Translanguaging to Support Academic and Student Socioemotional Well-Being

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

Abstract

Emergent bilinguals in US classrooms often include immigrant students who along with academic demands often encounter a number of social and emotional challenges, such as separation from family, discomfort with new cultural norms and a new language, and posttraumatic stress brought on by war or violence (DeCapua, Smathers & Tang, 2007). This study aims to better understand how translanguaging can provide immigrant students with the type of support they need to tackle difficult academic and socioemotional challenges.

Research has evidenced substantive links between children’s social and emotional well-being and school success (Greenberg et al., 2003). Students provided with the opportunity to express themselves and relate to others are able to build a stronger sense of belonging at school and engage academically.

This study shows how CUNY-NYSIEB researchers worked with a teacher of English language arts at an urban high school to design lessons that drew on students’ prior knowledge and experiences and encouraged translanguaging. We report on data gathered during two English language arts periods where the researchers acted as participant observers, collaborating with the teacher in the planning of the lessons, and facilitating small-group discussions among a class of 15 students. We also conducted interviews with the teacher, school principal, and several focal students.

Our methodological approach included analysis of student work and of students’ discussions during the lessons. The transcripts of the lessons and discussions with students were coded for themes, which arose inductively. We then analyzed how the use of translanguaging served the dual purpose of gaining students’ access to English texts and grade-level English language arts tasks, as well as a way to share their own experiences and feelings around school and their own lives.

Students engaged in translanguaging to explain and clarify vocabulary, new concepts, and directions. Negotiating understandings of English words using Spanish, for example, helped them co-construct meanings of new terms. In addition to demonstrating their comprehension, students used translanguaging to express themselves in conversations around the texts. These conversations were inspired by the texts, but extended past them, and enabled students to discuss the content in relation to their own lives and experiences. Translanguaging was more than a scaffold to English but a way of releasing students’ voices and enabling them to bring their whole selves into the classroom (García & Leiva, 2014). Examples of students’ translanguaging will be presented and discussed.

The lessons we observed let students be themselves as they interacted, languaged, and learned on their own terms. Classroom which are responsive to students’ needs and flexible in their approach to language create a “safe space” for emergent bilinguals. Students used features of both languages to participate in conversations and analysis of texts, which made those conversations more complex and allowed students to demonstrate their understandings. They also used translanguaging to navigate the socioemotional aspects of the work. Because the texts were related to their own lives, students were able to navigate the emotions they brought up and express themselves to one another, which helped them form a supportive community.

Authors

• Kate Seltzer, The City University of New York

• Brian A. Collins, Hunter College - CUNY