Transgressing Bilingual Dualities
Transgressing Monolingualism and Bilingual Dualities:
Translanguaging Pedagogies
Ofelia García, Nelson Flores and Heather Homonoff Woodley
A. Yiakoumetti (ed.). Harnessing Linguistic Variation for Better Education. Peter Lang.
Throughout the world language minorities are most often educated in schools that have been designed for language majorities. Usually they are educated only through the medium of the dominant state language. But even when they are given the opportunity to be educated bilingually, education programs are most often built on models, frameworks and practices that have been designed for schooling language majorities.
Building on what we have learned in a study of successful schools in educating Latino youth who are developing English (García, Flores, Woodley & Chu, 2011), this paper explores the interactions of teachers and students in U.S. public schools for Latino recent immigrants that transgress the monolingual or traditional bilingual model of schooling. We do so by exploring the classroom interaction of teachers and students in these schools through their translanguaging practices; that is, discursive and pedagogical practices that break the hegemony of the dominant language in …show more content…
monolingual classrooms, and the isolation of languages in bilingual classrooms. Before we focus on these classrooms, however, we explore some of the theoretical frameworks that have to be transgressed in order to understand the power that translanguaging holds as a pedagogical practice by offering two theoretical alternatives –– 1) transglossia, and 2) dynamic bilingualism. We also theorize about translanguaging itself, before we look at how it functions in the classroom.
From monolingualism and diglossia to transglossia
Language difference has been the purview of sociolinguistic studies since the mid- 20th century, as studies explore how speakers make linguistic choices in social contexts. But the models that have been used often link one language choice to a speaker’s identity on the basis of the domain in which language is used and the interlocutors (Fishman, 1967; Gumperz, 1982), or on account of social characteristics such as nationality, age, gender, or class (Labov, 1966). In many ways, sociolinguistic models of language choice have been diglossic, positing that one language variety (Ferguson, 1959) or one language (Fishman, 1967) or even one feature (Labov) is used for specific reasons, and that the choice of one feature, one variety, or even one language responds strictly to external characteristics or social contexts that function independently of others. Thus, a common sociolinguistic tenet is that language use is diglossic, meaning that one language variety (Ferguson, 1959) or one language (Fishman, 1964) is used in certain domains (or territories) with specific people and for unique purposes, and that the other language is used for different functions.
A diglossic arrangement has been the pillar of educational practices. In monolingual programs, the dominant language of instruction, often a standard variety is most often kept separate and distinct from the ways in which students use language, and the students’ home language practices are ignored. In bilingual programs, the two languages being used as medium of instruction are also most often kept completely separate. This monolingual or diglossic language use in the classroom was rampant in the 20th century when “speech communities” were understood as stable and homogeneous, reflecting the dominant language ideologies of the time embedded within the nation-state paradigm. Instruction was then usually teacher-centered, and students were given very little freedom to work collaboratively in groups or independently.
In the 21st century, the concept of diglossia has been called into question, as more situations of stable societal multilingualism without functional allocation have been described. Many have used the case of the complex and stable multilingualism of India and many African countries to question diglossic arrangements as the only way to achieve stable bilingualism (see, for example, Mohanty, 2006; Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Pennycook, 2010). In the European Union the promotion of plurilingualism has posited that it is possible to acquire and use different language practices “to varying degrees and for specific purposes” (Council of Europe, 2000). Plurilingualism also connotes that it is possible to use language practices without functional complementarity, and at the same time not threaten home language practices. The spread of English throughout a globalized world has also meant that more groups of people use English without giving up their language practices, and most often use English language practices and other language practices in interrelationship. Advanced technology has made the simultaneous use of multimodalities possible, thus different language practices can be displayed at the same time.
The greater movement of peoples and communication in the 21st century has also made us realize that the concept of a homogenous speech community tied to a national territory is flawed. Instead of “speech communities,” what we have are “communities of practices,” groups of people who interact and communicate regularly. Acquiring different language practices then cannot be the result of transmission of knowledge and of language, but of collaborative social practices in which students try out ideas and actions (Lave and Wenger, 1991), and thus socially construct their learning (Vygotsky, 1978). García (2009) has argued that a stable, and yet dynamic, communicative network in the 21st century, with the many language practices of different transnational groups in functional interrelationship, might be better called “transglossia.” It is then important for schools to create transglossic spaces where students’ multiple language practices in interrelationship can produce integrated knowledge, deep understandings, and coherent identifications and performances as bilinguals.
Transglossia has the potential to release ways of speaking of subaltern groups that have been previously fixed within static language identities and hierarchical language arrangements and that are constrained by the modern/colonial world system. Transglossia can develop what Mignolo (2000) calls “an other tongue,” “the necessary condition for ‘an other thinking’ and for the possibility of moving beyond the defense of national languages and national ideologies. . . ” (p. 249). Transglossia refers to the fluid, yet stable, language practices of groups of people. It questions traditional descriptions built on national ideologies and also interrogates the notion of two languages as autonomous systems (for a critique of the autonomous position of languages’ position, see Makoni & Pennycook, (2007). In the next section we explore how transglossia allows us to construct dynamic understandings of bilingualism.
From subtractive or additive bilingualism to dynamic bilingualism
Bilingualism is often understood as linear. When the norm is monolingualism, groups are subjected to a subtractive form of bilingualism where the “first” language is subtracted, as the “second” language is added (Lambert, 1974). When the norm is a diglossic bilingualism, bilingualism is considered additive, with the “second language” added to the first (Lambert, 1974). But in both traditional conceptions of bilingualism, bilingualism is not anything but a “second language” added to or subtracted from a “first language.” This conceptualization of emergent bilinguals as simply learners of a “second language,” and having a “first language,” a “native language,” a “mother tongue” means that bilingualism in itself is not recognized. One could be a “language learner,” but one cannot be a “bilingual” with a complex linguistic repertoire with features that transcend traditional descriptions of standard grammars. By reifying the concept of a “second language,” the language education field has negated bilingualism. On the other hand, by reifying the concept of a “first” or “native language,” privilege or exclusion is assigned. For example, “native” English speakers are often sought-after in Asian countries as English teachers, often meaning monolingual Americans, English, and Australians, preferably white, with other bilinguals excluded.
Speaking of “mother tongue” Skutnabb-Kangas (1981) points out that depending on the criteria used, the term could mean different things. It could mean, as with “first language,” first learned. But even order of acquisition is problematic for bilinguals, since many bilinguals grow up with complex language practices that cannot be easily assigned to a “first” or “second language;” that is, there is bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) (for more on this topic, see Genesee, 2003; see also De Houwer, 2009). According to Skutnabb-Kangas (1981), a mother tongue could also be, as with “first language,” the language one uses most, or the language one knows best, or the language with which one identifies, or the language with which others identify the speaker. But for bilinguals all of these different criteria could result in different answers or in no answer at all, since it is often impossible for bilinguals to categorize their language practices only as autonomous languages. Regardless of the complexity of criteria, the problem with all of these theoretical formulations is that they insist in shaping bilingualism according to monoglossic classifications of one or another autonomous language, when bilingual practices are a lot more complex and interrelated, especially in the globalized world of today.
The language practices of today’s bilinguals do not respond to an additive or a subtractive model of bilingualism. In today’s flows, language practices are multiple and ever adjusting to the multilingual multimodal terrain of the communicative act; that is, bilingualism is dynamic. A dynamic conceptualization of bilingualism (García, 2009) goes beyond the notion of two autonomous languages, of a first and a second language, and of additive or subtractive bilingualism. Instead, dynamic bilingualism suggests that the language practices of all bilinguals are complex and interrelated; they do not emerge in a linear way. As García (2009) has said, they do not result in either the balanced wheels of two bicycles (as in additive bilingualism) or in a monocycle (as in subtractive bilingualism), but instead bilingualism is like an all-terrain vehicle which adapts to both ridges and craters of communication in uneven terrains (see also, García & Kleifgen, 2010). Dynamic bilingualism sees bilingualism not as two monolithic systems made up of discreet sets of features, but as a series of social linguistic practices that are embedded in a web of complex social relations (for a similar view on literacy practices, see Street, 1984; Pennycook 2010).
Within a dynamic conceptualization of bilingualism, bilinguals are valued for their differing multi-competence (Cook, 2002) because their lives, minds and actions are different from those of monolinguals. As Herdina and Jessner (2002) have pointed out, the interactions of bilinguals’ interdependent language systems create new structures that are not found in monolingual systems. Learning is then not just the “taking in” of linguistic forms by learners, but “the constant adaptation of their linguistic resources in the service of meaning-making in response to the affordances that emerge in the communicative situation, which is, in turn, affected by learners’ adaptability” (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 135).
A model of transglossia and of dynamic bilingualism needs a different pedagogy. In the next section, we develop what we consider the key to a different design for teaching emergent bilinguals –– translanguaging as pedagogy.
Theorizing translanguaging Jim Cummins’ interdependence hypothesis posits that “[t]o the extent that instruction in Lx is effective in promoting proficiency in Lx, transfer of this proficiency to Ly will occur provided there is adequate exposure to Ly (Cummins, 2000, p. 38). Resting on the interdependence of the languages of bilinguals, Cummins has moved away from discussing an L1/L2 dichotomy, characterizing the way in which languages had been conceptualized in Canadian immersion bilingual classrooms in the 20th century as “two solitudes” (Cummins 2007), and calling for bilingual instructional strategies in the classroom as a way of promoting “identities of competence among language learners from socially marginalized groups, thereby enabling them to engage more confidently with literacy and other academic work in both languages” (p. 238). These bilingual instructional practices are related to the concept of translanguaging (García, 2009).
The term translanguaging is the English translation given by Colin Baker (2001) to the Welsh concept of trawsieithu, a bilingual pedagogy designed by Cen Williams where the input is in one language and the output is in another. Since then, the term has been extended and used to talk about a flexible bilingual use in teaching and learning (Blackledge & Creese, 2010; Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García, 2009). Translanguaging for us refers to “the complex discursive practices of all bilinguals, and the pedagogies that build on these discursive practices to release ways of speaking, being and knowing of bilingual subaltern communities” (García,
2011). By emphasizing “languaging,” translanguaging focuses on language practices of people, and not on languages as defined by nation-states and its schools (for more on the concept of languaging, see Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Shohamy, 2006). By focusing on its “trans” aspects, translanguaging builds on the concept of “transculturación” coined by Cuban ethnologist Fernando Ortiz in talking about Cuban culture: “In all embraces of cultures there is something of what happens in the genetic copulation of individuals: the child always has something of both progenitors, but it is always different from each of them” (Ortiz, 1940, p. 96). Thus, to us, translanguaging is not simply a passive and rigid adaptation to one or more standard languages. Rather, new and complex language practices emerge. Translanguaging differs from code-switching in that it refers not simply to a shift between two languages, but to the use of original and complex discursive practices that cannot be easily assigned to one or another code. Bilingual students use these complex and fluid discursive practices to perform their learning ––reading, writing, listening, discussing, taking notes, writing reports and essays, taking exams –– by drawing on their entire linguistic repertoire. And teachers have the possibility of drawing on these translanguaging practices in their pedagogies.
Translanguaging as pedagogy refers then to building on bilingual students’ language practices flexibly in order to develop new understandings and new language practices, including academic language practices. Translanguaging pedagogies are particularly important for language minority students who are emergent bilinguals because they build on students’ strengths. They also reduce the risk of alienation at school by incorporating languaging and cultural references familiar to language minority students.
Translanguaging in a classroom is precisely a way of working in the gap between, on the one hand, the global designs of nation-states and their education systems, and on the other, the local histories of peoples who language differently. As we will see in the next section, translanguaging in U.S. classrooms shows the tensions between the global design of the U.S. in educating immigrants and language minorities, and the local histories of those students. In their design, classrooms most often exclude minority language practices, and when they do include them, they separate those discourses strictly from the dominant standard language of school. In reality, as we will see, teachers and students violate these compartmentalizations, acting on the new meanings of what it is to be an American bilingual. Before we describe translanguaging pedagogies in two educational spaces, we discuss the US national educational context in an effort to contextualize the reasons why teachers working with Latino recent immigrant youth transgress traditional practices of English as a second language or bilingual education programs.
The national context and schools for immigrant adolescent newcomers In the last decade, U.S. schools have been faced with three competing demands –– 1) an increase in the number of immigrant students, especially coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries, 2) the erasure of support for bilingual services and bilingual education, 3) a demand for higher achievement of all students. It is precisely the complexity of dealing with these three issues simultaneously that has spurred the increase in educational programs that transgress traditional education models that are strictly monolingual or bilingual, as well as traditional pedagogies to develop a “second language.” We explore each of these three issues below.
In the last decade the number of foreign-born Americans has soared, and in 2009 17% of the population was born abroad (U.S. Census, 2009). Latinos are the largest ethnic group and number 50.5 million, making up 16% of the population in 2009 (U.S. Census, 2010). Of Latinos who are over five years of age, approximately one-fourth speak English only at home, a sign of the varied language practices of US Latinos (24% of the population or 10,218,938 in 2009).
As the US linguistic landscape becomes evidently more bilingual, xenophobic ideologies have spurred campaigns supporting English-only, especially in education (for more on this history, see Crawford, 2008 and García & Kleifgen, 2010). English-only statutes that banned bilingual education were passed in two states with large Spanish-speaking populations –– California in 1998, and Arizona in 2000. In 2002, Massachusetts also passed a proposition that replaced transitional bilingual education with “structured English immersion programs.” At the same time, the word “bilingual” was struck out of every single name of federal education offices and projects, as well as legislation. For example, the Office of Bilingual and Minority Language Affairs came to be called the Office of English Language Acquisition. Likewise, the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education was renamed the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. Even more significant was that the Bilingual Education Act itself was substituted by Title III of the No Child Behind Legislation of 2002, now named Language Instruction for Limited English proficient and Immigrant Students. The word “bilingual” had become the “B” word (Crawford, 2007, 2008), not mentioned because it is a “bad word.” At the same time that the number of emergent bilingual students was increasing and bilingual educational spaces were being closed, the country called for higher educational achievement for all, as well as for closing the achievement gap among racial, gender, linguistic and socioeconomic groups. Attention became focused on how those students that the federal government calls “Limited English Proficient” were contributing to the gap in educational achievement. The education of emergent bilinguals became an important issue, as educators struggled with the shrinking of traditional bilingual education spaces. As a result, many educators started experimenting with bilingualism in education in the form of what we’re here calling translanguaging (for more on this shift, see García, Flores & Chu, 2011).
The two educational spaces that we describe below are different, but they share some characteristics. They are public high schools that specialize in teaching recently-arrived immigrant adolescents who are emergent bilinguals, especially Latinos. Neither educational space is strictly an English-as-a-second language program, nor a bilingual education program. As such, teachers in both spaces are mostly content teachers, with some being Latinas/os, reflecting a city where 28% of the population is Latino (US. Census, 2009). All teachers speak English, and as good New Yorkers, many are not monolingual English-speakers, but fall within a Spanish-English bilingual continuum.
Below we describe the translanguaging practices used in these schools by teachers who fall at different points of the bilingual continuum. We look at how a translanguaging pedagogy scaffolds the instruction in English of Spanish-speaking adolescents who have recently immigrated to the United States. Specifically, in both educational spaces below we explore how translanguaging supports three functions –– 1) the contextualization of key words and concepts, 2) the development of metalinguistic awareness, and 3) the creation of affective bonds with students
Translanguaging Pedagogies
Ofelia García, Nelson Flores and Heather Homonoff Woodley
A. Yiakoumetti (ed.). Harnessing Linguistic Variation for Better Education. Peter Lang.
Throughout the world language minorities are most often educated in schools that have been designed for language majorities. Usually they are educated only through the medium of the dominant state language. But even when they are given the opportunity to be educated bilingually, education programs are most often built on models, frameworks and practices that have been designed for schooling language majorities.
Building on what we have learned in a study of successful schools in educating Latino youth who are developing English (García, Flores, Woodley & Chu, 2011), this paper explores the interactions of teachers and students in U.S. public schools for Latino recent immigrants that transgress the monolingual or traditional bilingual model of schooling. We do so by exploring the classroom interaction of teachers and students in these schools through their translanguaging practices; that is, discursive and pedagogical practices that break the hegemony of the dominant language in …show more content…
monolingual classrooms, and the isolation of languages in bilingual classrooms. Before we focus on these classrooms, however, we explore some of the theoretical frameworks that have to be transgressed in order to understand the power that translanguaging holds as a pedagogical practice by offering two theoretical alternatives –– 1) transglossia, and 2) dynamic bilingualism. We also theorize about translanguaging itself, before we look at how it functions in the classroom.
From monolingualism and diglossia to transglossia
Language difference has been the purview of sociolinguistic studies since the mid- 20th century, as studies explore how speakers make linguistic choices in social contexts. But the models that have been used often link one language choice to a speaker’s identity on the basis of the domain in which language is used and the interlocutors (Fishman, 1967; Gumperz, 1982), or on account of social characteristics such as nationality, age, gender, or class (Labov, 1966). In many ways, sociolinguistic models of language choice have been diglossic, positing that one language variety (Ferguson, 1959) or one language (Fishman, 1967) or even one feature (Labov) is used for specific reasons, and that the choice of one feature, one variety, or even one language responds strictly to external characteristics or social contexts that function independently of others. Thus, a common sociolinguistic tenet is that language use is diglossic, meaning that one language variety (Ferguson, 1959) or one language (Fishman, 1964) is used in certain domains (or territories) with specific people and for unique purposes, and that the other language is used for different functions.
A diglossic arrangement has been the pillar of educational practices. In monolingual programs, the dominant language of instruction, often a standard variety is most often kept separate and distinct from the ways in which students use language, and the students’ home language practices are ignored. In bilingual programs, the two languages being used as medium of instruction are also most often kept completely separate. This monolingual or diglossic language use in the classroom was rampant in the 20th century when “speech communities” were understood as stable and homogeneous, reflecting the dominant language ideologies of the time embedded within the nation-state paradigm. Instruction was then usually teacher-centered, and students were given very little freedom to work collaboratively in groups or independently.
In the 21st century, the concept of diglossia has been called into question, as more situations of stable societal multilingualism without functional allocation have been described. Many have used the case of the complex and stable multilingualism of India and many African countries to question diglossic arrangements as the only way to achieve stable bilingualism (see, for example, Mohanty, 2006; Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Pennycook, 2010). In the European Union the promotion of plurilingualism has posited that it is possible to acquire and use different language practices “to varying degrees and for specific purposes” (Council of Europe, 2000). Plurilingualism also connotes that it is possible to use language practices without functional complementarity, and at the same time not threaten home language practices. The spread of English throughout a globalized world has also meant that more groups of people use English without giving up their language practices, and most often use English language practices and other language practices in interrelationship. Advanced technology has made the simultaneous use of multimodalities possible, thus different language practices can be displayed at the same time.
The greater movement of peoples and communication in the 21st century has also made us realize that the concept of a homogenous speech community tied to a national territory is flawed. Instead of “speech communities,” what we have are “communities of practices,” groups of people who interact and communicate regularly. Acquiring different language practices then cannot be the result of transmission of knowledge and of language, but of collaborative social practices in which students try out ideas and actions (Lave and Wenger, 1991), and thus socially construct their learning (Vygotsky, 1978). García (2009) has argued that a stable, and yet dynamic, communicative network in the 21st century, with the many language practices of different transnational groups in functional interrelationship, might be better called “transglossia.” It is then important for schools to create transglossic spaces where students’ multiple language practices in interrelationship can produce integrated knowledge, deep understandings, and coherent identifications and performances as bilinguals.
Transglossia has the potential to release ways of speaking of subaltern groups that have been previously fixed within static language identities and hierarchical language arrangements and that are constrained by the modern/colonial world system. Transglossia can develop what Mignolo (2000) calls “an other tongue,” “the necessary condition for ‘an other thinking’ and for the possibility of moving beyond the defense of national languages and national ideologies. . . ” (p. 249). Transglossia refers to the fluid, yet stable, language practices of groups of people. It questions traditional descriptions built on national ideologies and also interrogates the notion of two languages as autonomous systems (for a critique of the autonomous position of languages’ position, see Makoni & Pennycook, (2007). In the next section we explore how transglossia allows us to construct dynamic understandings of bilingualism.
From subtractive or additive bilingualism to dynamic bilingualism
Bilingualism is often understood as linear. When the norm is monolingualism, groups are subjected to a subtractive form of bilingualism where the “first” language is subtracted, as the “second” language is added (Lambert, 1974). When the norm is a diglossic bilingualism, bilingualism is considered additive, with the “second language” added to the first (Lambert, 1974). But in both traditional conceptions of bilingualism, bilingualism is not anything but a “second language” added to or subtracted from a “first language.” This conceptualization of emergent bilinguals as simply learners of a “second language,” and having a “first language,” a “native language,” a “mother tongue” means that bilingualism in itself is not recognized. One could be a “language learner,” but one cannot be a “bilingual” with a complex linguistic repertoire with features that transcend traditional descriptions of standard grammars. By reifying the concept of a “second language,” the language education field has negated bilingualism. On the other hand, by reifying the concept of a “first” or “native language,” privilege or exclusion is assigned. For example, “native” English speakers are often sought-after in Asian countries as English teachers, often meaning monolingual Americans, English, and Australians, preferably white, with other bilinguals excluded.
Speaking of “mother tongue” Skutnabb-Kangas (1981) points out that depending on the criteria used, the term could mean different things. It could mean, as with “first language,” first learned. But even order of acquisition is problematic for bilinguals, since many bilinguals grow up with complex language practices that cannot be easily assigned to a “first” or “second language;” that is, there is bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) (for more on this topic, see Genesee, 2003; see also De Houwer, 2009). According to Skutnabb-Kangas (1981), a mother tongue could also be, as with “first language,” the language one uses most, or the language one knows best, or the language with which one identifies, or the language with which others identify the speaker. But for bilinguals all of these different criteria could result in different answers or in no answer at all, since it is often impossible for bilinguals to categorize their language practices only as autonomous languages. Regardless of the complexity of criteria, the problem with all of these theoretical formulations is that they insist in shaping bilingualism according to monoglossic classifications of one or another autonomous language, when bilingual practices are a lot more complex and interrelated, especially in the globalized world of today.
The language practices of today’s bilinguals do not respond to an additive or a subtractive model of bilingualism. In today’s flows, language practices are multiple and ever adjusting to the multilingual multimodal terrain of the communicative act; that is, bilingualism is dynamic. A dynamic conceptualization of bilingualism (García, 2009) goes beyond the notion of two autonomous languages, of a first and a second language, and of additive or subtractive bilingualism. Instead, dynamic bilingualism suggests that the language practices of all bilinguals are complex and interrelated; they do not emerge in a linear way. As García (2009) has said, they do not result in either the balanced wheels of two bicycles (as in additive bilingualism) or in a monocycle (as in subtractive bilingualism), but instead bilingualism is like an all-terrain vehicle which adapts to both ridges and craters of communication in uneven terrains (see also, García & Kleifgen, 2010). Dynamic bilingualism sees bilingualism not as two monolithic systems made up of discreet sets of features, but as a series of social linguistic practices that are embedded in a web of complex social relations (for a similar view on literacy practices, see Street, 1984; Pennycook 2010).
Within a dynamic conceptualization of bilingualism, bilinguals are valued for their differing multi-competence (Cook, 2002) because their lives, minds and actions are different from those of monolinguals. As Herdina and Jessner (2002) have pointed out, the interactions of bilinguals’ interdependent language systems create new structures that are not found in monolingual systems. Learning is then not just the “taking in” of linguistic forms by learners, but “the constant adaptation of their linguistic resources in the service of meaning-making in response to the affordances that emerge in the communicative situation, which is, in turn, affected by learners’ adaptability” (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 135).
A model of transglossia and of dynamic bilingualism needs a different pedagogy. In the next section, we develop what we consider the key to a different design for teaching emergent bilinguals –– translanguaging as pedagogy.
Theorizing translanguaging Jim Cummins’ interdependence hypothesis posits that “[t]o the extent that instruction in Lx is effective in promoting proficiency in Lx, transfer of this proficiency to Ly will occur provided there is adequate exposure to Ly (Cummins, 2000, p. 38). Resting on the interdependence of the languages of bilinguals, Cummins has moved away from discussing an L1/L2 dichotomy, characterizing the way in which languages had been conceptualized in Canadian immersion bilingual classrooms in the 20th century as “two solitudes” (Cummins 2007), and calling for bilingual instructional strategies in the classroom as a way of promoting “identities of competence among language learners from socially marginalized groups, thereby enabling them to engage more confidently with literacy and other academic work in both languages” (p. 238). These bilingual instructional practices are related to the concept of translanguaging (García, 2009).
The term translanguaging is the English translation given by Colin Baker (2001) to the Welsh concept of trawsieithu, a bilingual pedagogy designed by Cen Williams where the input is in one language and the output is in another. Since then, the term has been extended and used to talk about a flexible bilingual use in teaching and learning (Blackledge & Creese, 2010; Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García, 2009). Translanguaging for us refers to “the complex discursive practices of all bilinguals, and the pedagogies that build on these discursive practices to release ways of speaking, being and knowing of bilingual subaltern communities” (García,
2011). By emphasizing “languaging,” translanguaging focuses on language practices of people, and not on languages as defined by nation-states and its schools (for more on the concept of languaging, see Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Shohamy, 2006). By focusing on its “trans” aspects, translanguaging builds on the concept of “transculturación” coined by Cuban ethnologist Fernando Ortiz in talking about Cuban culture: “In all embraces of cultures there is something of what happens in the genetic copulation of individuals: the child always has something of both progenitors, but it is always different from each of them” (Ortiz, 1940, p. 96). Thus, to us, translanguaging is not simply a passive and rigid adaptation to one or more standard languages. Rather, new and complex language practices emerge. Translanguaging differs from code-switching in that it refers not simply to a shift between two languages, but to the use of original and complex discursive practices that cannot be easily assigned to one or another code. Bilingual students use these complex and fluid discursive practices to perform their learning ––reading, writing, listening, discussing, taking notes, writing reports and essays, taking exams –– by drawing on their entire linguistic repertoire. And teachers have the possibility of drawing on these translanguaging practices in their pedagogies.
Translanguaging as pedagogy refers then to building on bilingual students’ language practices flexibly in order to develop new understandings and new language practices, including academic language practices. Translanguaging pedagogies are particularly important for language minority students who are emergent bilinguals because they build on students’ strengths. They also reduce the risk of alienation at school by incorporating languaging and cultural references familiar to language minority students.
Translanguaging in a classroom is precisely a way of working in the gap between, on the one hand, the global designs of nation-states and their education systems, and on the other, the local histories of peoples who language differently. As we will see in the next section, translanguaging in U.S. classrooms shows the tensions between the global design of the U.S. in educating immigrants and language minorities, and the local histories of those students. In their design, classrooms most often exclude minority language practices, and when they do include them, they separate those discourses strictly from the dominant standard language of school. In reality, as we will see, teachers and students violate these compartmentalizations, acting on the new meanings of what it is to be an American bilingual. Before we describe translanguaging pedagogies in two educational spaces, we discuss the US national educational context in an effort to contextualize the reasons why teachers working with Latino recent immigrant youth transgress traditional practices of English as a second language or bilingual education programs.
The national context and schools for immigrant adolescent newcomers In the last decade, U.S. schools have been faced with three competing demands –– 1) an increase in the number of immigrant students, especially coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries, 2) the erasure of support for bilingual services and bilingual education, 3) a demand for higher achievement of all students. It is precisely the complexity of dealing with these three issues simultaneously that has spurred the increase in educational programs that transgress traditional education models that are strictly monolingual or bilingual, as well as traditional pedagogies to develop a “second language.” We explore each of these three issues below.
In the last decade the number of foreign-born Americans has soared, and in 2009 17% of the population was born abroad (U.S. Census, 2009). Latinos are the largest ethnic group and number 50.5 million, making up 16% of the population in 2009 (U.S. Census, 2010). Of Latinos who are over five years of age, approximately one-fourth speak English only at home, a sign of the varied language practices of US Latinos (24% of the population or 10,218,938 in 2009).
As the US linguistic landscape becomes evidently more bilingual, xenophobic ideologies have spurred campaigns supporting English-only, especially in education (for more on this history, see Crawford, 2008 and García & Kleifgen, 2010). English-only statutes that banned bilingual education were passed in two states with large Spanish-speaking populations –– California in 1998, and Arizona in 2000. In 2002, Massachusetts also passed a proposition that replaced transitional bilingual education with “structured English immersion programs.” At the same time, the word “bilingual” was struck out of every single name of federal education offices and projects, as well as legislation. For example, the Office of Bilingual and Minority Language Affairs came to be called the Office of English Language Acquisition. Likewise, the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education was renamed the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. Even more significant was that the Bilingual Education Act itself was substituted by Title III of the No Child Behind Legislation of 2002, now named Language Instruction for Limited English proficient and Immigrant Students. The word “bilingual” had become the “B” word (Crawford, 2007, 2008), not mentioned because it is a “bad word.” At the same time that the number of emergent bilingual students was increasing and bilingual educational spaces were being closed, the country called for higher educational achievement for all, as well as for closing the achievement gap among racial, gender, linguistic and socioeconomic groups. Attention became focused on how those students that the federal government calls “Limited English Proficient” were contributing to the gap in educational achievement. The education of emergent bilinguals became an important issue, as educators struggled with the shrinking of traditional bilingual education spaces. As a result, many educators started experimenting with bilingualism in education in the form of what we’re here calling translanguaging (for more on this shift, see García, Flores & Chu, 2011).
The two educational spaces that we describe below are different, but they share some characteristics. They are public high schools that specialize in teaching recently-arrived immigrant adolescents who are emergent bilinguals, especially Latinos. Neither educational space is strictly an English-as-a-second language program, nor a bilingual education program. As such, teachers in both spaces are mostly content teachers, with some being Latinas/os, reflecting a city where 28% of the population is Latino (US. Census, 2009). All teachers speak English, and as good New Yorkers, many are not monolingual English-speakers, but fall within a Spanish-English bilingual continuum.
Below we describe the translanguaging practices used in these schools by teachers who fall at different points of the bilingual continuum. We look at how a translanguaging pedagogy scaffolds the instruction in English of Spanish-speaking adolescents who have recently immigrated to the United States. Specifically, in both educational spaces below we explore how translanguaging supports three functions –– 1) the contextualization of key words and concepts, 2) the development of metalinguistic awareness, and 3) the creation of affective bonds with students