Translanguaging in Teacher Education Through Community Walks and Student-Created Texts

• In Event: 61.028 - Counteracting Monolingualism in Preservice Teacher Education Through Translanguaging

Abstract

Objectives & purpose
Research documenting translanguaging in K-16 classrooms has been overwhelmingly positive, demonstrating how leveraging students’ linguistic repertoires can make content more comprehensible. Despite the explosion in translanguaging scholarship, research still lacks a significant focus on how translanguaging should be taught and modeled to future teachers. The purpose of this paper is to provide concrete examples of translanguaging at play in teacher preparation programs. The authors draw on their experiences in teacher preparation in New York City, Puerto Rico and the United Arab Emirates to provide concrete examples of how teacher trainers can model translanguaging practices and unpack deep-seated language ideologies that often challenge the use of translanguaging in post-secondary education.

Theoretical framework
This paper is grounded in sociocultural theory and adopts a language-as-a-resource orientation (Ruiz, 1984). As researchers and teacher educators, we value the diverse linguistic and cultural practices that students bring into the classroom. Aligned with funds of knowledge work (González et al., 2005), we advocate going into the community and learning from the cultural and linguistic realities of our students. García’s (2009) work on translanguaging has also been instrumental in shaping how we view language and the potential for translanguaging to empower students as an act of social justice.

Methods
This paper uses data from one of the author’s multilingual education courses where 15 undergraduate, pre-service teachers were enrolled. Community walks and student-created texts were used as activities to engage students in the cultural and linguistic realities of a community. Data collection included field notes from the teacher educator, linguistically and culturally relevant texts created by students, and student reflections on the two activities.

Data sources
The teacher educator first searched for cultural and linguistic artifacts in the community. In New York City, he brought his students to a quinceanera dress shop, a stand with bilingually labeled fruits and vegetables used in Dominican households, a bakery with multilingual menus, a store with baptism clothing, a store playing merengue and bachata music, a bagel cart and a bodega with Spanish and English signage. Afterwards, students discussed the importance of culturally and linguistically relevant texts and then adapted well-known fairy tales to reflect the lived experiences of children in the community.

Results
The community walks and student-created texts were well received by students. Findings from teacher trainer field notes and student reflections in both classes demonstrate that community walks and student-created texts heightened students’ awareness of the diverse linguistic and cultural realities of children in the community and the need to bring these experiences to the classroom. In addition, students creatively integrated artifacts from community walks into the storylines of well-known fairy tales.

Scholarly significance
This paper contributes to the dearth of literature that documents how translanguaging practices are modeled in teacher preparation programs. Through concrete examples that are applicable to teacher preparation programs in contexts as diverse as New York City or as seemingly homogenous as San Juan, Puerto Rico, we argue that future teachers must be armed with the necessary theoretical and practical skills to implement translanguaging pedagogies.

Authors

• Kevin S. Carroll, UPR Rio Piedras

• Kevin M. Wong, Pepperdine University