Translanguaging as a Tool to Transgress: Bilingual Teachers Negotiate and Resist Inflexible Language Policy

• In Event: 18.040 - Translanguaging Pedagogies Shaping Language Policy and Program Design Toward Educational Opportunity for Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

Translanguaging pedagogies, the intentional use of multiple discursive practices (García, 2008), offer generative possibilities for emergent bilinguals as they make sense of, represent, and investigate their worlds. Central to the enactment of translanguaging are the ways teachers tap the linguistic landscape as they navigate and transform language policy. Language policies and curricular mandates pose tensions for bilingual educators as language policies shape emergent bilingual children’s access to educational opportunities. The teacher role in navigating and mitigating policies impacts children’s linguistic resources and how they are accessed to interact, communicate, and make meaning in bilingual classrooms.

This presentation examines how one dual language bilingual educator negotiated language policies and made curricular space for his second grade emergent bilingual children’s language practices, collaboration, and inquiry. Drawing on a year-long ethnographic study of emergent bilingual children’s participation in a mandated literacy program, this investigation considered the contexts in which language policies were enacted. Data were collected two mornings a week over the course of an academic year in two second grade classrooms in a dual language (Spanish/English) program in a K-8 public school through participant observation, semi-structured interviews with teachers and families, and artifacts of children’s work. Critical sociocultural and multimodal perspectives on language and literacy research (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 1998; Lewis, Enciso, & Moje, 2007) and a dynamic view of bilingualism (García, 2008) informed analysis of teacher enactment of language policies in dual language bilingual classrooms and their impact on emergent bilingual children’s educational opportunities. Data were analyzed in a reiterative process and developed into themes using analytic thematic coding.

Findings suggest that bilingual teachers enacted translanguaging pedagogies strategically to benefit emergent bilingual children. For example, Mr. Díaz described using translanguaging as a tool to increase children's opportunities to connect with and draw on their knowledge and resources. He acknowledged constraints on flexible use of language practices given language policy of the dual language program and curricular mandates. Curricular decision making, even in light of mandates, was impacted by the teacher’s desire to see children succeed and make academic gains. Mr. Díaz, the teacher for the children’s “English days,” enacted instruction with a strategic, flexible approach appropriate to language development in English, Spanish, and in harnessing both languages. His intentional use of translanguaging created openings to connect with children and draw on their multilingual and multicultural knowledge. He supported children’s co-construction of meaning during word study, class discussions, and read-alouds, and, in doing so, opened opportunities for emergent bilinguals to access the curricular material through use of their linguistic resources.

Teacher knowledge, perspectives, and experience as bilinguals and as bilingual educators informed their use of translanguaging, creating opportunities for children’s linguistic facilities to be developed as valuable resources for engagement and to maximize comprehension and classroom learning. Teachers mitigated rigid policy mandates by resisting inflexible policies and by thoughtfully responding to children. This was exemplified by one teacher’s flexible language practices during discussion, read-alouds, and jointly study language with emergent bilingual children who benefitted from attention to cross-linguistic metalinguistic awareness.

Author

• Lorraine Theresa Falchi, Teachers College, Columbia University