Cultivating Bi/multilingual Learners' Full Range of Knowledge(s) and Skill(s): The Promise of Translanguaging Spaces

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Many scholars have contributed to the development of translanguaging theory and pedagogies in recent years (García et al., 2017; Hornberger & Link, 2012; Lopez et al., 2017; Tian, 2021). As a sociolinguistic and practical framework, translanguaging privileges bilinguals’ own dynamic practices above named languages (Otheguy et al., 2015) by inviting us to think beyond the artificial boundaries of societal languages in the language-of-thought (Li, 2018). Researchers in this symposium draw upon translanguaging theory to explore the dynamic learning spaces carved out by bilingual learners and educators in informal and formal learning environments. Collaboratively, the researchers seek to understand how translanguaging spaces create pedagogical opportunities for cultivating and sustaining bilingual learners’ full range of linguistic skills and literacy knowledges.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Bilingual Education Research

Chair

• Xiaochen Du, Jump! Immersion School

Papers

• Translingual and Transnational Literacy Practices in Out-of-School Translanguaging Spaces - Tairan Qiu, University of Georgia - Athens

• Reimagining Binary Framings of Learning/ers in Two-Way Bilingual Education - Laura Hamman-Ortiz, University of Northern Colorado

• Translanguaging in a Mandarin Dual-Language Classroom - Xiaodi Zhou, The University of Texas - Brownsville

• How a Secondary EFL Classroom Can Be a Translanguaging Space - Eun Young Yeom, University of Georgia - Athens

• Challenging the Monolingual Norm in China's EFL Education: One English Teacher's Translanguaging Instinct and Practices - Xiaochen Du, Jump! Immersion School; Zexu Xi, University of Florida