How can elementary classroom teachers
with different linguistic repertoires and linguistically diverse student populations support translanguaging approaches
across context areas?
Based on analysis of a Census Bureau data for 2018, there are 67.3 million residents in the United States who speak a language other than English at home (Zeigler & Camarota, 2019). These diverse populations are also reflected within our classrooms. Therefore, it is important, now more than ever, to embrace linguistic diversity and show our students that their languages and cultures are valued in the school community.
How are we, as teachers, acknowledging our students’ diverse cultures and languages?
How are we making them visible within the school and the curriculum as assets instead of deficits?
How can we incorporate their prior knowledge to help them grow academically, socially, and cognitively?
Translanguaging is a key tool that addresses these inquiries.
Translanguaging refers to the way in which students make meaning using their full linguistic repertoire. It is important that teachers offer opportunities for students to use their full linguistic repertoire in the classroom to show what they know and to make meaning of new concepts they are learning. We chose this topic to learn more about the ways that teachers can support translanguaging practices in their classrooms with linguistically diverse students.
We chose to present our learnings in the form of a website because this platform allows the content to be interactive. It also permits us to make information accessible for our readers while incorporating various multimodal “texts”.
Literacy
For my research, I chose three scholarly articles as my resources. Two of the three articles are cross-case analysis of classrooms with linguistically diverse student populations and teachers ranging from monolinguals to bilinguals of varying abilities. The third article allowed for a deep and thorough exploration of the use of translanguaging in literacy classrooms. Thus, they provide a deep insight on how translanguaging can be successfully implemented across all these contexts. The resources also provided some very practical tips that could be immediately implemented in our classrooms and were transferable across contexts. These tips ranged from instructional strategies such as modeling and mentor texts as well as community to involvement. They also raised some important questions that made me reflect on my own teaching practices.
STEM
I chose three scholarly articles as resources for STEM learning supported by translanguaging practices. I looked for research that supports the learning of each STEM category, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Much of the research I have found takes place in bilingual/ dual language programs, however the ideas present in this research can be transferred to teaching practices within primarily monolingual classrooms with emerging bilingual students. The three studies that I chose, take place in English and Spanish dual language STEM classrooms. These resources provide insight to what translanguaging practices teachers can use in STEM classrooms to support their bilingual students learning and literacy in STEM.
Socioemotional
Learning
In searching for my resources, I looked for scholarly articles that provided insight to how translanguaging could be used not only to make academic content more accessible, but to make social emotional learning more accessible as well. Each of the resources I selected conducted studies in classrooms where translanguaging was used in a way that helped students to express their emotions, support their peers, and feel empowered. Though the context, grade-level, and linguistic diversity of the classrooms varied, the teachers in these classrooms deliberately made spaces for translanguaging to occur and deepened student learning by creating opportunities for students to feel validated, supported, and empowered.
Teachers can support translanguaging approaches across content areas through:
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Multilingual resources for students to complete research
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Offering questions and explanations in students’ languages
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Opportunities for students to show what they know other than writing or speaking
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Grouping students by linguistic repertoires
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Opportunities for students to express emotions, share personal connections regarding content, and support one another
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Opportunities for student participation
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Resisting historical and cultural positioning of English monolingualism and empowering students by repositioning heritage languages
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Multimodal presentation of content (Ex: videos, texts that use translanguaging)
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Inviting family and community members to step in as experts and valuable resources to teach about various cultural and linguistic practices.