This week I wrapped up my initial design plans for the workshop series to be delivered in January 2023 and began revisiting my literature review. Over the course of the next month I will be further refining both. Writing my last blog on the concept of translanguaging inspired me to continue to look at this topic. In short, translanguaging is the use of multiple languages to make meaning (Lee et al., 2013). In particular translanguaging is useful in engaging multilingual students in meaningful classroom pursuits (Lee et al., 2013; Ryu, 2020).
I found an article this week that takes the notion of translanguaging further. Wei (2018) suggests that while translanguaging is multilingual, it is also multimodal and multisensory, and the practice of translanguaging draws heavily on an individual’s lived experiences and beliefs. It is impossible to extricate human language use from human experience, and therefore encouraging translanguaging encourages individuals to draw on their diverse experiences to engage in meaning making (Wei, 2018). When one employs translanguaging in this way they enter a new space outside the confines of traditional language (Wei, 2018). This idea that the use of translanguaging creates a new space reminds me of Barton et al.’s (2008) idea of hybrid spaces. These are spaces in which students’ lived experiences and what they are learning in the classroom are brought together. In these spaces students use their own funds of knowledge to make meaning of what they are learning.
Translanguaging provides those who are not fluent in the dominant classroom language to participate in these spaces alongside their dominant language speaking peers. These spaces, where students are encouraged to connect their own experiences to their learning, may help develop competencies related to Lewison et al.’s (2015) third dimension of critical social practice, Focusing on the socio-political. In using these hybrid/translanguaging spaces, students can develop the third dimension competency of recognizing the complexity of situations. What they are learning in the classroom is subject to interpretation based on one’s lived experiences, and therefore complex.
In my previous blogs I highlighted inquiry-based learning as an approach to help students develop critical science literacy competencies. In relation to the concept of translanguaging, inquiry is a useful tool in helping diverse language learners gain more confidence in their skills as it encourages the use of an individual’s funds of knowledge for problem solving and collaboration. This creates opportunities for diverse language learners to speak to their peers. It also makes use of multiple different modalities which diverse language learners can employ to express themselves and their learning (Isik-Ercan, 2020). As mentioned, use of language and multimodal tools is inherent to translanguaging (Wei, 2018). Therefore, the idea of inquiry-based learning and translanguaging go hand in hand to help students develop the competencies they require to become successful critically literate adults.
References
Barton, A., Tan, E., & Rivet, A. (2008). Creating hybrid spaces for engaging school science among urban middle school girls. American Educational Research Journal, 45(1), 68-103.
Isik-Ercan, Z. (2020). ‘You have 25 kids playing around!’: Learning to implement inquiry-based science learning in an urban second-grade classroom. International Journal of Science Education, 42(3), 329-349.
Lee, O., Quinn, H., & Valdés, G. (2013). Science and language for English language learners in relation to next generation science standards and with implications for common core state standards for English language arts and mathematics. Educational Researcher, 42(4), 223-233.
Lewison, M., Leland, C., & Harste, J. C. (2015). Creating critical classrooms: Reading and writing with an edge. Routledge
Ryu, M., & Daniel, S. M. (2020). How did we engage resettled Chin youth in critical STEM literacy practices? Asia-Pacific Science Education, 6, 319-345.
Wei, L. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9-30.