Translanguaging in a culturally and linguistically diverse Mandarin FLES program

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Translanguaging Myths in World Language Education: What’s the Real Story and the Future?

Abstract

1. Objectives
This study explores translanguaging practices in a K–5 Mandarin Foreign Language in Elementary School (FLES) program in the United States. Specifically, it investigates how a Mandarin teacher enacts translanguaging practices in two fourth-grade Mandarin classrooms and examines the affordances these practices provide for her culturally and linguistically diverse students.
2. Theoretical framework
The study is informed by translanguaging theory, a poststructuralist reconceptualization of language that challenges traditional monolingual ideologies. Translanguaging is conceptualized as fluid and dynamic, recognizing how multilingual individuals flexibly draw on their entire linguistic repertoires in meaningful ways (García & Li, 2014). This perspective foregrounds multilingual, multimodal, and multisemiotic aspects of communication, including linguistic elements along with visual, spatial, and embodied resources (Li, 2018).
3. Methods
Employing an ethnographic case study approach (Stake, 2005), the research analyzed translanguaging practices within the bounded context of two fourth-grade Mandarin classrooms at a culturally and linguistically diverse public magnet school. Ethnographic techniques facilitated close analysis of classroom interactions within broader sociolinguistic contexts, highlighting teacher-student interactions and student engagement.
4. Data sources
Data included 54 hours of classroom video recordings, extensive field notes from participant observations conducted twice weekly over nine months, seven semi-structured teacher interviews, and classroom artifacts such as student work and instructional materials. Key speech events were identified and transcribed multimodally to capture translanguaging practices and, supported by ethnographic data, to examine their impact over time (Wortham, 2006; Wortham & Reyes, 2015).
5. Results
The teacher enacted translanguaging through purposeful pedagogical moves that integrated English, Spanish, Pinyin, Mandarin and other Chinese varieties into classroom instruction. These practices expanded the range of legitimate classroom language use and challenged traditional hierarchies that privilege the “standard” target language. Translanguaging was facilitated through multimodal, multisensory resources such as visual aids, gestures, and multilingual teaching artifacts. These practices were particularly effective during Chinese word study, as they allowed the teacher to transform the orthography instruction into embodied storytelling rather than relying on rote memorization. Through the translanguaging space created, students expressed their ideas in creative, agentive ways. Translanguaging also created meaningful opportunities to affirm and elevate students’ multilingual identities, especially for those whose home languages are often marginalized in schools. For example, by publicly celebrating Bruno, a newcomer Latinx student’s use of Mandarin and by consistently weaving his home language Spanish into whole-class instruction, the teacher affirmed students’ multilingual identities and reinforced the legitimacy and value of their linguistic backgrounds. The findings demonstrate that when implemented strategically and purposefully, translanguaging can work in tandem with extensive target language exposure to support language development and learner agency.
6. Scholarly significance
This study contributes to translanguaging scholarship by offering empirical evidence from U.S. K–12 world language classrooms, a context previously underrepresented in translanguaging research. The findings suggest a need to revisit the rigid interpretation of the 90% target language use guideline and underscore the potential of translanguaging to provide access for young learners without English proficiency to meaningful world language instruction.

Authors

• Xinyue Lu, Howard University

• Zhongfeng Tian, Rutgers University - Newark