Translanguaging Theory and Research Within City University of New York–New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals

• In Event: 68.037 - Translanguaging With Multilingual Students: Learning From Classroom Moments

Abstract

This paper sets the groundwork for the case studies that follow by describing: 1) the translanguaging theory that undergirds our understandings of language and bilingualism, and how it can transform education; 2) the work of the CUNY-NYSIEB project to transform education practices in schools and teacher education; and, 3) the significance of our collaborative action research approach.

The view of translanguaging in our work focuses on the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire, which does not in any way correspond to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named languages. Taking up a theory of translanguaging, in which named languages are seen as having social, although not linguistic, reality means that we start to teach bilingual children from a different place (Otheguy, García & Reid, 2015). This leverages all the features of the children’s repertoire, while also showing them when, with whom, where and why to use some features of their repertoire and not others, enabling them to also perform according to the social norms of named languages as used in schools.

The CUNY-NYSIEB vision emanates from students, their lives and their language and cultural practices, referring to them as Emergent Bilinguals (EBLs). By using this term we emphasize the potential of these students to become bilingual and biliterate, and our vision of how bilingualism emerges. The vision of CUNY-NYSIEB is centered on three principles:

1. creative emergence of individual language practices;
2. dynamics of bilingualism; and,
3. dynamic processes of teaching and learning of emergent bilinguals.

The case studies presented in this session answer the following questions:

What does it mean for teachers and students to take up translanguaging?
a. How, when and why is translanguaging taken up or resisted by students and teachers?
b. What does using translanguaging mean for students and teachers?

Because of the close relationship between the teachers in the schools and the CUNY-NYSIEB teams, traditional research methodologies were not appropriate for us. It made sense to do research with the teachers, as opposed to on them and call this research approach Transformative Action Research. It is collaborative and participatory, taking on some of the features of Collaborative Action Research and of Participatory Action Research (Fine & Torre, 2004). Our approach involves self-reflection to improve participants’ understandings of practice (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005), yet goes beyond the collaboration of teams of practitioners, as in traditional Collaborative Action Research (Burns, 1999), in that it also includes researchers as practitioners, and practitioners as researchers. We have been able to share the ownership and direction of the research, as this has mirrored the type of collaboration that was already taking place between the university teams and the school teams. Each paper that follows uses this approach to document translanguaging within classroom moments.

Authors

• Tatyana Kleyn, City College of New York - CUNY

• Kate Menken, Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of New York

• Maria Teresa Sanchez