Documenting Translanguaging as a Culturally Relevant and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy in Dual-Language Bilingual Education

• In Event: Translanguaging in Various Classroom Settings: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Anti-racist pedagogy is critical in dual-language bilingual education (DLBE). Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy (CLRP) can counter deficit-based perceptions of racialized multilingual learners (MLs), and disrupt structures of language and power (Ladson-Billings, 2022; Paris & Alim, 2017). Translanguaging is a linguistically responsive pedagogy that, in its strongest forms, can meet the tenets of CLRP (García, 2009). This research documents affirmative examples of translanguaging as CLRP in DLBE classrooms. Data includes classroom observations and pre- and post-observation interviews of ten DLBE teachers. Content analysis highlighted examples of translanguaging pedagogy as CLRP. Teachers did so by: (a) teaching for linguistic and cultural variation; (2) teaching as a co-learner; (3) teaching to disrupt raciolinguistic ideologies. Practical examples and related tensions of each are presented.

Author

• Kevin Donley, Georgetown University