"Doing It Both": Translingual Perspectives on Young Children's Public Talk and Writing

• In Event: Co-Constructing Notions of Linguistic Prestige

Abstract

While the dynamic and flexible use of multiple languages simultaneously is an integral part of bilingualism (Garcia, 2009) and biliteracy development (Gort, 2006; 2012), many teachers and students stigmatize the translingual practice of codeswitching as laziness or ignorance (Martínez, 2013; Urciouli, 1996). This perception has consequences for students’ biliteracy and discourages children from codeswitching in writing, even when invited to do so (Ranker, 2009). However, this stigmatization can be contested, and teachers are uniquely empowered to do so. This study describes how one first grade teacher in a restrictive policy context repositioned her students’ codeswitching as a valuable literacy practice.
Conceptually, this work draws on sociocultural (Barton, 1992; Heath, 1983) and translingual (Canagarajah, 2013) theories of literacy. This perspective requires a shift from decontextualized evaluation of written products towards a focus on the trajectory of the writer over time, across languages, contexts and modalities. Moreover, this perspective considers how language and literacy are ideologically mediated by children’s sociocultural context and position (Street, 1994).
Methodologically, this paper uses a formative/design research approach (Brown, 1992). The researcher worked with a first grade ESL teacher to design writing curriculum for her bilingual Latina/o students (Author, 2015). As a participant-observer, the research visited the classroom three times a week for a year, taking fieldnotes, video- and audio-recording classroom interaction, and conducting semi-structured interviews. All data were triangulated and analyzed using an inductive approach informed by the constant-comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
Analysis revealed a number of moves by teacher that appeared to mediate students’ willingness to use Spanish and codeswitching in public talk and writing. While at the beginning of the year, children spoke almost exclusively in English during whole-group instruction and wrote only in English, over the course of the year, they increasingly used both Spanish and codeswitching in talk and writing. This correlated with the teacher’s explicit talk about language, spoken and written models of codeswitching, and the young writers’ interactions with their bilingual readers. For example, after sharing a picturebook by a bilingual author which featured codeswitching, the teacher asked, “Why do you think that she made some words en español and some en inglés?”, and engaged students in a metalinguistic instructional conversation (Martínez, 2010) about this choice. While most students’ initial written codeswitching involved single-word insertions of Spanish nouns into English texts, children later mixed languages in more extensive ways which more closely paralleled their oral language. However, students’ written codeswitching was sensitive to their intended audience, with writing intended for English monolingual or unspecified audiences written only in English.
While researchers have convincingly established the importance of students’ everyday language practices as resources for learning (Gort, 2006; Lee, 2007; Orellana & Reynolds, 2008; Martínez, 2010), teachers often tacitly or explicitly convey that they are nonacademic or inappropriate for school (Alim, 2005). This work extends current scholarship by engaging in collaborative inquiry with a teacher into how bilingual students’ everyday language practices can be positioned as both academic and appropriate.

Author

• Leah Durán, The University of Arizona