use translanguaging in different types of classroom contexts.
Please provide examples, and Explain why?
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MacBook Pro PREFACE professional-a teacher of Engin could be a specialized language teacher or lingual students medium' or bilingual education, can create a translanguaging classroom. Yo as an additional language, bilingual education, home language literacy.ot Won language general education teacher of either children or adolescents, school Teachers and administrators are capable of building instructional spaces that go beyond our traditional understanding about programs for of a specific content area at the secondary level, or even the principal and biliterate (experienced bilinguals), whereas others' bilingualism and bi languages in addition to English. Some of these students are highly bilingual Many, if not most, classrooms are multilingual, with students who speak have developed strong academic foundations through quality school systems, literacy is emerging (emergent bilinguals). Some of these bilingual leatsvets where your students fall within bilingual or educational progressions, this while others may have experienced limited formal schooling. Regardless of Because of the important place of bilingual Latino students in U.S. educa and bilingual instructional settings-to help you understand translanguaging tion, this book emphasizes the context of Latino students-in English-medium classrooms. Because we know that translanguaging is not limited to Spanish- English bilingualism, we also draw on examples from English-medium class rooms that include bilingual students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Whether your students are speakers of Spanish, Mandarin, Ko- rean, Karen, Pular, or any other language, the principles for translanguaging Research and practice on bilingualism at U.S. schools has focused nar. rowly on English language learners' content and language learning, generally book demonstrates innovative ways of educating them. in the classroom are the same. in English-medium classrooms, and reflecting a language-as-problem or det cit orientation. In contrast, The Translanguaging Classroom: Leveraging Student Bilingualism for Learning takes a much broader approach. We focus on all bij lingual students, including those who are emergent bilinguals, as well as those who are seen by the academic mainstream as English speakers but speak lan- guages other than English at home. We show teachers how to identify and build on the varied bilingual performances of all bilingual students, regardless of whether or not they perform well academically in English or another lan- guage, and regardless of whether they are learning in English-medium, bilin- gual, or LOTE classrooms. We bring the translanguaging pedagogy to life through vignettes from three very different classrooms: • A 4th-grade dual-language bilingual education classroom of students who speak English, Spanish, or both at home, taught by a bilingual (Spanish- English) teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico • An 11th-grade English-medium social studies classroom of students who speak English, Spanish, or both at home, taught by a monolingual teacher in New York City they aim for academic achievement and language development in English. Bilingual education "English-medium classes and programs officially use English for instructional purposes, and classes and programs use two or more languages for instructional purposes, and they aim for bl- literacy and academic performance in two languages. subject to language majority students, whereas home language literacy classes teach that language "In the United States, world language refers to a class focused on the teaching of a LOTE as a to bilingual students and hopel English as an acalelong hanglages eachers could teach only the subject (English literacy) or be classroom teachers of all subjects. Bilingual teachers are classroom teachers teaching subjects through two languages. We use Latino not as a "Spanish" word with an "o" inflection, but simply as a word that is inclu- .
wacBook Pro PREFACE math • 7th-grade English-medium math and science classes that include emer- gent bilinguals who speak Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean, Mandingo, and Pular (Pula) at home, co-taught by a and science teacher and an Es, teacher in Los Angeles, California Taustarichand varied cases clearly demonstrate how teachers can adapt the pedagogy that we in for all , whatever their bilingualism looks like, in whatever instructional context. WHAT ARE THE KEY COMPONENTS OF A TRANSLANGUAGING PEDAGOGY? The central innovative concept in this book for teachers as not on languages, as has been often the proses buto bilingualism that is centered but on the practices of bilinguals that are readily observable" (p. 45). This book builds on that approach in three important ways. First, we describe the translanguaging corriente,' the natu- ral flow of students' bilingualism through the classroom. Second, we propose the dynamic translanguaging progressions, which is a flexible model that allows teachers to look holistically at bilingual students' language performances in specific classroom tasks from different perspectives at different times. Third, we introduce a translanguaging pedagogy for instruction and assessment that teachers can use to purposefully and strategically leverage the translan- guaging corriente produced by students. Translanguaging classrooms have two important dimensions. First, teach- ers observe students' languaging performances, and then describe and assess their complex language practices. Then teachers adapt and use the translan- guaging pedagogy for instruction and assessment to leverage the translanguag. ing corriente for learning. Our work revolves around three principles: 1. Bilinguals use their linguistic repertoires as resources for learning, and as identity markers that point to their innovative ways of knowing, being, and communicating. 2. Bilinguals learn language through their interaction with others within their home, social, and cultural environments. 3. Translanguaging is fluid language use that is part of bilinguals' sense- making processes. Spain Tobi Tue Edu 06 Translanguaging Corriente We suggest that the translanguaging corriente, produced and driven by the positive energy of students' bilingualism, flows throughout all classrooms. Metaphorically, we think about the translanguaging corriente as a river cur- rent that you can't always see or feel, but that is always present, always mov- ing, and responsible for changes in the classroom) landscape. Sometimes the translanguaging corriente flows gently under the surface, for example, in classrooms where teachers do not generally tap into students' home language practices for learning. At other times the translanguaging corriente is much stronger, for example, in bilingual classrooms or English-medium classrooms that do draw on students' home language practices. * We use the Spanish word corriente, which is a cognate with the English word current. Through out the book we use other Spanish terms to reflect our own language practices. Because Spanish constitutes the language practices of over three fourths of U.S. bilingual students, this book pays special attention to the Latino population. However, educators working with other language groups might want to use terms in other languages that maintain the spirit of these terms.
xl PREFACE To feel the translanguaging corriente, all you have to do is take a step back from your daily routine and listen and look. Listen hard to what your students their intrapersonal voices (the unvoiced dialogues they have in their heads on the playground. If you listen hard enough you might be able to perceive say to you and their peers, Inside the classroom, hallways, and cafeteria, and with themselves or friends). Listen also to the conversations that take place when their families and peers are present; try to hear what is being said and way allows you to hear your students' voices anew, and puts you in touch with the translanguaging corriente, even if it is not obviously at the surface of your how it is said, as well as what is not being said and why. Listening in this communicates and also through the ways that we have chosen to use words In this book the translanguaging corriente runs through the content it in Spanish in this predominately English-language text, without any italics. foreign; they are simply part of our narrative, always present and part of us, We do this to indicate that, for us, the Spanish features we use are not alien or Appendix into Spanish because, as we said earlier, this is the largest population of U.S. bilingual students and in the classrooms featured in this book. How even when we are writing in English. We translate some documents in the ever, you can translate the English text in these documents to any of the lan- guages in your classroom as one means of strengthening the translanguaging corriente in your classroom. classroom. Dynamic Translanguaging Progressions The notion of the translanguaging corriente moves us from the concept of linguistic proficiency, which is assumed to develop along a relatively linear path in more or less the same way for all bilingual learners, to one of linguistic performance. The dynamic translanguaging progressions enable teachers to do the following: • Gauge the students' different bilingual performances on different tasks from different perspectives • Distinguish between general linguistic performance (bilingual students' ways of performing academic tasks—e.g., express complex thoughts ef- fectively, explain things, persuade, argue, compare and contrast, recount events , tell jokes--without regard to the language used to express these tasks) and language-specific performance (bilingual students' use of features corresponding to what society considers a specific language or variety) • Leverage the translanguaging corriente for learning in their classes . Teachers in translanguaging classrooms use the dynamic translanguaging progressions to document their students' language performances on specific classroom-based tasks--in any language. Translanguaging Stance, Design, and Shifts The translanguaging pedagogy in this book encompasses both instruction and assessment, and is structured into three interrelated strands: the translan- guaging stance, design, and shifts. A stance refers to the philosophical, ideological, or belief system that teachers draw from to develop their pedagogical framework. Teachers with a translanguaging stance believe that bilingual students' many different lan- guage practices work juntos/together, not separately, as if they belonged to
PREFACE different realms. Thus, the teacher believes that the classroom space must pro mote collaboration across content; languages; people, and home, school, and community. A translanguaging stance sees the bilingual child's complex lan- guage repertoire as a resource, never as a deficit. Designing translanguaging instruction and assessment involves integrat ing home, school, and community language and cultural practices. The move. ment is created by the interaction between the translanguaging corriente and the teacher and students' joint actions, which enable bilingual students to integrate their home and school practices. Designing translanguaging instruc- tion also means planning carefully (e.g., the grouping of students; elements of planning-essential ideas, questions, and texts; content, language, and translanguaging objectives; culminating projects; design cycle; pedagogical strategies). The translanguaging design is a flexible framework that teachers in English-medium and bilingual classrooms can use to develop curricular units of instruction, lesson plans, and classroom activities. The flexible design is the pedagogical core of the translanguaging classroom, and it allows teachers and students to address all content and language standards and objectives in equitable ways for all students, particularly bilingual students who are often marginalized in mainstream classrooms and schools. Designing assessment to set the course of the translanguaging corriente means including the voices of others, taking into account the difference between content and language, and between general linguistic and language-specific performances, and giv- ing students opportunities to perform tasks with assistance from other people and resources, when needed. Because the translanguaging corriente is always present in classrooms, it is not enough to simply have a stance that recognizes it and a design that leverages it. At times it is also important to follow the dynamic movement of the translanguaging corriente. The translanguaging shifts are the many mo- ment-by-moment decisions that teachers make all the time. They reflect the teacher's flexibility and willingness to change the course of the lesson and assessment, as well as the language use planned for it, to release and support students' voices. The shifts are related to the stance, for it takes a teacher will- ing to keep meaning-making and learning at the center of all instruction and assessment to go with the flow of the translanguaging corriente. USING THIS BOOK We have three purposes for this book. First, we want educators and researchers to see a clearly articulated translanguaging pedagogy in practice. The exam- ples from three very different classrooms stimulate concrete thinking about students, classrooms, programs, schools, practices, and research in different bi/multilingual communities. Second, we want to guide teachers' efforts to adapt the translanguaging pedagogy put forth in this book to any translan- guaging context. Third, we provide the foundation for teachers and research- ers to gather empirical evidence in translanguaging classrooms, which will help refine theory and strengthen practice. We provide templates and examples from our focal bilingual and English- medium classrooms to assist you in designing instructional units, lessons, and assessments that identify and build on the translanguaging corriente in your classroom, school, and community context. When teachers enact a translan- guaging stance, implement a translanguaging design for instruction and assess- ment, and intentionally shift their practices in response to student learning, they help fight the English-only current of much U.S. educational policy and practice and advance social justice.
PREFACE languaging We have divided the book into three parts: Part 1: Dynamic Bilingualism at School This part of the book focuses on the "what" and "why" of trans Part II: Translanguaging Pedagogy This part of the book focuses on how to create a translanguaging pedagogy Part III: Reimagining Teaching and Learning through Translanguaging to enhance students' performances in different standards and literacy, This part of the book focuses on how a translanguaging pedagogy works develop their socioemotional identity, and advance social justice, readers will learn and be able to do with chapter material. This is then fol. We divide each chapter into three parts. Learning objectives lay out what lowed by the core of the chapter--vignettes from classroom practices, tools, templates, or frameworks. Each chapter ends with questions and activities that pre-service and practicing teachers can use to reflect on aspects of translan. guaging classrooms, as well as "take action" in their contexts. As a whole, the gogy in specific contexts. They also assist practitioners in developing, imple- taking action questions guide educators to develop a translanguaging peda- micen ting, monitoring, and evaluating their translanguaging pedagogy in pple tice. We encourage you to work through these questions and activities with a close community of educators so that you can support one another as you explore and take up the translanguaging corriente in your classroom. We invite you now to become a reflective practitioner and let yourself be meaning in in- swept up by the translanguaging corriente, as we explore struction and how to teach by capitalizing on its ebbs and flows. We hope that together we will • See and hear the translanguaging corriente that already exists in class. rooms and schools • Learn how to intentionally, purposefully, and strategically navigate the translanguaging corriente in both instruction and assessment by applying the translanguaging stance, design, and shifts • Demonstrate ways that bilingual students and teachers leverage the translanguaging corriente to learn content, develop language, make space for bilingual ways of knowing, and foster more secure socio-emotional identities • Become more critical as we take up the stance of reflective practitioner and/or critical researcher and work toward social justice • Show the kinds of challenges educators may face in translanguaging class- rooms and reflect on how to overcome them • Launch an action-oriented, social justice agenda to strengthen translan- guaging pedagogy, practice, and research in diverse multilingual contexts. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book was the result of much negotiation among ourselves and with our editor, Rebecca Field. Although the process was difficult at times, Rebecca pushed our thinking, our words, and the manuscript itself. What we never told you when things were difficult-gracias, Rebecca. We also want to acknowledge the insights gained from Kathy Escamilla, Jamie Schissel, Guadalupe Valdés, and other reviewers. García also acknowl- edges a summer 2015 Visiting Appointment at the University of Cologne, and her colleague, Julie Panagiotopoulou, for the space given to her to revise this manuscript.
PART I DYNAMIC BILINGUALISM AT SCHOOL CHAPTER 1 Translanguaging Classrooms: Contexts and Purposes LEARNING OBJECTIVES • Define translanguaging • Explain how translanguaging can be used by teachers in different types of classroom contexts • Summarize the four purposes of translanguaging and how they serve the overarching purpose of social justice • Give concrete examples to illustrate translanguaging purposes in practice Begin to profile your classroom action. Many of the teachers we have worked with have "aha moments" when they stop and listen to the ways students use language in their class- rooms. For example, two students negotiate in Spanish over a math problem posed to them in English. One student with more experience in English qui- etly explains the directions to a newly arrived student from China. A group of students joke with one another using word play and English/Spanish puns. Once you take up this new lens for observing your bilingual students, you will notice new and exciting things about the way they language, which can guide the ways you plan, teach, assess, and advocate for their needs. Our use of the verb "to language" (e.g., "languaging," "translanguaging") reflects our under- standing of language use as a dynamic communicative practice. A translanguaging classroom is any classroom in which students may de- ploy their full linguistic repertoires, and not just the particular language(s) that are officially used for instructional purposes in that space. These class- rooms can be developed anywhere we find students who are, or are becoming, bilingual. This includes classrooms that only use English as the official lan- guage for instruction (i.e., English-medium classrooms, including English as a second language (ESL) classrooms, whether pull-out, push-in, or structured English immersion programs), as well as bilingual (i.e., dual language, transi- tional) and world language or heritage language classrooms. We refer to the 1
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CONTEXTS AND PURPOSES students in translanguaging classrooms as bilingual students, by which we mean well as more experienced bilinguals who can use two or more languages with emergent bilinguals who are at the early stages of bilingual development, as relative ease, although their performances vary according to task, modality, and language. Our use of the term emergent bilingual in this book includes sty. dents who are officially designated by schools as "English language learners Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin). We do not use the term ELL because it renders the ("ELLS”);" as well as English speakers who are learning other languages languages other than English (LOTE) in the emergent bilinguals' developing linguistic repertoires invisible. We do, however, use this term when it refers to the official school designation. lear (e. be TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS A translanguaging classroom is a space built collaboratively by the teacher and bilingual students as they use their different language practices to teach and learn in deeply creative and critical ways. The term translanguaging comes from the Welsh trawsieithu and was coined by a Welsh educator, Cen Williams (1994, 2002), who developed a bilingual pedagogy in which students were asked to alternate languages for the purposes of receptive or productive use. For example, students might be asked to read in English and write in Welsh and vice versa to deepen and extend their bilingualism. Since Colin Baker translated the Welsh term to English in 2001, translan- guaging has been extended by many scholars to refer to both the complex language practices of bilingual and multilingual individuals and communities, as well as the pedagogical approaches that draw on those practices. García (2009) explains that translanguaging “is an approach to bilingualism that is centered not on languages as has been often the case, but on the practices of bilinguals that are readily observable” (p. 45). From a linguistics perspective, Otheguy, García, and Reid (2015) define translanguaging as “the deployment of a speaker's full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named languages” (p. 281). According to Flores and Schissel (2014, pp. 461-462): Translanguaging can be understood on two different levels. From a sociolinguistic perspective it describes the fluid language practices of bilingual communities. From a pedagogical perspective it describes a pedagogical approach whereby teachers build bridges from these language practices and the language practices desired in formal school settings. Our focus in this book is on pedagogy, by which we mean the art, science, method, and practice of teaching. the official language of instruction of the class. We put forward a translan- Bilingualism is the norm in translanguaging classrooms-regardless of guaging pedagogy that shows educators how to leverage, or use to maximum advantage, the language practices of their bilingual students and communities while addressing core content a trate this pedagogy in action du language development standards. We illus sent the kinds of diversity we find among students, teachers, language policies, with three particular cases that together repre program types, and grade levels in schools. As you read we encourage you to think about the actual language practices of your students relative to the offi- cial language policy of your school. 2012a, 2012b. For more on translanguaging, see Garcia and Li Wei, 2014. See also Lewis, Jones, and Baker
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS 3 Carla's Elementary Dual-Language Bilingual Classroom Carla teaches a 4th-grade dual-language bilingual class in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where all of the students are from Spanish-speaking homes. This elementary school program aims for bilingualism, biliteracy, and aca. demic achievement in two languages. Carla was born in Puebla, Mexico, and she came to New Mexico at the age of 10 with her family. She is bilingual and studied Spanish in high school and at college as she pursued her bilingual education certification, Most of Carla's students are Spanish-speaking bilinguals, though their in- dividual profiles are very different. Moisés, for example, emigrated from Mex- ico to the United States two years ago, and is considered a newcomer. Moisés is officially designated as an ELL, but we refer to him as an emergent bilingual Though Moisés is developing his Spanish and English practices in Carla's classroom, he prefers speaking Spanish. Ricardo, like Moisés, is considered a newcomer, and is officially designated ELL. Ricardo is in the process of learn- ing English. At home he speaks Spanish and Mixteco, the language he spoke with his family and community in Mexico. At different points on the bilin- gual spectrum are Erica and Jennifer, who were both born in the United States. Erica prefers to speak English, though her family does speak some Spanish at home, while Jennifer, a more experienced bilingual, feels comfortable using both languages to carry out academic tasks. As we can see, not all of Carla's students are classified as ELLs or are, as we call them, emergent bilinguals. Her students' bilingual performances are varied and the students have a wide range of strengths within and across languages. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been adopted by the state of New Mexico, and New Mexico is, at the time of this writing, part of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) con- sortium. Carla's instruction must therefore be aligned with the CCSS and stu- dents must demonstrate proficiency on PARCC assessments. New Mexico is also a member of the WIDA consortium. Carla's instruction for emergent bilinguals who are officially designated as ELLs must therefore align with the WIDA English language development (ELD) standards, and these students must demonstrate English language proficiency on the test developed by WIDA, Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to- State (ACCESS) for ELLs. At this time, New Mexico also gives their emergent bilinguals the LAS Link Espanol, a diagnostic assessment of Spanish language development. Furthermore, all students in the dual-language bilingual pro- gram must demonstrate learning relative to the goals of bilingualism and bi- literacy. This school district uses the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) to assess reading in English and the Evaluación del desarrollo de la lectura (EDL) to assess reading in Spanish. Although Carla was always comfortable translanguaging and saw its value in intercultural communication, she was taught never to use it for instruction. We use the term dual-language bilingual education intentionally, In New Mexico, this type of bilingual program is often referred to as one-way dual language education. In some educa tion districts, this type of program is referred to as a developmental bilingual education program, or as a developmental-maintenance bilingual education program. We do not use the term "one- way" because in practice we find tremendous variation in the ways that emergent and experi- enced bilingual students from the same" language background use languages in their everyday lives. We also include the word bilingual, which has largely disappeared from discussions about dual language education in response to the backlash against bilingualism and bilingual educa. tion. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear bilingual educators say that dual language education is not bilingual education, a stance with which we disagree. Our use of bilingual emphasizes that dual language education is bilingual education
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CONTEXTS AND PURPOSES Her teacher education program in bilingual education advocated that unless there was a clear and separate space for Spanish, English would take over in- struction and Spanish would not be maintained. In studying the dual language model she was told that teachers were never to put the different language English and Spanish never appeared together, dedicating different parts of the practices alongside each other. She was taught to make sure that writing in room to the two languages. At the beginning of her career, she taught strictly dents when they spoke the "wrong" language at the "wrong" time. She never in Spanish in the morning and in English in the afternoon, and corrected stu. brought multilingual resources into the classroom-she used Spanish resources during Spanish time and English resources during English time. When Carla discovered the concept of a translanguaging pedagogy for the first time, she questioned and resisted it. However, she quickly realized that were always using features from Spanish and English to make meaning, albeit stop. Carla decided to bring the students' language practices to the forefront other in Spanish, and when Carla approached, the discussion would simply and build on them in the classroom. Instead of "policing" which language was used where, she encouraged students to use their entire language reper- toires to learn and demonstrate what they had learned. Though she main- tained an official space for English and an official space for Spanish to provide the appropriate opportunities for language development, she now allowed some flexibility in student language use. At the center of Carla's literacy and language instruction during her (bi)- literacy block is the sharing of human experiences, and especially those of the neighborhood and land, el barrio y la tierra, which she sees as interrelated. The experiences of the New Mexico barrio where Carla's school is located are deeply connected to the tierra because many of her students' parents are farm workers. Carla introduced a translanguaging space into her dual-language bilingual classroom through what she called "Cuéntame algo," which she de scribes as a time for bilingual storytelling when a translanguaging literacy ac- tivity takes center stage. Her instructional unit, Cuentos de la tierra y del barrio, focuses on stories of how students, families, and the local community are tied to their land and, by extension, to their traditions. Students discuss cuentos written by Latino bilingual authors about land and traditions, as well as those told to them by family and community members, including abuelitos and abuelitas, grandparents whom Carla invites to her classroom. They also dis cuss the video clips that they watch, as well as their own experiences, and those of barrio residents, with the land. Stephanie's High-School Social Studies Class Stephanie is an 11th-grade social studies teacher in New York City, and En- glish is the official language used for instructional purposes in her classroom. Thus, Stephanie's classroom provides an example of a translanguaging class- room in an English-medium context. She is of Polish descent and, though she knows some Spanish words that she has learned from her students, she does not consider herself bilingual. Stephanie was trained as a history teacher but found that once she entered the classroom she also had to teach content area literacy. The linguistic diversity in Stephanie's English-medium classroom is rich. few of her students are officially designated as ELLs. Some of these emergent who perform differently in language and literacy in Spanish and English. A bilinguals (to use our preferred term), like Noemí, are newcomers with solid Most, though not all, of Stephanie's students are Spanish-speaking Latinos
a Learning TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS educational backgrounds and strong oracy and literacy in Spanish. Other newcomers, like Luis, have had interrupted or poor schooling in the countries they came from and struggle with literacy and numeracy in any language. Other emergent bilinguals, like Mariana, have received most or all of their education in the United States but were labeled as ELLs when entering school and have yet to test out of this status. Although Mariana is now classified as long-term English language learner (LTELL), she generally uses English at school; in fact, many of her teachers do not even realize considered an ELL. is still officially versity among Stephanie's "English-speaking” students. Most of her students It is important to emphasize that we also find considerable linguistic di- are bilingual Latinos, but because they are not designated as ELLs their bilin. gualism tends to go unnoticed. Stephanie, however, knows that these students have a wide range of experiences with oral and written Spanish and English. Some, like Eddy and Teresita were born in the United States and have dif- ferent degrees of comfort with using Spanish. The few students who are not Latinos in her class are African Americans, some from the Anglophone Carib- . bean, and their English also includes features that are not always considered standard or appropriate for academic purposes. In 2010, New York State adopted what it called the P-12 Common Core Standards (CCLS) for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/ Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects, and for Mathematics. These are based on the CCSS, with a few additions. This means that Stephanie's instruc- tion must be tion must be aligned with New York's CCLS and that all students in her class have to demonstrate proficiency on assessments aligned to the CCLS. In addi- tion, New York State has standards for science and social studies in place. Aca- demic achievement tests for graduation (the Regents Exams) are translated into the five most common languages of students-Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, and Spanish-although students also have to pass the English Regents exam. Furthermore, all students who are designated as ELLs in New York State must demonstrate English language proficiency on the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT). New York launched the Bilingual Common Core Initiative (BCCT) in 2012, which is intended to help all teachers differentiate CCLS language arts instruc- tion and assessment for the bilingual students in their schools. At the heart of this initiative are the New Language Arts Progressions (NLAP) and Home Lan- guage Arts Progressions (HLAP). Unlike the English language proficiency and development frameworks used by other states, the BCCI explicitly acknowl- edges that students' home languages are a valuable resource to draw on and that the new and home languages are inextricably related in learning. These progressions are flexible and can be used by teachers as a first step toward un- derstanding how students use their new and home languages to learn. In fact, emergent bilinguals at the early stages of ELD are allowed to demonstrate their understanding of content in their home languages. Teachers can use formative assessments to approximate the new and home language development levels of their students along these progressions (Velasco & Johnson, 2014). When she first started teaching, Stephanie realized quickly that her stu- dents were capable of thinking critically and understanding deeply. But she also knew that the English language through which the content was taught was a real challenge for some of her students. How could she work with the students' strengths and creativity and make the content comprehensible? When she learned about translanguaging, she realized that she could use trans- languaging strategies with her students to leverage the many different lan- guage resources in her class. Without knowing it, she had already set up her classroom in ways that made it possible to capitalize on translanguaging. She had always organized students into groups that had mixed strengths so they
5 TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CONTEXTS AND PURPO learning activity. interdisciplinary, units. In these groupings she noticed that peers helped each could help each other in the project-based activities of her thematic, often kind of translanguaging interaction to enable all students to engage with the other using Spanish as well as English. She realized she could encourage this Since learning about translanguaging, Stephanie has made a strong effort to build a robust multilingual ecology in which all her students can thrive. with bilingual staff members and student volunteers to translate and create For example, although her classroom is not officially bilingual, Stephanie works multilingual materials and actively seeks out Spanish language resources Stephanie also has a shelf full of bilingual dictionaries and picture dictionaries that students can use at any point in the lesson. She has been successful in securing iPads, which newcomers use frequently to access the Spanish version of their history textbook, and she also uses apps like Google Translate. different content areas. While schools separate topics into categories like so- Stephanie is passionate about helping her students see connections across cial studies or science, Stephanie believes that one cannot be understood with out the other. Thus, many of Stephanie's units focus on history but bring in interdisciplinary connections. For example, one of Stephanie's interdisciplin ary units, Environmentalism: Then and Now, is a historical study of the US environmental movement. Students learn about the history of this social movement by reading their textbooks and many supplemental readings from websites, newspapers, and magazines. They also listen to podcasts and radio interviews, watch clips from documentaries, and look at visual art, Stephanie also invites in community experts, for example the 11th-grade science teacher and the leader of a local nonprofit. Though the textbook does not focus heavily on the environmental move- ment, Stephanie places this movement within a larger historical context, from its beginnings during industrialization, to social action campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, to today's political conversation on climate change. Because she knows that her students excel when their understanding is “brought home," the unit culminates in students designing a plan of action that would make the school or local community more environmentally sound and/or sustainable. Justin's Role as a Middle-School English as a Second Language Teacher Justin provides push-in ESL services in English-medium middle-school math and science classrooms in Los Angeles, California. Justin speaks English and Mandarin Chinese (following two years of studying Chinese in Shanghai). His students are speakers of many languages, including Spanish, Cantonese Chi nese, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Mandingo, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Pular (Pula). The students who speak Fula and Mandingo also speak French, the che lonial language of West Africa. Because there are multiple speakers of Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Tagalog and Vietnamese in this classroom Justin groups students according to their home languages and mixed English language abilities. But there is only one Korean student in the class, Jeehyae. Although most students in Justin's class have at least one other student with whom they can collaborate to make meaning of the texts, there is great diversity among students, even among those with the same language back- ground. For example, Yi-Sheng arrived recently from Taiwan. Unlike some of the other students from mainland China, Yi-Sheng has not received any in- struction in using Latin script, so she needs lots of writing practice. Pablo came not from Mexico, the country of origin of most of the Latino students in the class, but from Argentina, and attended private English after-school classes before coming to Los Angeles. Fatoumata came from Guinea not long ago.
PURPOSES FOR TRANSLANGUAGING 7 She had only gone to school irregularly in Africa, so she struggles with literacy in French, the language of instruction in Guinea. She is not the only Pular- speaking student in Justin's classroom, although West African children in the class often speak to each other in French, the colonial language. California has adopted the CCSS, and is a member of the Smarter Balanced consortium as of this writing, which means that Justin's instruction needs to align with the CCSS and that all of his students need to demonstrate profi- ciency on the Smarter Balanced assessments. California has also developed the Common Core en Español, which is a translation of the CCSS from English into Spanish that also addresses concepts that are specific to Spanish language and literacy. All students in California who are officially designated as English learners (ELS) have to demonstrate proficiency on the state-developed Cali- fornia English Language Development Test (CELDT), based on the California ELD Standards. Justin's role in the content classrooms has been to support the students so that they could meet the demands of the California CCSS and the California ELD Standards. He often obtains supplementary written material in the lan- guages of the students and brings it to class. He uses Google Translate to write worksheet instructions in the students' languages. Justin also encourages stu- dents to use iPads to look up words and translate passages, and he often uses the iPad to make himself understood in students' languages. Because Jeehyae is the only Korean student in the class, Justin spends lots of time using Google Translate, trying to make the material accessible to her. He also makes sure to help her translanguage on her own, telling her to use her intrapersonal inner- speech to brainstorm, and he encourages her to prewrite and annotate texts in Korean. Though Justin won't understand what Jeehyae writes, he makes it clear that the language she brings with her is useful and necessary to her learn- ing and her development of English. Justin also often seeks help from other Korean-speaking students in the school. Because students in this classroom often write in their home languages, Jechyae has discovered that she knows some of the Chinese characters the Cantonese and Mandarin speakers use because she learned some of them in her Korean school. Although these three teachers' classrooms are different with respect to their students' language practices, the official language policy in their classes, and the different state-mandated standards, they all use translanguaging in their classrooms. It is important to remember that translanguaging classrooms can be of any type-bilingual (whether dual language or transitional) or English-medium (whether ESL programs or mainstream classrooms). Translanguaging also can be used by any teacher, whether bilingual or monolingual; whether an ele. mentary, middle school, or high school teacher; whether officially a language teacher (English or a language other than English) or a content teacher. PURPOSES FOR TRANSLANGUAGING The translanguaging pedagogy we put forward in this book is purposeful and strategic. We identify four primary translanguaging purposes: 1. Supporting students as they engage with and comprehend complex con- tent and texts 2. Providing opportunities for students to develop linguistic practices for academic contexts 3. Making space for students' bilingualism and ways of knowing 4. Supporting students' bilingual identities and socioemotional development
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CONTEXTS AND PURPO That is, when teachers effectively leverage students' bilingualism for leam. These four translanguaging purposes work together to advance social justice. ing, they help level the playing field for bilingual students at school. Supporting Student Engagement with Complex Content and Texts When we make space for students to use all the linguistic resources they have developed to maneuver and navigate their way through complex content, myriad learning opportunities open up. Rather than watering down our in- struction, which risks oversimplification and robs students of opportunities to engage in productive grappling with texts and content, translanguaging better enables us to teach complex content, which in turn helps students learn more successfully. Moll (2013) describes the importance of working with bilingual students in what he calls the bilingual zone of proximal development, in which as sistance is offered to students bilingually to mediate their learning and stretch their performance. As we will see, there are many ways of doing this. Students can work in home language groups to solve difficult problems or analyze a complex text. They can talk to one another about content using their own language practices in ways that help them better understand that content Because learners develop knowledge interpersonally, it is important for them to enter into relationships with others whose language repertoires overlap with theirs so that they can deeply understand the classroom texts. Knowledge is also developed intrapersonally, as students try out new concepts and new lan- guaging in internal dialogue and private speech. Because bilingual students have a voice that includes their home languages, they need to be encouraged to draw on all of the resources for learning in their linguistic repertoires. Unfortunately, we don't often find LOTE being used as resources for learn- ing challenging content and engaging with complex texts in U.S. classrooms serving bilingual students. Instead, teachers generally tell students to only use English; bilingual students and particularly emergent bilingual students) often learn that only English counts. This is especially the case for Spanish speaking students who are told: "speak English," "don't speak Spanish"; "think in English," "don't think in Spanish.” As a result, Latino students often learn practices that are not to be used in academic environments. In so doing, bic to see Latino cultural and linguistic practices only as home and community lingual Latino students are often silenced, using only part of their linguistic that are important to them in acquiring content knowledge. Leveraging trans- repertoires and accessing only a small portion of the adults, peers, and texts languaging interpersonally and intrapersonally can help bilingual students overcome this silence and engage with and understand complex content and texts. whose language practices align with those used in school, understand challeng Schools need to find ways of ensuring that all students, not just those ing content and texts. Translanguaging enables educators to more equitably provide opportunities for students to engage with complex material, regard- less of language practices. In this way, translanguaging at school is inextrica- plan that Stephanie designed for her 11th-grade English-medium class, stu dents were asked to analyze some statistics about air pollution and asthma, For example, in a lesson from the Environmentalism: Then and Now unit areas, as well as make a connection to the previous day's lesson on the Clean issues that disproportionately affect Latinos and other residents of urban nos, as well as the map in Figure 1.1 that illustrated which counties did not Air Act of 1970. Stephanie included statistics about asthma rates among Lati- bly linked with social justice. meet standards for air pollutants.
URPOSES FOR TRANSLANGUAGING Figure 1.1 Counties that do not meet standards for air pollutants, based on U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency data. (Retrieved from http://www.nrc.org/health/effects/latin ... ino_en.pdf) After analyzing the two different forms of data, Stephanie asked students, organized into small groups, to come up with some kind of connection-how did these two sets of data tell a story about the issue? Although the official language of instruction was English, Stephanie told students that they could discuss the statistics, the map, and the answers to her question in English and/ or Spanish and could write their responses in English and/or Spanish. She also told students they were expected to share with the whole class. This vignette shows us what happened next: After examining the map and discussing it with his group, Luis, who recently came to the United States from El Salvador, shared in Spanish with the whole class that "las áreas oscuras están cerca de ciudades como Nueva York y Los Ángeles. Muchos Latinos viven en esas ciudades." [The dark areas are near cities like New York and Los Angeles. A lot of Latinos live in those cities.] Mariana, who was in Luis' group, eagerly added: "Yes, Latinos live in the dark areas on the map. Like in New York and Los Angeles." Some students nodded and others wrote down the comment in Spanish or English next to their own in their notebooks, Eddy added in English that "cities have more pollution than other places." Stephanie then summed up the two comments in English, restating, "It sounds like what you're saying is that if most Latinos live in cities, and cities have more air pollution than rural or suburban areas, that this might be a cause of increased asthma in Lati- nos." Students nodded and voiced their agreement. The kind of linguistic flexibility we see here-using both languages to dis- cuss, negotiate, and finally write down connections; sharing out their learning in both languages-helped all of the students in Stephanie's classroom en gage with English texts, synthesize a complex issue, and demonstrate their learning. As we can see from Luis', Mariana's, and Eddy's comments, the trans- languaging they had done in groups allowed them to access the content, de- spite the fact that, for example, Luis was a less experienced English user than Eddy. Without translanguaging, which was both an explicit part of Stephanie's
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CONTEXTS AND PURPOSES instructional design and a naturally occurring phenomenon among students in their small groups, this kind of intellectually rich conversation would not have taken place. Carla also uses translanguaging to engage her bilingual students with instruction is biliteracy, translanguaging in her classroom looks quite different complex content and texts. However, because an important goal of Carla's from what we saw in Stephanie's class. During Cuéntame algo, students en gage in studies of Latino bilingual authors who translanguage to make experi- ences and characters come to life. Students are encouraged to use all their language practices, which include English and Spanish, to discuss and evalu. ate these stories. Sometimes texts are chosen with English as the main lan- guage but other times Spanish is the main language of the text. Besides read. ing and discussing, students are encouraged to design texts (orally and in writing) that reflect the dynamic bilingual language use of communities, both when they communicate among themselves and when they communicate with others who may not share their language practices. For example, in a lesson from her unit on Cuentos de la tierra y del barrio, Carla and her students used the Cuéntame algo space to do a read-aloud and shared reading of Three Wise Guys: Un cuento de Navidad by Sandra Cisneros: Carla read en voz alta: The big box came marked do not open till xmas, but the mama said not until the Day of the Three Kings. Not until Día de los Reyes, the sixth of January, do you hear? That is what the mamá said exactly, only she said it all in Span- ish. Because in Mexico where she was raised, it is the custom for boys and girls to receive their presents on January sixth, and not Christmas, even though they were living on the Texas side of the river now. Not until the sixth of January Carla engaged students in telling her about el Día de los Reyes. Some of the stu- dents did so in English, some in Spanish, and some in both languages. To get students to engage with the text in a deeper, more nuanced way, she set forth the following activity: Carla took [a] large sheet of chart paper and drew la corriente del Río Grande. On one side she wrote a sentence the author had written in English. She then asked the groups to translate into Spanish what the author would have said if she were on the Mexican side of the Río Grande. While they worked, one group grewe louder. Carla asked what was the matter and one of them said: "Maestra, es que mi familia on the other side also speaks English. And on this side también habla- mos español." A whole class discussion then ensued about bilingual language practices in the borderlands and when and how to use them. Rather than stop with simple comprehension of the story, the shared reading of this class was the jumping-off point for students' engagement in Cisneros' book. Carla's explicit focus on the language of the book, and how different nect with the story on a much deeper level. Carla also tapped into students' contexts and characters use different language practices, helped students con bilingualism, asking them to translate sentences from the book from one language to the other. This not only helps students with the close reading of a text; it also helps them to learn new vocabulary and make connections between their languages. Carla encourages students not to produce a literal translation, but to transform the text as they renderit in the lanmage
PURPOSES FOR TRANSLANGUAGING 11 When students came to the realization that their familia on both sides of the border spoke both languages, they began a larger, critical conversation about language practices in borderlands like Texas. This connection and intel- lectual exchange would not have been possible without the translanguaging that students experienced in the Cuéntame algo space. Similar to Stephanie's lesson, Carla's explicit use of translanguaging helped her students engage more deeply with a text. Providing Opportunities for Students to Develop Linguistic Practices for Academic Contexts "Academic language" is a term we encounter over and over again. Following Valdés (2017), we wish to reframe this term, imagining that what some call academic language is simply one of many forms of languaging that students must take up to be successful in school. Translanguaging can help us teach the types of linguistic practices that are deemed appropriate for academic con- texts. For example, translanguaging supports bilingual students' ability to use language to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on infor- mation and ideas, using text-based evidence, as the CCSS (or any other 21st- century standards) require. Translanguaging also helps students develop the ability to use language to persuade, explain, and convey real or imaginary experience. Because translanguaging requires collaboration, it also bolsters students' ability to use language socially through cooperative tasks, another language requirement of the CCSS. Encouraging students to use all the features of their language repertoires, including lexical (words), syntactic (grammar), and discourse (larger chunks of text that hang together as a unit) features, gives them something on which to "hang" new linguistic features--what García has called translanguaging "hooks." When learning a new language, translanguaging can help students make connections and comparisons, ask deep questions, and practice and play with language. Translanguaging can also demystify what some call academic language, showing students that using the highly valued language practices for academic purposes is actually just adding another set of language features and practices to their growing repertoires. When translanguaging is not allowed in schools, bilingual students are placed at a disadvantage because they are assessed on only a portion of their linguistic repertoires and are taught in ways that do not fully leverage their language resources. Furthermore, the new language features that bilingual stu- dents learn at school do not always become part of their own linguistic reper- toires, continuing to represent a "second" language that belongs to others. Thus, this translanguaging purpose is also linked to social justice because it creates the space for fair educational and assessment practices for bilingual students-without the linguistic prejudice that accompanies accepting only the linguistic features of standard English--the language of power. The following example from Stephanie's lesson on air pollution illustrates how she and her students use translanguaging to strengthen students' linguis- tic practices for academic purposes. The focus is on the asthma rates among Latinos, specifically Puerto Ricans. Stephanie projected the following statistics up on the SMART Board and asked one student to read through them aloud: • Puerto Rican Americans have twice the asthma rate as compared to the overall Hispanic population. • Hispanics are 30 percent more likely to visit the hospital for asthma, as compared to non-Hispanic Whites.
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CON pared to non-Hispanic Whites. pared to non-Hispanic Whites. • Puerto Rican children are 3.2 times more likely to have asthma, as com • Hispanic children are 40 percent more likely to die from asthma, as com- of the English used. Luis said: "Maestra no entiendo" (and pointed to the phrase After the student read the statistics, Stephanie checked the class' comprehension "more likely"). Stephanie asked students to translate it for Luis, and this turned Others as "más como" (more like). Finally, Stephanie asked Luis to use the trans- into a heated discussion. Some translated it as "más me gusta" (I like it more) Stephanie annotated the text on the SMART Board with this Spanish phrase. Now lating app on a class iPad, and he immediately came back with "más probable." all students in the class knew not only what it meant in English, but also how to say it in Spanish This simple classroom vignette illustrates two important points. First, bilin- gual students may think they know the meanings of a word or phrase (e. more likely) in an academic text because they know each of the words in other students' existing language practices are valued and channeled into learning contexts, but this is not always the case. This vignette also illustrates ways that new practices, such as those deemed important in academic contexts. Because Stephanie is not a Spanish speaker, she encourages her students to help one another and to use resources such as translation apps to better understand this and other texts in English. By annotating an English text with a Spanish phrase, Stephanie is also helping students grow as bilingual and biliterate peo- ple, even if she herself is not bilingual and this is not a "bilingual" class. Furthermore, Stephanie encourages her African American students to think about differences between ways they use language among their friends and at school. She often discusses language in hip hop and compares it to written social studies texts that students have to read. Stephanie observes that her African American students are also picking up some Spanish words, while her Latino students are learning about features of African American English and of, for example, Jamaican Creole, spoken by some of the Anglophone Caribbean students in the class. Stephanie's time and focus on language in her content area classroom demonstrates her belief that teaching students to use language in academic contexts is as important as learning social studies content Making Space for Students' Bilingualism and Ways of Knowing In addition to improving teaching and learning, translanguaging contributes to the creation of a new kind of classroom, one that takes bilingualism and the bilingual understanding of language as the norm, putting bilingual people at the center. Shifting focus like this makes space for students to learn and make choices about language that help them traverse the uneven waters of commu nication in our society. Rather than viewing languages according to rigid powers hierarchies, translanguaging can help our students understand languages as practices that are used in different social contexts for different purposes. This kind of bilingual lens fosters critical metalinguistic awareness an understanding that there are social, political, and ideological aspects of lan- guage (Fairclough, 1995). Students learn that language use is not neutral, but intentional moment when teachers allow students to use their entire language regulated by different social groups for their own purposes. This space-the tential and how and why we make choices about language. When students repertoires-can help all students become more aware of their expressive po-
TRANSLANGUAGING 13 and tap into seeing the world through their creative and critical bilingual or gain this kind of awareness they can challenge linguistic hierarchies and rules multilingual perspective. Thus, translanguaging makes possible the educational inclusion of bilin- gual students' ways of knowing and languaging. In giving expression to other ways of being and knowing, translanguaging has the potential to build a more socially just world. For example, during a different day's Cuéntame algo, Carla and her students read Lluvia de plata by Sara Poot Herrera, a story about Mari- ana, a young woman who visits the Tarahumara region in Chihuahua, Mexico and experiences a cultural and language transformation. To help them better comprehend the story, Carla had students place illustrations onto a backdrop that she created of la Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) overlooking la sierra Tarahumara. a Moisés placed his illustration card on to the backdrop and shared the following: Esta parte que leí me gusta porque los trabajadores que construyeron el fe- rrocarril le llamaban al tren que venía de Kansas a Chihuahua "si te cansas." Yo creo que no sabían cómo decir Kansas, entonces para recordar cómo decirlo solamente mencionaban "si te cansas." [This part that I read I liked because the workers that built the railroad would call the train coming from Kansas to Chihuahua "si te cansas" ("if you get tired"). I think they did not know how to say Kansas, so to remember how to say it they would mention "si te cansas"). [Everyone starts laughing.] Moisés explained how railroad workers adapted the word Kansas [/kénzes/] to a Spanish word that was similar in pronunciation, cansas [/kansas/]. Although other students laughed, some immediately joined in: "En mi casa nosotros usamos este tipo de palabra...." [We use this type of word at home.) And another, "Sí es cierto; he oído algo así también en mi casa." [Yes, it's true; I've heard this also at home.) Some students acknowledged that at home Spanish was often used to remember the sounds of English words. The teacher asked how this was so. The students then shared that, for example, the Spanish word gel (pronounced "hel") for hair gel was used to remember how to pro- nounce the English word help. The Spanish word flor (flower) was used to help recall the pronunciation of the English word floor. The play-on-word jokes or chistes that emerge from words that sound nearly the same in Spanish and English are more than just entertaining; to find a word that creates a chiste takes linguistic and cultural knowledge across lan- guages and cultures. The students found the translanguaging moment amus- ing, yet the humorous moment reflected the complexity of their understand- ing of language use across contexts and languages. Further, Carla invited this complex understanding into the classroom as a strength and asset on which her students could draw. By using a text that is culturally and linguistically relevant and that builds on students' translanguaging practices, Carla's stu- dents could hear and see themselves and their communities in the text and feel safe enough to experiment with and explore translanguaging, Our earlier discussion of Carla and her class' shared reading of Three Wise Guys: Un cuento de Navidad illustrated how a focus on bilingualism and bilin- gual language practices can foster students' critical metalinguistic awareness. In the next vignette, we see how Carla's focus on the author Sandra Cisneros translanguaging helped students engage with a complex text by drawing on their own bilingualism and ways of knowing. This example is developed further in Johnson and Meyer, 2014.
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CONTEXTS AND Students continued to read the story in guided reading groups beyond what words Cisneros had chosen to include in Spanish-chicharras (insects), urracas Carla had read out loud, and Carla asked them to pay careful attention to the and discussed why these words and not others were rendered in Spanish and why (black/white birds), comadre (woman relative). In their groups, they reflected on select other words they would have rendered in Spanish if they had been the the author might have made these choices, Carla then instructed the students to author ros' translanguaged text in a more nuanced, complex way. By drawing their As bilingual people, Carla and her students have the ability to discuss Cisne attention to the author's language choices, Carla helps her students grow more critical about language, which in turn helps them grow as bilingual thinkers and writers themselves. The students commented that comadre was probably rendered in Spanish because it is a word from their own culture and community. A discussion ensued about why Cisneros had used urraca and double I." They then explored other words in Spanish that had a double t. chicharras. One student immediately said: "Because of the beautiful rolling They looked through the text to see if there were other words in English that would have an equivalent in Spanish that had a double 1. This kind of che cal metalinguistic analysis of a translanguaged text also demonstrates to stu dents that bilingual languaging is rich and intentional, not messy or impure. When they discussed Cisneros' translanguaging, Carla and her class were also reaffirming their own translanguaging and drawing on their bilingualism to understand a complex text. Supporting Students' Bilingual Identities and Socioemotional Development Translanguaging fosters bilingual students' identities and socioemotional de velopment, which promotes social justice. First, translanguaging enables all bilingual students to participate actively in daily classroom life. For many stu- dents whose ways of languaging differ from the status quo ideal of those con sidered "native speakers," classroom learning can be difficult and alienating By making space for students to language on their own terms and participate fully in academic conversations and work, we are modeling the kind of active participation needed for the creation of a more just world. Second, translan- guaging helps students to see themselves and their linguistic and cultural prac tices as valuable, rather than as lacking. By teaching students to see their lane guages as part of a whole, contingent, and ever-changing performance, we are challenging a monolingual version of society and breaking the socially con structed fronteras that stand between languages and create hierarchies of power translanguaging purpose in action. To help students build background on We return to Stephanie's Environmentalism: Then and Now unit to see this the topic of air pollution, Stephanie started the day's lesson by showing stu- about 30 seconds, depicted a young Latino male suffering from an asthma dents a public service announcement (PSA) about asthma. The PSA, which ran attack. Stephanie played the clip twice, once in English and once in Spanish, and asked students to share any questions or connections they had regarding the video clip: to the hospital several times. Luis jumped in saying, "Me too! My brother...él...in Eddy shared in English that his brother had really bad asthma and has had to go El Salvador. .." Sensing that Luis was having trouble continuing in English, Steph
PURPOSES FOR TRANSLANGUAGING 15 anie asked him to finish his sentence in Spanish. Luis continued in Spanish, ex- plaining that his brother, who still lives in El Salvador, worked construction and that the dust from the worksite gave him asthma attacks. Stephanie listened, and translate what Luis said. Though Mariana understands Spanish, she has told Stephanie that she feels more comfortable speaking English. However, she is a very competent translator, a skill for which, as Stephanie knows, she is often praised by her family. In this short excerpt, we interpret Stephanie's comfort with linguistic flexibil- ity and translanguaging as an act of social justice and a way of supporting her students' socioemotional growth. To understand what we mean, we only have to put forth a different image, one we have seen in far too many English- medium classrooms: Luis, stymied by his emerging English practice, gets frus- trated and falls silent, putting his head down on his desk. Other students who are not comfortable sharing in English stare out the window, doodle, whisper to one another, and sneak looks at their phones underneath their desks. In- stead of this image, Stephanie's classroom is one of engagement and shared learning. All students are encouraged to use all their languages to share their ideas, which helps Stephanie understand what they know and can do. In ad- dition, students' out-of-school lives—their stories and skills, such as Mariana's experience as a translator-are honored and drawn on to learn new content. Translanguaging, then, becomes a way of working against the kind of class- room experiences that render many students mute. By enabling them to use all their languages, they are able to be themselves, help one another, and suc- ceed academically. The few African American students in Stephanie's class also relate well to the PSA. Many join in the discussion and share their families' struggles with asthma. Together, the African American and Latino students in Stephanie's class become aware of the toxins in the neighborhoods where they live. They start questioning why. This is not only the beginning of a research project on environmental toxins where students worked through English and Spanish, but also of a letter-writing campaign to their elected officials where students used their voices in both English and Spanish. Meanwhile, after reading the story Three Wise Guys: Un cuento de Navidad in Carla's bilingual class, she asks students to work on translating a piece of the story from English into Spanish: "The mother in the story doesn't speak English. Write the story in a way that the mother would understand." Once student groups had worked together on translating, Carla told them to Reflect on the language practices of the characters in the story-the Spanish- speaking mother; the bilingual children, Rubén and Rosalinda; and the father who speaks English but cannot read it. As you discuss, feel free to use features from both English and Spanish to recapture the bilingual voice of the family in the story and to integrate your own language practices, as the narrator of the story has done. Through the translation activity and the ensuing discussion, Carla encourages bilingual students' use of translanguaging to make meaning, to develop a bi- lingual voice in writing, and to deepen their understanding about how all their language practices work together. To this end, Carla has students analyze the ways in which English and Spanish are used in a literary piece written primarily in English, and she has her students practice translation. Through
TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOMS: CONTEXTS AND are trans- others and give them voice. The students' translation of part of the text into formative acts, changing not only the text but also the text's ability to engage these activities, students learn how translanguaging and translating a Spanish was not merely an academic exercise; it enabled the students to imag- ine and hear the Spanish-language voice of the mother who cannot say any. thing in the story itself. Thus, translanguaging allows us to hear voices that may have been excluded. It gives students an understanding of how language social inequalities, and how bilingual students can rewrite texts to include use is tied to power, how its use is often employed to produce and reproduce diverse contributions and perspectives. CONCLUSION Of course, the ways that teachers design their translanguaging pedagogy will Atranslanguaging classroom is purposeful and strategic, not chaotic and messy. vary according to their own bilingual experiences and relative to the school and community context in which they work. Translanguaging classrooms are powerful, equitable learning environments for bilingual students that enable these learners to (1) engage with complex content and texts, (2) strengthen linguistic practices for academic contexts, (3) draw on their bilingualism and ways of knowing, and (4) develop socioemotionally with strong bilingual iden- tities. When teachers effectively leverage students' bilingualism for learning, they can level the playing field and advance social justice. QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES 1. What are the challenges that translanguaging presents to your understanding of bi- lingualism or how bilingual students are taught? 2. Compare and contrast Carla's and Stephanie's uses of translanguaging. Why do you think those differences occurred? You might think about their personal backgrounds, the grade levels they teach, and their classroom contexts. TAKING ACTION 1. Begin a preliminary profile of a translanguaging classroom. This can be your own classroom or it can be one that you are focusing on for action-oriented classroom te- search. Use the profiles from Carla's, Stephanie's, and Justin's classes as models. • Who are your bilingual students? Choose several bilingual students that together reflect the range of linguistic variation in your class. Describe each of their socio- linguistic histories/practices. • Who is the teacher? Describe his or her sociolinguistic history and practices. • What language(s) are used for instructional purpose in the class? • What are the content, language, and literacy goals for the instructional program serving these bilingual students? 2. Investigate the type of program for emergent bilinguals implemented in your con- • What is the official language policy? • What content and language development standards are used? • Who are the target populations? • What are the goals of the program? • How is the program structured to meet those goals? • How are students performing relative to those goals?
CHAPTER 2 Language Practices and the Translanguaging Classroom Framework . LEARNING OBJECTIVES Explain what it means for a bilingual student to draw on the full features of his or her linguistic repertoire . Compare and contrast the notions of dynamic bilingualism and additive bilingualism • Define the translanguaging corriente • Use the translanguaging classroom framework to explain how the translanguaging corriente sets learning and teaching in motion Begin to identify evidence of the translanguaging corriente in your focal classroom . This his chapter introduces the translanguaging classroom framework, which educators can use to understand translanguaging classrooms like Carla's, Stephanie's, and Justin's. First, however, we must think about how language is used by different speakers in context. When we look closely at the actual language practices of bilinguals, we see variation, dynamism, and complexity. The flow of students' bilingual practices, what we call the translanguaging corriente, is at work in all aspects of classroom life. When bilingual students engage with texts, they do so while drawing on all their linguistic resources, even if those texts are rendered only in English or only in Spanish or another language. When bilingual students write or create something new, they may filter certain features of their linguistic repertoires to create the product, but the process will always be bilingual. When we view students' bilingualism in this way—as a fluid, ever present current that they tap into to make meaning-we see bilingual students differ- ently. This shift in perspective opens new possibilities for teaching and assessing bilingual students. The translanguaging classroom framework that we propose helps teachers imagine a translanguaging pedagogy that leverages students' dynamic bilingualism for learning. REFLECTING ON THE MEANINGS AND USES OF LANGUAGE As school practitioners we often think of language solely as the standardized variety that is present in textbooks or used in assessments. We think we teach in "English," or "Spanish" or "Chinese" or "Korean" or "Russian." But the re- ality of language is a lot more complex than names of languages indicate. Think, for example, of how we use language when we are speaking, read- ing, talking to a family member, disciplining a child, teaching a class, or work- ing with an individual student. The ways we use language are different, and 17
LANGUAGE PRACTICES AND THE TRANSLANGE O "Chinese" vary depending on the context of use. same age the features (the words, sounds, word order, etc.) of "English" or "Spanish of high school students with diverse experiences. Their so-called "English" or Think also of the language practices of different 6-year-old students, of group. Students use language differently, depending on who they are, what "Spanish" or "Russian" would vary, even among students in the Now think of how different groups of English speakers (e.g., African Ameri can, British, Texan) or Spanish speakers (e.8, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican) use the same language. Their so-called "English" or "Spanish" would also they are doing, what they are feeling, and with whom they are interacting It is important to remember that monolingual English speakers and monolin- be very different, reflecting the language practices used in their communities gual Spanish speakers, or those considered monolingual speakers of any lan guage, are in fact multidialectal because they can use more than one variety of the same language those who are monolingual, we can imagine how much more complex it is to If we cannot say that there is a single English or think about the languages of bilinguals. So, we start with the question, How do bilinguals use language? Bilingual speakers use language differently from multidialectal, monolin- more choices to make because their language repertoires include many more gual speakers. Although all speakers use language differently, bilinguals have language features. Language features include, for example, phonemes (sounds), Spanish or Arabic for words, morphemes (word forms), nouns, werbs, adjectives, tense systems, pro noun systems, case distinctions, gender distinctions, syntactic rules, and dis- course markers (2.g., marking transitions, information structure). Though from a societal point of view bilinguals are said to speak two languages, from their own perspective bilingual speakers have one language repertoire—their own. This language repertoire includes linguistic features that are associated socially and politically with one language or another and are named as English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and the rest. One Bilingual Repertoire vs. Two Monolinguals in One Recall the students that we met in Carla's dual-language bilingual elementary classroom and in Stephanie's English-medium high school classroom. Jenni- fer, a student in Carla's class, and Eddy, a student in Stephanie's class, were born in the United States, and they speak a variety of Spanish that includes different features than that of Luis (Stephanie's class), recently arrived from El Salvador, or Ricardo and Moisés (Carla's class), recently arrived from Mexico. The variety of Spanish that Jennifer and Eddy speak has features of "English," whereas the variety that Ricardo speaks has features of "Mixteco," an indige- nous language spoken in Mexico and in Ricardo's home. In Carla's class, Jennifer and Moisés are asked what they like about the school playground. Jennifer replies: "Me encanta por los swings." [I love it because of the swings). In contrast, Moisés answers: “Me encanta por los columpios." [I love it because of the swings). For Jennifer, the word "swings" is neither English (although for dictionaries and nations it may be) nor Span. nicate with the other bilingual Latino children with whom she plays ish. It is simply part of her language repertoire, the word she uses to commu- playground. Jennifer has one language repertoire, as illustrated in Figure 2 (upper box), with entwined linguistic features (Fn) that she often uses to make meaning, but that countries, schools, dictionaries, and grammar books clas- School (and other monolingual contexts) would want her to use only Spanish, sify as different languages (Spanish and English in the lower boxes of Fig. 2.1). or only English, as if she were two monolinguals in one. However, as Grosjean (1982) emphasized, the notion of two monolinguals in one is impossible. on the
REFLECTING ON THE MEANINGS AND USES OF LANGUAGE 19 Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn En Fn Fn Fn En Fn En Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn En Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn English Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn Spanish Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn Fn Figure 2.1 Language repertoire of bilinguals. Fn, (linguistic) features. Although Jennifer has learned to distinguish which linguistic features of her repertoire to use in different communicative settings (i.e., when she uses English and when she uses Spanish), she is also capable of languaging with all the features of her repertoire. This occurs often when she speaks in bilingual contexts with her family. We can then say that Jennifer has one linguistic rep- ertoire. However, that repertoire, seen from an external social perspective, is divided into two named languages. In school, for example, she is expected to perform according to standard definitions of language, and she has to select only those features in her repertoire associated with English during "English time," Spanish during "Spanish time," and suppress the rest. But when she plays and speaks with her bilingual friends, she is free to use all her linguistic repertoire. Seeing bilingualism in this way is very different from traditional concepts of bilingualism. Dynamic Bilingualism vs. Additive Bilingualism Traditionally bilingualism has been described from a monolingual external perspective simply as the addition of a language. Figure 2.2 presents this tra- ditional conceptualization of additive bilingualism, in which a first language (L1) is added to a second language (L2), each with its own autonomous and bounded linguistic features. But Jennifer's bilingualism is not just additive; it is dynamic, the linguistic features of what are considered two languages function in interrelationship and adapt to the communicative circumstance at hand (see García, 2009). Jennifer deploys all the features of her entire language repertoire to communi- cate and make meaning, thus transgressing traditional societal and national definitions of what language should be and the ways in which language should be used. Furthermore, Jennifer's bilingualism cannot be understood simply in terms of L1 or L2 languages. Jennifer learned to speak Spanish first because her grandmother raised her and spoke to her in Spanish, but her mother also spoke English to her as she was growing up. Although Jennifer can say that she learned Spanish first, Spanish is not her L1 because she feels more confi- dent in English, uses it more, and identifies with it first. Jennifer's bilingualism is not made up of the simple addition of L1 + L2, but of the dynamic interac- tion of language features that she uses to communicate appropriately in differ- ent situations García (2009) conceptualizes students' dynamic bilingualism with the image of a banyan tree, with features that are always interdependent (Cum- mins, 1979) and that together form one intricate communicative repertoire that bilinguals learn to adapt to monolingual contexts whenever they occur. García (2009) also uses the image of the all-terrain vehicle to explain how See Garcia and Ll Wel, 2014 for further discussion
Figure 2.2 Traditional bilingual ism as the sum of two monolin- gualisms. F1, features of first lan guage: F2, features of second language; LI, first language; L2, second language. L1 F1, F1, F1, F1, F1, F1 + L2 F2, F2, F2, F2, F2, F2 the same direction. communicative situations. This is in contrast to the traditional view of bilin. bilinguals use the features of their language repertoires to adapt to different gualism, seen as two wheels of a bicycle that are always balanced and move in Rather than thinking about languages as fixed entities with strict bound. aries between English and the students' other languages, the translanguaging of bilingual students strategically. Such thinking supports these students as classroom invites us to think about how to use the multiple language practices they engage with complex content and texts and develop new language prac. tices, including those practices that are appropriate in academic contexts. Translanguaging vs. Code-Switching Translanguaging refers to both the complex language practices of multi. lingual individuals and communities and to the pedagogical approaches that draw on them to build the language practices desired in formal school settings. From a sociolinguistic perspective, translanguaging differs from two concepts we have heard in relation to bilingual students: code-switching, and in the case of bilingual Latinos, "Spanglish." Code-switching refers to switching back and forth between language codes that are regarded as separate and autonomous. It considers language only from an external perspective that looks at bilinguals' language behavior as if they were two monolinguals in one. Code-switching is often considered a violation and a disruption of monolingual language use, and is frequently stigmatized. Translanguaging, however, refers to the ways that bilinguals use their lan- guage repertoires, from their own perspectives, and not from the perspective of national or standard languages. The language repertoires of bilingual speakers are made up of features that dictionaries, grammar books, and schools put into two categories, in the case of Latino students, English and Spanish. Of course bilinguals learn to use the appropriate features according to the context in which they communicate. However, what is important is to realize that from the speaker's (i.e., internal) perspective, what he or she has is one linguis- tic repertoire. Whereas the term code-switching focuses on alternation of named lan- guages, translanguaging refers to the languaging of people who at times have to suppress features of their repertoires. Unlike code-switching, which is cona sidered a simple alternation of language codes, translanguaging goes beyond named languages (Li Wei, 2011). The act of translanguaging is in itself trans- formative, having the potential to infuse creative bilingual meanings into utterances. We've seen several examples of this transformative creativity in Carla's classroom in Chapter 1-Cisneros' use of the word "comadre," breath- ing Latino life into an English language text; and students in Carla's class re- lating how their parents use the Spanish homonym "gel" to remind them of the English word "help." We'll see many more examples of this transformative The term "Spanglish" is often used to demean and stigmatize the Spanish of U.S. Latinos as "corrupted" Spanish (Otheguy & Stern, 2011). Translanguag. ing refers instead to bilingual speakers' creative and critical construction and use creativity throughout this book.
TRANSLANGUAGING CORRIENTE 21 of interrelated language features that can be used for learning, and that teach- ers can leverage, regardless of the quality of students' performances in one or another national language. Furthermore, translanguaging can also be used to acquire and to learn how to use features that are considered part of standard language practices, which have real and material consequences for all learners. TRANSLANGUAGING CORRIENTE We use the metaphor of the translanguaging corriente to refer to the current or flow of students' dynamic bilingualism that runs through our classrooms and schools. Bilingual students make use of the translanguaging corriente, either overtly or covertly, to learn content and language in school and to make sense of their complex worlds and identities. When bilingual students work together to carry out an academic task, they negotiate and make mean- ing by pooling all of their linguistic resources. A current in a body of water is not static; it runs a changeable course de pending on features of the landscape. Likewise, the translanguaging corriente refers to the dynamic and continuous movement of language features that change the static linguistic landscape of the classroom that is described and defined from a monolingual perspective. Figure 2.3 represents the translan guaging corriente flowing and changing terrain that is traditionally consid- ered "English" or "home language" territory and connecting them. From the surface, we see two separate riverbanks, with each side showing distinct fea- tures. Depending on the current, however, the riverbanks shift and their fea- tures change. And at the river bottom, the terrain is one; the river and its two banks are in fact one integrated whole. As the translanguaging corriente forms an integrated whole, it allows bi- lingual students to combine social spaces with language codes that are usually practiced separately. For example, it is often said that Latino students use Spanish at home and English in school. In reality, however, language use is more fluid. In Latino homes, some families may speak Spanish; others may speak English; and most speak both. Spanish might be spoken or used while Figure 2.3 A metaphor for the translanguaging corriente. (Re. trieved from https://www.flickr .com/photos/79666107@N00/ 4120780342/)
LANGUAGE PRACTICES AND THE listening to the radio, while English might be used for reading or watching television Fluid Language Practices in the Classroom We find the translanguaging corriente in every classroom that includes bi. istics of the translanguaging corriente in any particular classroom reflect the lingual students; of course, the quality of the corriente varies. The character language repertoires of the bilingual students and their teachers. Therefore, teachers like Carla, Stephanie, and Justin experience the translanguaging corri ente differently because their linguistic repertoires and those of their students are diverse. Moreover, the implicit and explicit language policies in bilingual and English-medium classes are different. The corriente is stronger and more visible) in the bilingual classroom, where the language other than English (LOTE) is also the language of instruction and the ability to use it is an explicit goal and expected student outcome. Teachers also experience and respond to the translanguaging corriente differently. For example, Carla is bilingual and, like her students, has experi- . toire in academic contexts. She was trained in the traditional dual-language bilingual model, which rigidly separates the two languages used for instruc tional purposes. When Carla learned about the translanguaging corriente, she at first questioned and resisted it. Only later, when she realized that students used their languages flexibly despite her "language policing," did she embrace the corriente and leverage it with great success. Stephanie, on the other hand, speaks a relatively standard variety of English and the features of her lan guage repertoire, with few exceptions, have rarely been called into question socially or academically. Stephanie does not consider herself bilingual; yet she responded to her students' bilingualism and translanguaging positively from the start. She saw that her students were already using all their linguistic resources to make meaning of the complex social studies content, so she began explicitly building this kind of translanguaging into her instruction. Despite their different experiences with languages and their different contexts, both Carla and Stephanie make use of the translanguaging corriente in instruction and assessment. In school the lesson might be in English, but Latino students often speak Spanish to each other, and language features that are considered Spanish may populate their inner speech as they write, read, talk, and think. Because it is always moving, the translanguaging corriente changes the static linguistic landscape that establishes limits on when one language or the other is used and transforms the traditional concept of "a language." Creative Potential of the Translanguaging Corriente in Latin American countries, Spanish is constrained by governmental edicts The translanguaging corriente produces new language practices. For example, and official discourses that reflect national histories, with Spanish used in monolingual and monocultural ways. (Although, of course, there are varia- tions in the language features associated with Spanish in different countries.) But in the United States, bilingual Latinos experience the Spanish language in Interaction with English and its histories. Thus, the Spanish used in different Mexican, Argentinian, Puerto Rican) used by the bilingual Latinos in those U.S. communities includes features of the varieties of Spanish (e.g., Cuban, glish used in them. Likewise, English in the United States, in the speech, minds, communities-interwoven with features of the standard and vernacular En- and hearts of bilingual Latinos, acquires the intentions of speakers with differ- ent histories and ideologies.
INS OF MONOLINGUAL AND BILINGUAL CLASSROOMS 23 Thus, U.S. Latinos, as well as other bilinguals, experience "language" and histories constructed through one or another named "language" as an inte grated system of linguistic and cultural practices. The translanguaging corri- ente generates the creative energy and produces the speaker's way of interact- ing with others and other texts, rather than responding to restrictions imposed by the officially accepted way of using language. It involves, as Li Wei (2011) has said, going both between different linguistic structures, systems, and mo. dalities, and going beyond them. For Li Wei, translanguaging "creates a social space for the multilingual user by bringing together different dimensions of their personal history, experience, and environment; their attitude, belief, and ideology; (and) their cognitive and physical capacity into one coordinated and meaningful performance" (p. 1223). In short, the translanguaging corriente is generated by the students' bilingualism, and it sets in motion learning and teaching in the translanguaging classroom. TRANSCENDING TRADITIONAL NOTIONS OF MONOLINGUAL AND BILINGUAL CLASSROOMS Now that we are more familiar with dynamic bilingualism and the translan- guaging corriente, what would it mean to use these concepts to reimagine how bilingual students are educated? U.S. classrooms are said to be either monolingual or bilingual; there does not seem to be anything in between. But classrooms today are never just monolingual or bilingual. If we look closer, there is much more diversity, and much more dynamic language use in class- rooms, than what we hear and see at the surface level. Limitations of Traditional Models In any "monolingual" classroom we find children who speak LOTE, even if they also speak English. By ignoring linguistic practices other than those that are regarded as "legitmate school English," schools are ignoring the potential to build on a child's entire linguistic repertoire and rendering other ways of speaking invisible. Furthermore, despite the existence of many bilingual classrooms, bilingual education often suffers from a monoglossic ideology. That is, bilingualism is often understood as simply "double monolingualism" (Grosjean 1982; Heller, 1999). Both major types of bilingual education classrooms-transitional bilin- gual and dual-language bilingual-conceptualize the two languages as sepa- rate. Transitional bilingual classrooms transition children who are acquiring English (those we call emergent bilinguals and others call English language learners (ELLS) or limited English proficient) to English-only instruction. In early-exit programs the transition is as soon as possible. In late-exit programs, students do not exit until they finish the program of instruction. The propor- NOOtion of English used for instruction increases as the use of the other language decreases. English language development, then, never benefits from its inter- relationship with the existing language features of the student's language rep- ertoire. And Spanish development is not supported over time. Most dual-language bilingual education (DLBE) classrooms also suffer from the same monoglossic ideology (García, 2009; Martínez, Hikida, & Durán, 2015), that is, the idea that the two languages are to be used only in monolin- gual ways. Echoing this idea, Fitts (2006) demonstrates how language separa- tion in DLBE programs is a mechanism that "authorizes the use of standard forms of English and Spanish in separate spaces, and illegitimizes the use of vernaculars" (p. 339). The prototypical dual language model (which we refer to as dual-language bilingual education) requires that English and the partner lan- guage always remain separate (for critiques of the language separation approach,
LANGUAGE PRACTICES AND THE TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOM FRA see Gort, 2015; Gort & Sembiante, 2015; Palmer & Henderson, 2016; Palmer, Martinez, Mateus, & Henderson, 2014). Furthermore, two-way dual language bilingual programs (or two-way immersion as they are sometimes called) insist on balanced numbers of English-speaking children and speakers of the other language recognized as either "English dominant" or "Spanish dominant," but rarely In the case of English/Spanish DLBE classrooms, students are generally both. Teachers in these programs teach in either English or Spanish, but never both. The language use in these classrooms seldom reflects the language use of the community, whose members speak English or Spanish, but mostly both. In many DLBE classrooms, bilingual language use is generally not overtly rec- ognized, and teachers talk about students as either ELLs or English as a second language (ESL) speakers, or Spanish language learners or Spanish as a second language speakers (Lee, Hill-Bonnet, & Gillispie, 2008; Palmer & Martínez, 2013). This dichotomous conceptualization prevents bilingual identities from emerging. For example, an Anglophone child is socialized in the classroom a English speaking and a Hispanophone child as Spanish speaking, with little leveraging of their bilingualism and ways of knowing, which would strengthen their identities as U.S. bilinguals. Imagining Translanguaging Classrooms Translanguaging classrooms transcend traditional definitions of monolingual and bilingual education and build on the linguistic complexity of language practices used by multilingual speakers. Translanguaging classrooms could be either officially monolingual (like Stephanie's and Justin's classrooms) or bi- lingual (like Carla's classroom). The vision of translanguaging classrooms shifts us from the deficit view of "así no se dice" (this is not how it's said] or "no se dice aquí" (we don't say it here that is so prevalent in both monolingual and bilingual classrooms to a more inclusive one of "también así se dice" (this is also how it's said] or "también aquí se dice" [it is also said here) and "¿qué más se dice?" (what else is said?). If bilingual students constantly make meaning bilingually, how can we assess them solely in one language? If students' intrapersonal voices are bi- lingual, how can we tell them to think in English?" If students' identities and ways of knowing are formed by deploying features from complex, mul- tiple linguistic and cultural repertoires, how can we provide them with texts and academic experiences that present the world as static and monolingual? The answer to these questions is-we simply cannot. If we want bilingual stu dents, and especially Latino students, to be successful U.S. citizens, we must provide them with educational spaces—with translanguaging classrooms. where all the features of their language repertoires are valued and leveraged in ways that support and strengthen learning. THE TWO DIMENSIONS OF THE TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOM The direct participants in all education activities in school are the students and the educators. The translanguaging classroom framework focuses on both with language, as well as to how teachers draw on the translanguaging co- dimensions, and pays attention to who the students are and what they can do just do as they please. On the contrary, they are constructed based on Translanguaging classrooms are not chaotic; students and teachers do not and structured activities by the teacher in interaction with students, families, and communities, ensuring that students' entire linguistic repertoires are used. Regardless of whether the classroom is officially an English-medium classroom rriente to teach and assess those students. planned
THE TWO DIMENSIONS OF THE TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOM 25 Students' Translanguaging Performances • General linguistic performance • Language-specific performance • Dynamic translanguaging progressions The translanguaging corriente Teacher's Translanguaging Pedagogy • Stance • Design • Shirts Figure 2.4 The translanguaging classroom framework. or a bilingual classroom, teachers in translanguaging classrooms design their instructional units and their assessment systems purposefully and strategi- cally to mobilize all features of their bilingual students' linguistic repertoires, accelerate their content learning and language development, encourage their bilingualism and ways of knowing, strengthen their socioemotional develop ment and bilingual identities, and advance social justice. A translanguaging classroom, then, is built by weaving together the two dimensions--the students' linguistic performances and the teacher's pedagogy, as we illustrate in Figure 2.4. It is the translanguaging corriente that creates the dynamic flow, the movimiento, between these two dimensions. The students' linguistic performances shift the instruction and assessment, and the teacher's instruction and assessment shift the students' linguistic performances. Students' Translanguaging Performances The first dimension of a translanguaging classroom revolves around the stu- dents' translanguaging performances. The flow of the translanguaging corri- ente moves us from the concept of linguistic proficiency, which is assumed to develop along a relatively linear path that is more or less the same for all bi- lingual learners, to one of linguistic performance in situated practice, that is, according to the task at hand.
LANGUAGE PRACTICES AND THE English or Spanish lingualism in the United States, considered even minimal proficiency in two Both Haugen (1953) and Weinreich (1979), pioneers in the study of the today's students, however, is broader and more complex. Bilinguals today languages as a sign of bilingualism. The range of bilingual performances of quire and use many different linguistic features because mobility and techno whose repertoires differ from their own. In bilingual communities and homes ogy have given them more opportunities to interact with texts and speakers speakers do not shy away from using all their linguistic features to commu- nicate. In most schools, however, bilingual students are often required to suppress half of the features of their language repertoires to perform only in Teachers in translanguaging classrooms view students' linguistic perfor mances holistically. They look at the students' performances while taking into their classes. Students' linguistic performances are valued not only when the account what they (the teachers) know about the translanguaging corriente in features they use conform to the official language used for school purposes, but In contrast to the notion of language proficiency as demonstrated on a standardized test, the focus in translanguaging classrooms is on task-based performances in situated practice. It is possible for the performance level on some tasks to be emergent and more experienced on others. For example, in immigrant settings where not much attention is paid to bilingualism in schools, youth oracy performances in a home language may be more experi- enced. However, the same students may not have experience with literacy in their home language and, thus, the literacy dimension might be more emer- gent. A Deaf bilingual child may have different degrees of signacy, literacy, and even oracy. All bilinguals are emergent bilinguals in some aspect or an- other, in certain situations and with different interlocutors. Students' linguistic performances shift in very dynamic and creative ways depending on different contexts and factors and cannot simply be captured by a one-time proficiency score. To view students' translanguaging performances, teachers pay attention to two elements-the dynamic nature of students' bilingualism (which we have discussed) and the difference between their general linguistic and language- specific performances. General linguistic performance refers to an oral, written, or signed per- formance that draws on a bilingual speaker's entire language repertoire to demonstrate what that speaker knows and can do with content and language (e.g., to explain, persuade, argue, compare and contrast, or evaluate). When bilingual speakers draw on the full features of their language repertoires, they are not required to suppress specific linguistic features of the LOTE, of the formance that only draws on those features associated with a specific lani Language-specific performance refers to an oral, written, or signed per guage; here we focus on standard language features associated with school contexts. Bilingual speakers, to demonstrate what they know and can do, de ploy only the features in their language repertoires that correspond language of the content-specific task, and produce only what schools consider may be using, a bilingual speaker always leverages his or her entire language to be standard language features. Regardless of the specific language he or she vernacular variety of a language, etc.). to the repertoire to make meaning, even when only using features of one language. we call the dynamic translanguaging progressions, which will be further discussed Teachers can view students' translanguaging performances through what in Chapter 3. The dynamic translanguaging progressions is a flexible model or construct that teachers can use to look holistically at a bilingual student's specific
THE TWO DIMENSIONS OF THE TRANSLANGUAGING CLASSROOM 27 general linguistic and language-specific performances on different tasks at dif- ferent times from different perspectives. These progressions are dynamic be- cause they provide evidence of how a bilingual student's bilingualism ebbs and flows with experiences and opportunities. The dynamic translanguaging progressions model stands in contrast to traditional language models that see language development as a relatively linear, unidirectional, stage-like process, As we will see in Chapter 3, the dynamism of students' translanguaging performances makes it clear that bilingualism is not static; it is not attainable; it is not something that one purely "has." On the contrary, one needs to "do" bilingualism-work with it, use it, perform it in different ways, whether through oracy, literacy, or signacy (for Deaf populations)-or any combina- tion thereof. Bilingual students also need to understand the potential of their linguistic performances when they are allowed to use all the features of their language repertoires, that is, when schools also legitimize their translanguag. ing performances Teachers' Translanguaging Pedagogy The second dimension of the translanguaging classroom framework focuses attention on the teacher's instruction and assessment, which adapt to, and leverage, the students' translanguaging performances. The translanguaging pedagogy we propose, and that will be developed in Part II, includes the teach- er's general stance toward the students' dynamic bilingualism, the intentional ways that teachers design curricular units of instruction and assessments to build on what students can do with the full features of their language reper- toires, and the moment-to-moment shifts that teachers make in response to their observation of student participation in language-mediated classroom activities. Although some teachers understand the power of translanguaging and are able to give students this flexibility so that they can translanguage mo- ment-by-moment in their classes, it takes thoughtful, effective planning. That is, it is not enough to go with flow of the translanguaging corriente. A teacher needs to have a translanguaging stance, build a translanguaging design, and make translanguaging shifts--the three strands of the translanguaging pedagogy We explain how to develop these strands in both instruction and assess- ment in later chapters. Here we simply introduce them. Stance A stance refers to the philosophical, ideological, or belief system that teachers draw from to develop their pedagogical framework. Teachers cannot leverage the translanguaging corriente without the firm belief that by bringing forth bilingual students' entire language repertoires they can transcend the lan- guage practices that schools traditionally have valued. Clearly, teachers with a translanguaging stance have a firm belief that their students' language prac- tices are both a resource and a right (Ruiz, 1984). But beyond these orienta tions to language, teachers with a translanguaging stance believe that the many different language practices of bilingual students work juntos/together, not separately as if they belonged to different realms. Thus, the teacher believes that the classroom space must be used creatively to promote language collab- oration. A translanguaging stance always sees the bilingual child's complex language repertoire as a resource, never as a deficit. We see the influence of this translanguaging stance in educators' actions. Our planned actions as teachers in translanguaging classrooms are what we term the translanguaging design.
GE PRACTICES AND THE Design struction and assessments that build connections between, as Flores and Teachers in translanguaging classrooms must design units, lessons, and in. Schissel (2014) say, "/community] language practices and the language prac. tional and assessment design does not simply direct the translanguaging co. tices desired in formal school settings" (p. 462). The translanguaging instruc- rriente toward the school and away from the home or simply construct a bridge across the two banks (home and school) of the river. Instead, teachers pur. posefully design instruction and assessment opportunities that integrate home and school language and cultural practices. Learning is created by the translan. guaging corriente that teachers and students jointly navigate to reduce the distance between home and school practices. This translanguaging design is what prevents learners from being swept away by different currents--those created by school language practices that are beyond their reach or those of home language practices that, without blending with those of the school, do not lead to academic success. But the translanguaging design is not a simple scaffold for the kinds of languaging and understanding that the school deems valuable. Instead, students' bilin gual practices and ways of knowing are seen as both informing and informed by classroom instruction. The design is the pedagogical core of the translanguaging classroom. But to open ourselves and our students to constructing this flexible design to- gether, we need to make room for translanguaging shifts. Shifts Because the translanguaging corriente is always present in classrooms, it is not enough to simply have a stance that recognizes translanguaging performances and a design that directs it. At times it is also important to follow el movi. miento de la corriente. The translanguaging shifts refer to the many moment by-moment decisions that teachers make in the classroom. They reflect the teacher's flexibility and willingness to change the course of the lesson, as well as the language use planned in instruction and assessment, to release and sup- port students' voices. The translanguaging shifts are related to the translan guaging stance, for it takes a teacher willing to keep meaning-making and learning at the center of all instruction and assessment to go with the flow of the corriente. Teachers can use the translanguaging pedagogy to leverage the translan guaging corriente that runs through their classes. This translanguaging pedas gogy encompasses both instruction and assessment, and can be used to mobi- The strands of the translanguaging pedagogy are interrelated and form a sturdy but flexible rope that strengthens the learning and teaching of both through the daily life of the classroom-planning lessons, facilitating con These interrelated strands enable the translanguaging corriente to flow versations about content, strengthening of students' general linguistic and language and content, as shown in Figure 2.5. Figure 2.5 The translanguaging pedagogy strands. Stance Design Shits
CONCLUSION 29 language-specific performances, and assessing student growth along the dy namic translanguaging progressions. These strands also weave together the four translanguaging purposes: 1. To support student engagement with complex content and texts 2. To provide opportunities for students to develop linguistic practices for academic contexts 3. To make space for students' bilingualism and ways of knowing, 4. To support students' socioemotional development and bilingual identities Together the strands of this pedagogy secure not only these educational poses, but also connect the educational project to a higher goal-constructing a more just world, especially for minority students. pur- CONCLUSION This chapter has encouraged our reflections on language use through the mov- imiento of the translanguaging corriente, and especially the language use of bilingual students. In so doing, we questioned notions of additive bilingual- ism and took up the concept of dynamic bilingualism. We then explored the concepts of translanguaging and the translanguaging corriente. We introduced the two dimensions of the translanguaging classroom framework-the stu- dents' translanguaging performances and the teacher's translanguaging peda- gogy. We also identified the three strands that make up the translanguaging pedagogy for instruction and assessment-the stance, design, and shifts. QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES 1. Have you ever experienced or felt the translanguaging corriente? Where and why? How did it make you feel? 2. How does the concept of bilingual students' translanguaging performances differ from traditional concepts of language proficiency? 3. What are the challenges that translanguaging poses for you? Identify and talk through with other educators the challenges posed by each of the three strands--the stance, design, and shifts. TAKING ACTION 1. Visit the bilingual community of your choice. Listen to the ways that language is used in the street, in the stores, and in the restaurants. What do you hear? Look for signs written by store owners and others. What can you conclude about the ways that bi- lingualism is used in this community? How does it adjust (or not) to the concept of dynamic bilingualism discussed here? 2. What evidence of the translanguaging corriente can you see and hear in your focal classroom? Take notes on the ways that your bilingual students draw on all of the features of their linguistic repertoire orally and in writing in different communicative activities at school.