighting a potential gap in adoption and tool design.
Alina Guha presented a paper on the group’s initial findings, “AI Support for Translanguaging in International School Classrooms”, at ICCE2025 (International Conference on Computers in Education), in Chennai, India, on Dec. 1-5, 2025.
Thank you to our MLRC School Network members for their important contributions to this study. To learn more about ongoing opportunities to participate in this exciting new area of research, please contact: mlrc@wcer.wisc.edu
