Polylingual and polycultural learning ecologies: Mediating emergent academic literacies for dual language learners

Abstract

In this article, we examine the affordances of polylingual and polycultural learning ecologies in expanding the linguistic repertoires of children, particularly young Dual Language Learners. In contrast to settings that promote the development of English and academic language at the expense of maintaining and developing home language, we argue that the social organization of learning should privilege participation in dynamic, hybrid literacy practices. Children are often more likely to experiment with English and academic genres, while also taking on powerful identities as learners and language users, when formal and informal modes of communication are leveraged, multimodality and language-crossing encouraged and the use of both home and academic vernaculars promoted within a context that values social relationships and the playful imagination. We argue that children’s literacy practices develop in particular social and ‘located’ relationships, and we examine one such after-school setting designed with these principles in mind, the long-standing UC Links/Las Redes partnership, where home languages and intercultural experiences are unmarked and necessarily integral to participating in the shared practices of the community. We highlight the affordance of one common practice of the community, children s communication with the mythical cyber wizard, El Maga (sic), and the ways this practice strategically draws on students full linguistic toolkits in order to invite them to integrate modes and genres of communication that challenge the divide between everyday and school-based literacies, stretching children beyond their current levels of literacy development.

“What Do You Want to Say?” How Adolescents Use Translanguaging to Expand Learning Opportunities

“…Within an institutional context (U.S. public high school) that privileges the use of English, the LA program aimed to create a Third Space (Gutiérrez, Bien, Selland, & Pierce, 2011) co-constructed by students engaged in multilingual literacy practices in which students' wider linguistic repertoires-beyond a standard variety of English-became tools for participating and making meaning in the activities. We found evidence of students bridging discourses, navigating boundaries, and appropriating new knowledge within a space of expanded learning.…”

Reframing the Debate on Language Separation: Toward a Vision for Translanguaging Pedagogies in the Dual Language Classroom

“…Future research needs to explore these important questions. A response to Cummins's () call to action for developing bilingual instructional strategies for heritage speakers will contribute to the conversation of how practitioners, researchers, and local community members (e.g., parents and school administrators) act as agentive actors in mediating learning ecologies (Gutiérrez et al, ). Further investigation of classroom learning ecologies will contribute to our understanding about “how and why pedagogic bilingual practices come to be legitimated and accepted by participants” (Creese & Blackledge, , p. 113).…”

“…One proposed approach involves using translanguaging practices as academic tools for language and literacy teaching (Creese & Blackledge, ; García, ; Gutiérrez et al, ; Martínez, ; Tamati, ). Creese and Blackledge () refer to translanguaging as a form of pedagogy practitioners can use in bilingual contexts.…”

The Western Sydney Rustbelt: Recognizing and Building on Strengths in Pre-service Teacher Education

“…We consider a form of learning that links preservice teachers' and students' personal, social and cultural contexts outside of the university and classroom, for example, by using students' first language to facilitate and enable second language learning. In this way we can challenge the divide between every day and schoolbased literacies and instead exploit the ways schools-based and everyday knowledges can grow into one another to enhance learning (Gutiérrez, Bien, Selland & Pierce, 2011). The construction of 'third space' for pre-service teachers' learning occurs as they become pedagogically reflexive and reflective, and develop relevant and meaningful curricula and classroom practices and assessments for their students that transform the classroom space to one where teachers and students co-create the "lived Spaces of Representation" (Soja,p.10).…”