Dynamic Translanguaging Progressions: Extending Language Development Standards to Better Understand Emergent Bilinguals' Language Practices

• In Event: 42.058 - Developing Linguistically Responsive Standards-Based Reform for English Learners

Abstract

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) assume that standards have to be met in English and in what have been defined as the standard features of English. State-sanctioned language development standards and progressions make the same assumption. In this paper I propose the idea that the purpose of bilingual education for emergent bilinguals should include a better understanding of the complexity of each student’s bilingual practices. This construct is a flexible model that teachers can use to look holistically at the differentiated dynamic bilingualism of each bilingual student in their classes.

When you put translanguaging into the progressions mix, the possibilities of linguistic achievements go beyond simple monolingual performances using only standard features. When we evaluate bilingual students’ language practices using the dynamic translanguaging progressions, we understand that language does not simply develop or progress along a linear, unidirectional path in relatively fixed levels or stages. Instead we understand language performance to include different dimensions that must be viewed separately. The two dimensions of language performance are the following:
1. General linguistic performance. Bilingual speakers, to show what they can do, deploy any of the features in their entire language repertoires to accomplish language and content-specific tasks.
2. Language-specific performance. Bilingual speakers, to show what they know and can do, deploy only the features in their language repertoires that correspond to the language of the content-specific task, and produce only standard language features—although they leverage their entire language repertoires in the process.
The dynamic translanguaging progressions proposed in this paper offer a different approach to language development than we have seen in state-sanctioned English language proficiency standards and assessment systems. For example, rather than focus exclusively on the ELD of students who are officially designated as ELs, teachers can use the dynamic translanguaging progressions with all bilingual students, including those who schools may simply see as English speakers. In contrast to a view of language development as a relatively linear, stage-like, and unidirectional process, the dynamic translanguaging progressions allow teachers to capture the complexity of students’ holistic bilingual performances on different tasks, at different times, from different perspectives. Instead of viewing the home language of an emergent bilingual as an important scaffold for learning at the beginning stages of ELD, teachers see translanguaging as appropriate to demonstrate skilled linguistic performance.

If we are interested in gauging what students can do with language to accomplish content-specific tasks, and if we understand translanguaging as characteristic of linguistic performances of all bilinguals, then translanguaging has to be considered a valid way of demonstrating linguistic virtuosity and content understanding. Teachers can use the dynamic translanguaging progressions to evaluate bilingual students’ performances in different academic tasks at school over time. Over the longer term, the dynamic translanguaging progressions can be used to gather empirical evidence that illustrates how translanguaging works in different multilingual settings, and to document the degree to which translanguaging can mobilize and accelerate learning.

Author

• Susana Ibarra Johnson, New Mexico State University