When I first encoun­tered Luciana de Oliveira et al.’s paper, Plan­ning for Instruc­tion Using a Lan­guage-Based Approach to Con­tent Instruc­tion for Mul­ti­lin­gual Learn­ers (de Oliveira et al., 2021), it reshaped my approach to sup­port­ing Eng­lish Lan­guage Learn­ers (ELLs) in my wood­work­ing class­room. The 6 Cs of Sup­port (Con­nec­tion, Cul­ture, Code-break­ing, Chal­lenge, Com­mu­ni­ty and Col­lab­o­ra­tion, and Class­room Inter­ac­tions) pro­vid­ed a prac­ti­cal frame­work for simul­ta­ne­ous­ly fos­ter­ing lan­guage devel­op­ment and con­tent learn­ing in a hands-on set­ting. As de Oliveira et al. explain, “Teach­ers have the dual respon­si­bil­i­ty of facil­i­tat­ing MLs’ [mul­ti­lin­gual learn­ers’] con­tent learn­ing while also sup­port­ing their ongo­ing Eng­lish lan­guage devel­op­ment” (2021, p. 25). This bal­ance between tech­ni­cal skill-build­ing and aca­d­e­m­ic lan­guage devel­op­ment became cen­tral to my teach­ing.

The 6 Cs frame­work helped me rethink wood­work­ing as a place where stu­dents not only cre­ate func­tion­al objects but also engage in mean­ing­ful reflec­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing, and lan­guage acqui­si­tion. In this envi­ron­ment, stu­dents’ iden­ti­ties and voic­es are embed­ded in their projects, trans­form­ing the act of mak­ing into some­thing more impact­ful.

1. Connection: Making Learning Meaningful

Guid­ing Ques­tion: What will you do to con­nect the les­son to stu­dents’ pri­or aca­d­e­m­ic learn­ing, back­grounds, and expe­ri­ences?

The C of Con­nec­tion empha­sizes link­ing stu­dents’ pri­or expe­ri­ences to the con­tent, mak­ing learn­ing rel­e­vant and engag­ing. This prin­ci­ple res­onates with cul­tur­al­ly sus­tain­ing ped­a­gogy (Paris, 2012), which sug­gests that stu­dents learn best when they can draw on their per­son­al back­grounds and expe­ri­ences (as cit­ed in de Oliveira et al., 2021, p. 14). In my wood­work­ing class­room, I use projects like the Sym­bol­ic Ani­mal Box Project to help stu­dents con­nect their cul­tur­al back­grounds with cre­ative tasks.

Exam­ple: One stu­dent from Mex­i­co select­ed a cat for his project and engraved it onto his wood­en box. He shared that in Mex­i­can folk­lore, carved spir­it ani­mals, or ale­bri­jes, car­ry sym­bol­ic mean­ings. For his fam­i­ly, the cat rep­re­sents inde­pen­dence and free­dom, val­ues they asso­ciate with their move to Cana­da and the oppor­tu­ni­ties they have gained since immi­grat­ing. (see more about ale­bri­jes)

Reflec­tion: This project demon­strat­ed how link­ing con­tent to per­son­al expe­ri­ences can lead to deep­er engage­ment and mean­ing­ful learn­ing. When stu­dents see their iden­ti­ties reflect­ed in the class­room, they feel a sense of own­er­ship, which moti­vates them to par­tic­i­pate more active­ly. The sym­bol­ic ani­mal box project allowed this stu­dent not only to demon­strate his tech­ni­cal skills but also to share a sto­ry about his family’s resilience and growth.

2. Culture: Bridging Home and School

Guid­ing Ques­tion: How will you link the new con­tent skills and con­cepts to stu­dents’ cul­tur­al and lin­guis­tic resources to sup­port aca­d­e­m­ic learn­ing?

Moll et al. (1992). high­light the impor­tance of draw­ing on stu­dents’ “funds of knowl­edge” (as cit­ed by de Oliveira et al., 2021, p. 14), the cul­tur­al knowl­edge they bring from home. In my class, I embed cul­tur­al con­nec­tions into wood­work­ing projects that encour­age stu­dents to reflect on their her­itage. The Laser-Engraved Wall Shelf, for exam­ple, allows stu­dents to engrave sym­bols that reflect their per­son­al or fam­i­ly tra­di­tions.

Exam­ple: One stu­dent from Colom­bia engraved a wax palm onto her shelf, explain­ing that it is a sacred nation­al sym­bol rep­re­sent­ing life and fer­til­i­ty. As she worked on the design, I guid­ed her through a reflec­tive writ­ing process using sen­tence starters like, “The wax palm rep­re­sents __ because…,” help­ing her artic­u­late how the sym­bol con­nects to her family’s val­ues.

Reflec­tion: This project made me real­ize how wood­work­ing can go beyond craft­ing objects to become a plat­form for sto­ry­telling. By incor­po­rat­ing mean­ing­ful cul­tur­al sym­bols, stu­dents gain a deep­er appre­ci­a­tion of their own her­itage while prac­tic­ing aca­d­e­m­ic writ­ing and pre­sen­ta­tion skills. The wall shelf project has become one of the most pow­er­ful exam­ples of how wood­work­ing and cul­tur­al expres­sion can be seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed.

3. Code-breaking: Navigating Technical and Academic Language

Guid­ing Ques­tion: What will you do to explic­it­ly teach ways of doing school, aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­cy, and dis­ci­pli­nary, lin­guis­tic, and cul­tur­al codes of con­tent learn­ing? How will you mod­el the lan­guage forms/ vocabulary/function/skills?

Code-break­ing is cru­cial in wood­work­ing, where stu­dents encounter tech­ni­cal lan­guage relat­ed to tools, mate­ri­als, and design process­es. De Oliveira et al. (2021) empha­size that teach­ers must make the “aca­d­e­m­ic dimen­sions of con­tent trans­par­ent” by explic­it­ly teach­ing tech­ni­cal vocab­u­lary and lan­guage struc­tures (p. 14). In my Per­son­al CNC/Laser Project, stu­dents devel­op step-by-step plans and doc­u­ment their design jour­ney, blend­ing tech­ni­cal pre­ci­sion with reflec­tive writ­ing.

Exam­ple: Stu­dents describe key stages of the project, includ­ing:

1.  Brain­storm­ing ideas through thumb­nail sketch­es or doo­dles to visu­al­ize design pos­si­bil­i­ties.
2. Refin­ing those sketch­es into detailed work­ing draw­ings that show mea­sure­ments and dimen­sions.
3. Prepar­ing the dig­i­tal design using Corel­Draw, explain­ing design deci­sions (e.g., “I chose this sym­bol because…”).
4. Set­ting machine para­me­ters like engrav­ing depth and speed.
5. Assem­bling the final prod­uct and eval­u­at­ing its suc­cess.

 

I pro­vide sen­tence starters like, “I refined my design by __ because…” and “I adjust­ed the machine set­tings to __ in order to __,” which help stu­dents scaf­fold their tech­ni­cal expla­na­tions.

Reflec­tion: Code-break­ing is not just about learn­ing new terms, it’s about help­ing stu­dents struc­ture and artic­u­late their think­ing. By guid­ing them to doc­u­ment each design step, stu­dents gain clar­i­ty about their process and devel­op the abil­i­ty to explain their work. This pre­pares them for more advanced projects where both tech­ni­cal skills and lan­guage are crit­i­cal.

4. Challenge: Balancing Rigour with Support

Guid­ing Ques­tion: What aspects of dis­ci­pli­nary lit­er­a­cy will you address? Which high­er-order think­ing and rea­son­ing skills will you focus on?

High chal­lenge paired with high sup­port is key to help­ing stu­dents grow. De Oliveira et al. stress that ELLs should be giv­en chal­leng­ing tasks, but they must be paired with scaf­fold­ing to ensure suc­cess. The Per­son­al CNC Sign Project exem­pli­fies this by blend­ing cre­ative design, per­son­al iden­ti­ty, and tech­ni­cal prob­lem-solv­ing.

Exam­ple: Stu­dents design per­son­al­ized signs fea­tur­ing sym­bols, words, or images that rep­re­sent aspects of their iden­ti­ty, fam­i­ly, or cul­ture. As they progress through the project, I pro­vide scaf­fold­ing through design tem­plates, sen­tence starters, and peer dis­cus­sions, ensur­ing they can reflect on and refine their designs while nav­i­gat­ing the tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ties of CNC pro­duc­tion.

Reflec­tion: High chal­lenge fos­ters resilience and inde­pen­dence when stu­dents feel sup­port­ed. I’ve wit­nessed stu­dents who were ini­tial­ly hes­i­tant become con­fi­dent in explain­ing their designs and shar­ing their progress. This project high­lights that when stu­dents are pushed to stretch their abil­i­ties, they devel­op crit­i­cal think­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing skills that extend beyond the class­room.

5. Community and Collaboration: Learning Together

Guid­ing Ques­tion: How will you engage stu­dents in col­lab­o­ra­tion and build a com­mu­ni­ty of prac­tice?

Col­lab­o­ra­tion is cen­tral to learn­ing in wood­work­ing, as stu­dents often work in pairs or groups to com­plete projects. I struc­ture col­lab­o­ra­tive design reviews and peer feed­back ses­sions using reflec­tion prompts to guide mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions.

Exam­ple: Dur­ing the Per­son­al CNC Sign Project, stu­dents present their designs to peers, answer­ing reflec­tion prompts like:

• “Why did you choose this sym­bol or design?”
• “What does it rep­re­sent about your back­ground, fam­i­ly, or inter­ests?”
• “What chal­lenges have you encoun­tered, and how did you solve them?”

Peers pro­vide con­struc­tive feed­back, help­ing stu­dents revise and refine their designs.

Reflec­tion: Col­lab­o­ra­tive dis­cus­sions build more than tech­ni­cal com­pe­tence, they help stu­dents devel­op com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills and con­fi­dence. By shar­ing their work and receiv­ing feed­back, stu­dents learn to artic­u­late their deci­sions and lis­ten to oth­ers’ per­spec­tives, cre­at­ing a sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty of learn­ers.

6. Classroom Interactions: Building Language Through Discourse

Guid­ing Ques­tion: How will you use “inter­ac­tion­al scaf­fold­ing” in the class­room?

Inter­ac­tion­al scaf­fold­ing involves teacher-stu­dent dia­logue that encour­ages stu­dents to elab­o­rate on their learn­ing. I embed these inter­ac­tions through­out every stage of the design and build process, help­ing stu­dents con­nect tech­ni­cal tasks to lan­guage devel­op­ment.

Exam­ple: Dur­ing project reviews, I ask ques­tions like:

• “What sto­ry does your sign tell?”
• “How did you decide on this design?”
  When stu­dents respond, I pro­vide feed­back and recast their answers to rein­force key vocab­u­lary. For exam­ple, if a stu­dent says, “I made it small­er,” I might respond, “Yes, you reduced the dimen­sions to improve the fit. Can you explain how that adjust­ment improved the over­all design?”

Reflec­tion: These inter­ac­tions trans­form learn­ing into an ongo­ing dia­logue. By embed­ding aca­d­e­m­ic lan­guage into these dis­cus­sions, stu­dents gain con­fi­dence in explain­ing their projects while build­ing the vocab­u­lary they need to suc­ceed in future aca­d­e­m­ic set­tings.

Final Thoughts: The Critical Role of LACI in My Teaching

De Oliveira et al.’s 6 Cs frame­work has fun­da­men­tal­ly reshaped my approach to teach­ing wood­work­ing. Projects like the Per­son­al CNC Sign and Laser-Engraved Wall Shelf show how high chal­lenge, high sup­port, and mean­ing­ful reflec­tion can be woven into every stage of learn­ing. The framework’s empha­sis on pur­pose­ful scaf­fold­ing ensures that even the most com­plex tasks are acces­si­ble to ELL stu­dents, fos­ter­ing inde­pen­dence, cre­ativ­i­ty, and growth.

Scaf­fold­ing, I’ve learned, is not about sim­pli­fy­ing con­tent but about mak­ing it mean­ing­ful and achiev­able. By blend­ing tech­ni­cal instruc­tion with reflec­tive prac­tice, stu­dents leave my wood­work­ing class­room with more than func­tion­al projects, they leave with the con­fi­dence and skills to express who they are, what they’ve learned, and how they’ve grown.

Planning Guide with LACI’s Six Cs of Support for Multilingual Learners (Adapted for Woodworking and Scaffolding ELL Students)

C of Sup­port	Guid­ing Ques­tion	Appli­ca­tion in Wood­work­ing	Exam­ple Activ­i­ties	Scaf­fold­ing for ELL Stu­dents
Con­nec­tion	What will you do to con­nect the les­son to stu­dents’ pri­or aca­d­e­m­ic learn­ing, back­grounds, and expe­ri­ences?	Relat­ing wood­work­ing projects to stu­dents’ pri­or knowl­edge, per­son­al expe­ri­ences, and cul­tur­al back­grounds.	In the sym­bol­ic ani­mal box project, stu­dents reflect on pre­vi­ous wood­work­ing expe­ri­ences, such as mea­sur­ing, cut­ting, or design­ing from ear­li­er projects. They then inte­grate their knowl­edge into design­ing an engrav­ing that con­nects to their per­son­al or cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, link­ing past tech­ni­cal skills with cre­ative expres­sion	Sen­tence starters for reflect­ing on per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance (e.g., “This ani­mal is impor­tant to my fam­i­ly because…”);   Visu­al prompts to aid brain­storm­ing design ideas.
Cul­ture	How will you link the new con­tent skills and con­cepts to stu­dents’ cul­tur­al and lin­guis­tic resources to sup­port aca­d­e­m­ic learn­ing?	Encour­ag­ing stu­dents to bring their cul­tur­al iden­ti­ties into their projects, link­ing design tasks to their her­itage, val­ues, and fam­i­ly tra­di­tions.	In the wall shelf project, stu­dents engrave cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant sym­bols (e.g., the wax palm) and write reflec­tions on the mean­ing and sig­nif­i­cance of their designs.	Guid­ed dis­cus­sions on cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance with peers and teach­ers;   Bilin­gual word banks for key terms relat­ed to design and reflec­tions.
Code-Break­ing	What will you do to explic­it­ly teach ways of doing school, aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­cy, and dis­ci­pli­nary, lin­guis­tic, and cul­tur­al codes of con­tent learn­ing? How will you mod­el the lan­guage forms/ vocabulary/function/skills?	Teach­ing stu­dents how to nav­i­gate and describe tech­ni­cal process­es using wood­work­ing and aca­d­e­m­ic vocab­u­lary, con­nect­ing prac­ti­cal tasks with reflec­tive writ­ing.	In the Per­son­al CNC/Laser project, stu­dents doc­u­ment their process (from brain­storm­ing to machine set­up) using sen­tence frames to describe design deci­sions.	Mod­elled exam­ples of design logs using scaf­fold­ing tem­plates;   Sen­tence frames (e.g., “I refined my design because…”);   Vocab­u­lary lists for machine-spe­cif­ic terms.
Chal­lenge	What aspects of dis­ci­pli­nary lit­er­a­cy will you address? Which high­er-order think­ing and rea­son­ing skills will you focus on?	Pro­vid­ing chal­leng­ing projects that com­bine tech­ni­cal prob­lem-solv­ing and per­son­al reflec­tion, sup­port­ed by scaf­fold­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing.	In the Per­son­al CNC sign project, stu­dents design per­son­al­ized signs incor­po­rat­ing sym­bols that rep­re­sent their iden­ti­ty, reflect­ing on design deci­sions through struc­tured tem­plates.	Step-by-step visu­al guides for CNC machine set­up;   Check-ins with teacher feed­back on progress;   Struc­tured peer feed­back ses­sions on designs.
Com­mu­ni­ty and Col­lab­o­ra­tion	How will you engage stu­dents in col­lab­o­ra­tion and build a com­mu­ni­ty of prac­tice?	Struc­tur­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive design reviews and peer feed­back ses­sions to fos­ter dis­cus­sion, reflec­tion, and learn­ing from peers.	Stu­dents present their work dur­ing the Per­son­al CNC sign project, respond­ing to reflec­tion prompts and inte­grat­ing feed­back from peers before revis­ing their designs.	Peer men­tors assist with design cri­tiques and lan­guage devel­op­ment;   Reflec­tion prompts guide dis­cus­sions (e.g., “What chal­lenges did you face?”).
Class­room Inter­ac­tions	How will you use “inter­ac­tion­al scaf­fold­ing” in the class­room?	Using teacher-stu­dent dia­logue to pro­vide real-time feed­back and recast stu­dent respons­es, embed­ding aca­d­e­m­ic lan­guage with­in tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions.	Dur­ing project reviews, stu­dents dis­cuss their Per­son­al CNC sign project, answer­ing ques­tions like “What sto­ry does your sign tell?” while receiv­ing imme­di­ate feed­back on vocab­u­lary and clar­i­ty.	Recast­ing stu­dent respons­es with cor­rect ter­mi­nol­o­gy;   Tar­get­ed ques­tions to prompt elab­o­ra­tion;   Oral pre­sen­ta­tions to rein­force speak­ing and lis­ten­ing skills.

 

References

de Oliveira, L. C., Brax­ton, D., & Gui, J. (2021). Plan­ning for Instruc­tion using a Lan­guage-Based Approach to Con­tent Instruc­tion for Mul­ti­lin­gual Learn­ers. Jour­nal of Eng­lish Learn­er Edu­ca­tion, 13(1). https://stars.library.ucf.edu/jele/vol13/iss1/2