Pedagogical Translanguaging and Its Application to Language Classes

Abstract

Pedagogical translanguaging refers to the use of different planned strategies based on activating students’ resources from their whole linguistic repertoire . The aim of this article is to examine the theoretical foundations of pedagogical translanguaging and its application in the classroom. The core characteristics of pedagogical translanguaging will be discussed in relation to the languages, students and programmes. Pedagogical translanguaging embraces different practices, but they all share the characteristic of being planned by the teacher with a pedagogical purpose and using resources from the students’ whole linguistic repertoire. In this way it is different from spontaneous translanguaging. Translanguaging practices aim at activating the students’ multilingual and multimodal repertoires so that they can benefit from their own multilingualism. Translanguaging practices can have strong or weak forms depending on the degree of pedagogical intervention that takes place in the process of learning and the use of two or more languages in the same class session. Some strong translanguaging practices use resources from different languages in the same class so as to develop metalinguistic awareness, while other weaker forms are based on the cross-linguistic coordination of activities carried out in different classes. The article will also discuss the challenges that the implementation of pedagogical translanguaging poses for language teachers.

Translanguaging as EFL Teaching Method

“…Building from Gorter (2020, 2022), although translanguaging as a pedagogical tool originated from Wales, it is still one of its variants and there can be many more, taking into account that from translanguaging perspective the boundaries between languages are soft and it incorporates the entire linguistic repertoire in the teaching process. In sum, "Pedagogical translanguaging refers to the use of different planned strategies based on activating students' resources from their whole linguistic repertoire" (Cenoz & Gorter, 2022).…”

Translanguaging in Language Teaching and Learning: Current Practices and Future Directions

“…However, we also need to understand that the process and results in terms of how translanguaging could facilitate learning is complicated. Cenoz and Gorter (2022) also mentioned some challenges of pedagogical translanguaging in practice because language teachers may perceive them differently. Apart from various attitudes from the teachers, the struggle of applying translanguaging in language teaching and learning is also related to various policy initiatives, and the implementation of translanguaging should be understood with due consideration of institutional policies and national or state policies regarding the medium of instruction, such as English as a medium of instruction (EMI), to further unravel the complexity of translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy in relation to its effectiveness in application (Fang and Liu, 2020;Paulsrud et al, 2021;Sah and Kubota, 2022).…”

Translanguaging genre pedagogy: implications for teaching business communication in the Greater Bay Area

“…(2022) 7:32 Similar to the developments of genre theory and pedagogy, translanguaging has also emerged as both a practical theory of human communication (W. Li, 2018) and a promising new educational pedagogical approach that has the transformative potential to help teachers make classrooms more equitable for language-minoritized students (Tian et al, 2022). According to Cenoz and Gorter (2022), pedagogical translanguaging refers to 'the use of different planned strategies based on activating students' resources from their whole linguistic repertoire' . As a pedagogical approach, translanguaging has three core premises (Vogel & Garcia, 2017): (1) individuals select and deploy features from a unitary linguistic repertoire to communicate (representing the 'strong' view of 'translanguaging' by Garcia & Lin, 2016); (2) a perspective on bi and multilingualism that privileges speakers' own dynamic linguistic and semiotic practices above the named languages of nations and states, thus breaking and transcending boundaries; and (3) recognizes the material effects of socially constructed named language categories and structuralist language ideologies, especially for minoritized language speakers.…”