Preservice Teachers’ Responses to Translanguaging Words in Multicultural Children’s Literature

• In Event: Engaging Literature to Build for Equitable and Just Futures

Abstract

In this study, we examined how pre-service teachers responded to and perceived the pedagogical use of multicultural literature with translanguaging, which is incorporating non-English words spoken by characters. We recruited pre-service teachers from survey-level children’s literature courses we taught at two different State institutions (Northwest and Southwest). Based on the theoretical frameworks such as linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992), reconceptualized translanguaging (Fu, Hadjioannou, & Zhou 2019) and Rosenblatt’s (2005) reader response, we analyzed pre-service teachers’ 20 reflection papers completed after their reading of two translanguaging books. We highlighted two major findings; 1) response to non-English texts as authentic representations of culture and literary elements, and 2) pedagogical use of books with translanguaging.

Authors

• Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico

• Eun Hye Son, Boise State University