Translanguaging in Five Heritage Language Learning Spaces: Challenges and Affordances for Both Teachers and Learners

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium explores translanguaging as a linguistically and culturally sustaining practice and pedagogy in heritage language education in both community-based and mainstream learning contexts. This session connects five presentations focused on Bangla, Chinese, Arabic, and Korean heritage language communities, demonstrating how translanguaging nurtures linguistic development, challenges dominant language ideology as a decolonizing project (Li & García, 2022), affirms identities, and sustains cultural knowledge. By highlighting diverse teacher and student experiences, the session deepens our understanding of translanguaging in language and literacy education. Moreover, this panel explores meaningful ways for reciprocal learning by creating bridges between diverse learning contexts. Finally, by centering historically marginalized language communities in North American contexts, this panel envisions a more inclusive and equitable future for education research.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Bilingual Education Research

Chairs

• Sudhashree Girmohanta, University of Toronto - OISE

• Jiadi Zhang, University of Missouri - St. Louis

Papers

• Dismantling Existing Language Hierarchy and Enhancing Heritage Language Attitudes Amongst Ontario’s Immigrant Youths Through Translanguaging - Sudhashree Girmohanta, University of Toronto - OISE

• Cultivating Translanguaging Space: Teachers' Stance, Pedagogical Design, and Students' Agency in a Three-Year Ethnography - Jiadi Zhang, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Teacher Ideologies and Transdialecting Pedagogies in an Arabic Heritage Community School - Yousra Abourehab, University of Arizona

• Creating a Hybrid Learning Space Through Translanguaging in a Heritage Language Classroom for Korean-American Students - Chaehyun Lee, Southeastern Oklahoma State University

• “I feel weird when I speak हिन्दी …”: Translanguaging, resistance, and multimodality in elementary classrooms - Harini Rajagopal, University of British Columbia

Session Organizer

• Sudhashree Girmohanta, University of Toronto - OISE

Discussant

• Shakina Rajendram, University of Toronto