Why Canva Works
As educators, we’re constantly seeking ways to support our emergent bilingual students in demonstrating their understanding while navigating language barriers. Canva offers a powerful solution by enabling students to express their knowledge through multiple modes of communication: visual, textual, audio, and design elements. Canva is a free graphic design platform that enables users to create many different types of genres. This guide will walk you through creating assignments that leverage Canva’s features to support language development while maintaining academic rigor.
Canva can reduce the cognitive load of language production by allowing students to communicate through images, symbols, layout, and design alongside written text. They have access to multiple modes to fully express creative ideas, feel less anxious in L2 writing, are more motivated to interact with authentic audiences, and form the habit of consistently revising scripts. Multimodal tools available on Canva can help Emergent Bilinguals (EBs) demonstrate complex thinking even when their English vocabulary is still developing.
Getting Started: Setting Up Your Canva Classroom
Before creating assignments, ensure you have Canva for Education set up. This free tier gives you access to premium features and allows you to create shareable templates for students.
Initial Setup Steps:
- Create a Canva for Education account at canva.com/education
- Verify your educator status with documentation from your school
- Explore the template library to familiarize yourself with possibilities
- Consider creating a shared folder for your class templates
Step-by-Step Assignment Creation
Step 1: Define Your Learning Objectives
Start with clear content and language objectives. What do you want students to understand? What language skills will they practice? For example, in a science class studying ecosystems, your objectives might be:
- Content: Students will explain the interdependence of organisms in an ecosystem
- Language: Students will use cause-and-effect sentence frames and vocabulary related to food chains
Step 2: Choose the Right Canva Format
Canva offers various formats that suit different assignment types. Match the format to your learning goals:
- Infographics work well for explaining processes, comparing concepts, or presenting research findings
- Presentations support oral language development and sequential thinking
- Posters allow creative expression of main ideas with supporting details
- Social media posts engage students through familiar formats while teaching concise communication
- Videos combine visual and audio elements for students who prefer speaking over writing
Step 3: Create a Template with Scaffolds
Rather than starting students with a blank canvas, design a template that provides structure while allowing creativity. Here’s how to build effective scaffolds:
- Include sentence frames: Add text boxes with sentence starters like “First, ___ because ___” or “This is important because ___.” Students can complete these frames in their template.
- Provide vocabulary banks: Create a small section on your template with key vocabulary words and accompanying images. Students can reference this as they work.
- Embed visual supports: Place relevant images, icons, or diagrams that students can use or replace. This gives them starting points rather than requiring them to search independently.
- Add language level options: Create multiple text boxes labeled “Option 1 (More support)” and “Option 2 (Less support)” so students can choose their challenge level.
Step 4: Model the Process
Students benefit from seeing examples. Create your own completed version of the assignment to share with students. During your demonstration:
- Think aloud about your design choices and why you selected certain images
- Show how you used the vocabulary bank and sentence frames
- Demonstrate Canva tools: how to search for images, change colors, add shapes, and record audio
- Explain how images and text work together to communicate meaning
Step 5: Incorporate Translanguaging Opportunities
Allow students to leverage their full linguistic repertoire. In your Canva template, you might include:
- Bilingual text boxes where students can write in both their home language and English
- Permission to search for images using keywords in any language
- Options to record audio explanations in their home language with English subtitles added later
- Collaborative partnerships between students who share a home language
This approach validates students’ linguistic assets while supporting English development.
Step 6: Build in Collaboration Features
Canva’s sharing capabilities make collaboration natural. Design assignments where students:
- Work in pairs or small groups on shared templates
- Provide peer feedback using Canva’s comment feature
- Create class compilations where each student contributes one slide to a shared presentation
- Engage in “gallery walks” by viewing and commenting on classmates’ published work
Collaboration reduces the isolation that emergent bilinguals sometimes feel and provides authentic opportunities for language practice.
Step 7: Offer Choice Within Structure
Create assignment menus where students select from several Canva formats to demonstrate their learning. For example, after reading a novel, students might choose to create:
- A character analysis infographic
- A plot timeline presentation
- A book review posterA “movie trailer” video promoting the book
- A social media profile for a main character
This choice increases engagement while maintaining the same learning objectives across formats.
Assessment Strategies
When assessing multimodal Canva projects, consider creating rubrics that evaluate:
- Content accuracy and depth of understanding
- Effective use of visual elements to communicate ideas
- Integration of required vocabulary and language structures
- Clarity and organization of information
- Creative design choices that enhance meaning
Importantly, avoid over-penalizing grammatical errors if the content understanding is evident through other modes. Focus on whether students communicated their knowledge effectively using the tools available to them.
Final Thoughts
The complexity of academic writing and the dynamic processes that are involved in developing writing proficiency place cognitive strain on L2 writers. Canva transforms what’s possible for emergent bilingual students by honoring multiple ways of knowing and communicating. When we create thoughtfully scaffolded assignments that leverage visual, textual, and audio modes, we remove barriers that language limitations might impose while maintaining high academic expectations. Students develop both content knowledge and English proficiency simultaneously, building confidence as communicators and learners.
Like other practices, multimodal composition can be scaffolded and developed through classroom instruction and can support a composer in negotiating and establishing identities, goals, and relationships to power. The key is starting with clear objectives, providing appropriate scaffolds, modeling expectations, and celebrating the diverse ways students demonstrate understanding. As you experiment with Canva assignments, pay attention to how your emergent bilinguals engage differently with content. You’ll likely discover that when given tools to communicate multimodally, these students reveal depths of understanding that traditional text-only assignments might never have captured.
References
Xujie, F. (2023). Implementing Digital Multimodal Composing in L2 Writing: A Focus on English Learner Engagement With Feedback. International Journal of Translation, Interpretation, and Applied Linguistics (IJTIAL), 5(1), 1-12.
Kessler, M., & Marino, F. (2023). Digital multimodal composing in English language teaching. ELT journal, 77(3), 370-376.
Maamuujav, U., Yim, S., & Vu, V. (2024). Rhetorical and Motivational Values of Multimodality in Writing: A Case Study Examining L2 Writers’ Participation in Multimodal Academic Writing. The CATESOL Journal, 35(1).
Smith, B. E., Pacheco, M. B., & Khorosheva, M. (2021). Emergent bilingual students and digital multimodal composition: A systematic review of research in secondary classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(1), 33-52.