Say It in Your Language: Supporting Translanguaging in Multilingual Classes

Abstract

Emergent bilingual students draw on their linguistic repertoires, moving fluidly between named languages and varieties to meet communicative ends. However, these translanguaging abilities are often not supported in English‐dominant school settings. The author proposes six design principles that educators can use to create instructional strategies that support emergent bilinguals’ translanguaging in the classroom. The author then describes an instructional activity that was created and implemented following the design principles. During this activity, second‐grade emergent bilingual students used tablets to record and share multilingual e‐books. As a result, not only were students’ translanguaging abilities supported, but students were also able to create bilingual written texts and develop strategies to effectively translate for one another.

Translingual Practice, Strategic Participation, and Meaning-Making

“…Hollins (2015) points out, however, even as classrooms change, the teaching force remains “largely white and monolingual” (p. 13), suggesting ideological, structural, and pedagogical challenges faced by teachers who do not share cultural and linguistic backgrounds with their students. Furthermore, though multilingual pedagogies can support students across content areas and grade levels, scant research has investigated how “monolingual” teachers might include resources coded in languages other than English in their instruction (see Iddings, Risko, & Rampulla, 2009; Pacheco & Miller, 2015; L. W. Rowe, 2018).…”

Teachers’ misunderstandings about hybrid language use: Insights into teacher education

“…To help teachers truly enact these ideas, we recommend asking teachers, multilingual and monolingual alike, to (1) watch for, notice, and explicitly plan for hybrid language scenarios within their classrooms and other multilingual contexts; (2) create classrooms in which students can access advanced content while using all their language resources (García, Johnson, & Seltzer, ); (3) analyze the language expertise that students demonstrate; and (4) work to restructure their classrooms so as to promote students’ linguistic and academic development through access to full linguistic resources. Teachers might achieve some of these goals by drawing from practitioner‐oriented accounts of teachers supporting hybrid language practices in the classroom (Nash, Panther, & Arce‐Boardman, ; Rowe, ), and by becoming active participants in testing and developing theory, conducting classroom‐based inquiry, and thus arriving at their own informed understandings.…”

Emergent Bilinguals’ Use of Word Prediction Software Amid Digital Composing

“…These findings demonstrate the relative effectiveness of this type of software during the writing process for students of various ages, culminating in the need for further research. Although we know that young children learn in different ways from older students, the use of word prediction software is worthy of investigation within early learning contexts, given existing research showing the various ways technology supports the writing development of emergent bilinguals (Rowe, 2018, 2020; Rowe & Miller, 2016). This study addresses this gap through highlighting various implications for usage of word prediction software to support emergent bilingual composing practices in early childhood.…”