Exploring Preservice Teacher Decision-Making on Translanguaging: A Comparative Study of Monolingual and Bilingual Groups

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Abstract

This study examines the decision-making processes of 262 preservice teachers concerning a 4th-grade student’s Spanish-English translingual writing. Participants include 145 English monolingual and 117 Spanish-English bilingual undergraduate students from two teacher preparation programs. Initially, we hypothesized that linguistic profiles would influence teachers’ decision-making, with bilingual teachers more favorably and correctly assessing the student’s translanguaging. However, no significant differences were found between the two groups’ responses across most decision-making questions. Surprisingly, monolingual teachers showed even higher accuracy in attributing translanguaging. These results prompt further investigation into factors influencing preservice teachers’ decision-making processes, such as the traditional emphasis on English-only literacy development for emergent bilinguals in teacher education and K-12 education, as well as potential biases that may intervene in survey studies.

Authors

• Sumin Lim, Hunter College

• Hari Jang, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Gregory Cheatham, University of Kansas