Teaching Through the Lens of the Transformative Stance: Envisioning Teachers’ “Trans” Perspective in Diverse Classrooms

• In Event: Insights and Innovations for Supporting Emergent Bi-/Multilingual Learners

Abstract

Employing the three “trans” concepts – translanguaging, transnationalism, and transculturalism – that contribute to comprehending complex multilingual/multicultural individuals, communities, and society in a current diverse world as a theoretical framework, the present study explores four teachers in mainstream classrooms provide transformative learning spaces in their racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse classrooms in the Southwest Region of the U.S. The findings show that the teachers reshaped their views on students’ translanguaging performance, prepared their lessons from the “trans” perspectives (i.e., offering translanguaging spaces, utilizing students’ transnational/transcultural funds of knowledge), and challenged current mainstream discourses by disrupting monolithic conceptions within their multilingual/multicultural classroom dynamics. The study implies that teachers in mainstream classrooms where monoglossic and monocultural norms prevail can build a transformative learning space.

Author

• Chaehyun Lee, Southeastern Oklahoma State University