Teaching Language for Justice: Introducing Translanguaging in an Undergraduate TESOL Course

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: Promoting Social Justice and Equity in Language and Literacy Learning

Abstract

With growing diversity in our schools and grave threats to public education, it is vitally important to think critically about what justice looks like in schools and how to build inclusive learning environments. This presentation reports on a collaborative, qualitative study of the pedagogical and theoretical implications of introducing translanguaging as a way to affirm language and culture in an undergraduate TESOL course. From analysis of student work, findings showed the students’ need to define language and their ways of combining learning and teaching about language. The authors argue that implementing translanguaging in the classroom (a) affirms all language speakers, (b) dismantles power in the classroom, and (c) shifts focus away from English learning and more onto emergent language learning.

Authors

• Elizabeth Anne Robinson, Suffolk University

• Zhongfeng Tian, Boston College

• Tiffany Corin Martinez, Columbia University

• Aybahar Qarqeen, Suffolk University