ESL Teachers’ Experiences While Designing Projects with Block-Based Coding: Language Instruction and Computational Thinking

This multiple case study aimed to investigate ESL teachers’ practices when they learn and design their ESL lesson activities, with a particular emphasis on the integration of computational thinking through Scratch. Scratch was considered as the computational thinking platform, and teachers were designers of language instruction with/for computational thinking. We aimed to explore ESL teachers’ lesson designs incorporating computational tools. We collected audio and video recordings from individual workshops and semi-structured interviews and then conducted a thematic analysis. Five themes emerged: (a) learning experiences shaped project designs, (b) teachers’ understanding of student's interests and age appropriateness shaped Scratch projects and pedagogical choices, (c) integrating computational thinking with ESL instruction was challenging, (d) efforts were made to reduce technical and content challenges, and (e) teachers considered and used Scratch as an ESL tool. Our findings underscored teacher agency in how teachers adapted their instruction based on perceived student needs and capabilities.