This idea comes from Salmerón and Kamphaus' article "Fostering Critical Translingual Writing in an Elementary English Dominant Classroom." Ms. Kamphaus, a fourth grade ESL teacher, encourages students to use their entire linguistic repertoire in their writing. She guides classroom conversations so that students can metacognitively analyze the specific languages used in translingual texts. This also helps students choose language carefully based on the audience they are writing for (Salmerón and Kamphaus, 2021). 

The article explores social justice in translanguaging by critically examining language use across contexts. Ms. Kamphaus’ students act as linguists, analyzing standard English academically while still using their full linguistic repertoire in their own learning and writing. (Salmerón and Kamphaus, 2021). For one assignment, students were assigned to write poems for their families. Ms. Kamphaus encouraged her students to use translanguaging purposefully while writing, because their audience was their family. Salmerón and Kamphaus (2021) also expand the translanguaging pedagogy to include a translanguaging community, which supports a translanguaging pedagogy and provides educators with “[help to] plan instruction and overcome obstacles” (p. 90). When Ms. Kamphaus was planning for instruction, she utilized other educators in her translanguaging community to best support her students. 

I would like to frame my students as linguists as well. This can apply to all subject areas, as students study what type of language is used and when. I would like to give students more opportunities to use translanguaging in their writing too, and not just focus on language-specific assessment. This way, students will be able to see that their own language practices are just as important as the standard English that is taught in schools. In the article, Ms. Kamphaus also creates two anchor charts: "We Are Linguists" and "We Are Writers" (Salmerón and Kamphaus, 2021). By creating a variation of these anchor charts, I am bringing languaging to the forefront of students' minds and helping them to recognize how and when we use languages in different contexts.