FNED Post #10: Translanguaging

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As a general education English teacher, I have to intentionally try to identify the ways in which other languages occur in my classroom, since it is not the norm. I find pockets of Spanish come through in my classroom when students get emotional - upset or excited, frustrated or unsure. It comes through in exclamations and derogatory slang words. But even knowing that a majority of my students are Latinx and bilingual, I did not purposefully ever implant Spanish (or any other language besides English) into my teaching practice, and I wonder, should I? Does translanguaging have a place inside a conventionally "English-only" general education classroom? I certainly think it can.

I enjoyed the CUNY NYSIEB series on teaching emergent bilingual students, even if you are not bilingual yourself. I wonder if, in a way, this series is intended to recruit more teachers for the ever-growing number of emergent bilingual students in our classrooms who may otherwise be hesitant or nervous that they are not bilingual themselves. I have often heard the sentiment from other teachers that ELL/ESL classes (as they are still referred to as in Providence) can only work if the teacher knows Spanish. But what about other students whose primary language is still not Spanish? It would be a tremendous undertaking to ensure that all teachers of emergent bilingual populations know every language they are to encounter on their rosters. The teachers in these videos all exemplified successfully teaching emergent bilinguals without knowing other languages by incorporating culturally-relevant model texts, allowing students to brainstorm/freewrite in their home language before writing in English, and incorporating various languages into the essence of their classroom community (I loved seeing instructions and signage displayed  in 3 or more languages!).

As I move into my second year (hopefully) of teaching 9th grade general English, I want to think more intentionally about how I can incorporate translanguaging into my teaching practice, since the goal of bilingualism is an important one, for everyone.

Comments

  1. Heidi FoxApril 1, 2018 at 7:58 AM

    Hi Cristina,

    I really enjoyed watching the CUNY NYSIEB web series too. Even though I don't do any formal teaching in my school I feel that I learned something from the example made by these educators of embracing the innate vulnerability associated with teaching bilingual students when you are not yourself bilingual. It seems like because translanguaging occurs in your English classroom, and you provide a space for it to occur, you are providing culturally responsive teaching. As you said, I don't see why there shouldn't be a place for it in a conventionally English-only classroom because it provides a means for students to understand and express ideas in their native language before doing so in standard English. It seems like this will only empower their learning.

    Best, Heidi

    ReplyDelete

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