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Translanguaging is something that multilingual people do naturally, as they use their full linguistic repertoire to process and engage with the world around them. Translanguaging pedagogy aims to uplift and support multilingual languaging practices in a way that de-center English in the classroom and invites students to use all of their languaging practices to make meaning; as students collaborate within a translanguaging community, all students–monolingual and multilingual–benefit from these exchanges (García et al., 2021). To build a translanguaging space is an intentional act, requiring a balance of careful planning and flexibility to embrace what García et al. (2017) refer to as the translanguaging corriente, in which teachers move with the flow of languaging and ideas as students engage in a collaborative, co-learning community (Li, 2023). Translanguaging is also an act of social justice as it pushes back on traditional approaches to U.S. schooling that center English-only methods and rarely welcome multicultural and multilingual communities. In contrast, translanguaging pedagogy centers multilingualism and values the practices of multilingual communities, inviting these language practices and cultures into the classroom space (García et al., 2017; Li, 2023).
Classroom Context
Classroom Context
I teach 9th grade English at Hope High School in Providence, Rhode Island. Hope High School is a public school with an arts and design focus. My class sections are designated as general education, inclusion (co-taught with a Special Educator), and MLL (Multilingual Learner) sections. Hope High School is extremely diverse, and students come from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The predominant cultural backgrounds represented at Hope are Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Guatemalan. The most common language spoken is Spanish, with a growing number of K’iche’ speakers as well. The 9th grade English curriculum is McGraw Hill’s StudySync program, but I make significant adaptations to ensure that texts are culturally responsive and are differentiated and scaffolded appropriately.
For the purposes of this portfolio, I looked back at curricular materials from the 23-24 school year and thought about how I could intentionally adapt and update these materials to support translanguaging pedagogy. While some activities are new, many were updated to support translanguaging in the 24-25 school year more intentionally. This demonstrates how taking on a translanguaging pedagogy does not mean that teachers need to “start from scratch”; it can be done by adapting materials over time, and remaining flexible when implementing these adapted materials so they might be adapted further in response to student input and voice, as I hope will happen in the 24-25 school year as I work to build a translanguaging community in my classroom.
10 Purposes for Pedagogical Translanguaging.pdf10 Purposes for Pedagogical Translanguaging
10 Purposes for Pedagogical Translanguaging
This portfolio is organized acording to the 10 Purposes for Pedagogical Translanguaging:
Hamman, L. & Hesson, S. (2023) 10 Purposes for Pedagogical Translanguaging
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