This article highlights findings from evaluation of a bridging program for international students at a large Canadian university. Designed specifically for the postsecondary context, the program moved along the continuum from a general, skills-based approach to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teaching and learning, in which the focus may be on developing linguistic and communicative strategies common across academic subject areas, toward an approach that emphasizes context-specific, disciplinary uses of language. This shift from general to specific reflects the program’s interest in cultivating a more embedded, discipline-specific model for language teaching and learning in higher education, toward an English for Specific Purposes (ESAP) framework. Understanding this approach from a disciplinary literacy lens, the article describes the program model and examines relations among students’ language proficiency assessments, performance in the program, and subsequent performance in degree programs.      Le présent article illustre les conclusions de l’évaluation d’un programme de transition pour les étudiants internationaux d’une grande université canadienne. Conçu spécifiquement pour le contexte postsecondaire, le programme progressait le long du continuum à partir d’une approche générale fondée sur les compétences de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage de l’anglais académique (EAP), démarche pouvant mettre l’accent sur le développement de stratégies linguistiques et communicatives communes à toutes les matières académiques, pour passer ensuite à une approche qui met en relief un niveau de langue adapté à certains contextes et certaines disciplines. Ce passage du général au spécifique reflète l’intérêt du programme à cultiver un modèle d’enseignement et d’apprentissage des langues plus intégré et plus spécifique dans l’enseignement supérieur en préparation pour un cadre d’enseignement de l’anglais à des fins spécifiques (ESAP). Interprétant cette approche à la lumière de la littératie disciplinaire, l’article décrit le modèle du programme et examine les relations entre les évaluations de compétences linguistiques des étudiantes et étudiants, leurs résultats dans le cadre du programme et leurs résultats subséquents dans celui des programmes de grade universitaire.

Although host countries generally integrate refugees into public education, wide-spread and comprehensive understanding of teaching and learning with children and youth who have experienced forced displacement and migration remains an unmet goal within most education systems. This article explores the educational needs of these children and youth, exploring teacher perceptions of and approaches to students’ language and literacy practices. Sharing insights from case study research conducted in one Canadian school, the article discusses how educators at the school drew upon and engaged students’ linguistic resources as key to student learning, relationships and engagement, catalyzing new configurations of language in education. Analyzing these processes through a translanguaging theory of language, the article discusses how teachers and students engaged “translanguaging instinct” and created “translanguaging spaces” (Li, 2018) in their classrooms to support teaching and learning. Finally, the article proposes a three-dimensional matrix for teachers to use in reflecting on language teaching and learning, comprising axes of (1) teacher- and student-initiated translanguaging; (2) planned and spontaneous engagements with translanguaging; and (3) translanguaging as either a scaffold or a resource for learning. Illustrated with examples from practice and elaborated with teacher reflections, the article describes why such approaches are of critical importance in response to circumstances of forced migration and resettlement of vulnerable populations. Findings arising from this work further support and respond to the call for nuanced understanding of how translanguaging practice and pedagogy materialize within situated educational contexts.

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