The authors trace the development of the concept of translanguaging, focusing on its relation to literacies. The authors describe its connection to literacy studies, with particular attention to bi/multilingual reading and writing. Then, the authors present the development of translanguaging as a sociolinguistic theory, discuss its formulations, and describe what is unique about translanguaging: its beginnings and grounding in educational practice and attention to the performances of multilinguals. The authors argue that multilingualism and bi/multiliteracies cannot be fully understood as simply the use of separate conventionally named languages or separate modes. Instead, translanguaging in literacies focuses on the actions of multilingual readers and writers, which go beyond traditional understandings of language, literacy, and other concepts, such as bi/multilingualism and bi/multilingual literacy. The authors show how multilinguals do language and literacy and how they do so in school. The authors review case studies that demonstrate how a translanguaging literacies framework is used to deepen multilingual students’ understandings of texts, generate students’ more diverse texts, develop students’ sense of confianza (confidence) in performing literacies, and foster critical metalinguistic awareness. The authors end by discussing implications for literacy pedagogy, as well as literacy research, that centers multilingual students.
This study examined prekindergarten children's process of learning a commonly occurring classroom discourse structure, an instructional exchange consisting of three moves: teacher solicitation, student response, and teacher reaction. Six children were videotaped as they interacted with their teachers during the first 7 weeks of school. The children ranged in age from 2 to 4 years and spoke different languages (English, Chinese, and Korean). The 2-year-olds were unable to participate in the structure with their teachers. The 3-and 4-year-olds were observed to learn the structure quickly and to adjust to the following rules: (I) the teacher chooses the topic and initiates the interaction; (2) the pupil must respond, but only with permission; and (3) the teacher has the last word, reacting to the responses. Children's success in learning the structure was due to maturity and sociocultural factors rather than to native language ability. Nonnative-English-speaking 3-and 4-year-olds could participate successfully, in spite of the fact that they did not speak the language of their teacher.
This study reports on successful and unsuccessful efforts at communication between teachers and students who do not share a common language. A topdown processing model is proposed to account for the phenomena, with scripts the highest level and code the lowest. Significantly, commonalities in scripts allowed Interpretation of meaning with minimal understanding of linguistic forms. Conversely, communication was impeded by cultural differences in scripts for school, including setting, roles and responsibilities, activity organization, curriculum sequence and content, and rules/expectations for behavior. The structure of classroom interaction provided constraints on intentions and expectations which facilitated communication in this setting. l. IntroductionAnalytic differentiation of the elcments that enter into communication is perhaps most difffcult when all participants share the same language, background, and sociocultural norms for Interpretation, and when nothing Out of the ordinary' occurs in interaction which calls attention to itself. For this reason, we decided to study a Situation that involved communication among participants who did not share a common language or culture. In this way we hoped to set into relief those elements that entered into the successful negotiation or breakdown of communication.The setting which we chose for research was a public elementary school serving large numbers of students from other countries who are the children of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois. While all the 0165-4888/86/0006-0207 $2.00 Text 6(2) (1986), pp. 207-221 © Mouton de Gruyter, Amsterdam Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 4:48 AM Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 4:48 AM Cross-cultural communication in elementary classrooms 209aspect of communicative behavior. Paradoxically, however, perhaps because they are also generally obvious to other participants in a communicative event, we have found that they appear least likely to interfere with successful communication in any serious or prolonged way.As for the middle level, structure, successful interaction between teachers and their limited English-speaking students appeared to be heavily dependent on shared structures of communication, including mutual recognition of the tripartite Initiation-Response-Feedback cycle that is characteristic of 'teacher talk' (see Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975). Classroom discourse structure, however, was learned very quickly, and the only evidence we have found for failure to recognize and adhere to the constraints of this structure occurred early in the kindergarten year with children who had had no prior school experience.Before proceeding to our analysis of scripts, we will describe briefly the database from which our examples will be drawn.
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