Translanguaging Myths in World Language Education: What’s the Real Story and the Future?

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am - Gold 2

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

Translanguaging is a critical and socially just pedagogical and linguistic paradigm that acknowledges and leverages culturally and linguistically diverse students’ full linguistic and semiotic repertoires to successfully access and transform academic spaces. While the potential of translanguaging is widely affirmed in TESOL and bilingual educational spaces, there is resistance within world language education to this perspective. This symposium first presents a framework to re-envision world language education through the lens of translanguaging and then shares the work of three groups of scholars who have contextualized strategic and purposeful implementation and theorization of translanguaging pedagogy within world language contexts. It strives to confront the myths, inconsistencies, and false assumptions that stymy world language educators from enacting translanguaging repertoires with their students.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Second Language Research

Chairs

• Nicole King, University of Rhode Island

• Zhongfeng Tian, Rutgers University - Newark

Papers

• Translanguaging Myths Deconstructed and Reconstructed - Nicole King, University of Rhode Island; Zhongfeng Tian, Rutgers University - Newark

• Translanguaging in a culturally and linguistically diverse Mandarin FLES program - Xinyue Lu, Howard University; Zhongfeng Tian, Rutgers University - Newark

• “Context matters!”: A cross-national comparative study on world language teachers’ perceptions and practices of translanguaging - Ying Xiong, Pennsylvania State University

• (Trans)bordering as Pedagogy in World Language Education - Gengqi Xiao, University of Wisconsin-Madison; L.J. Randolph, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Session Organizer

• Nicole King, University of Rhode Island

Discussant

• Li Wei, UCL Institute of Education