Language norms in L2 education for adult migrants – translanguaging pedagogy in the age of mobility

Abstract

International mobility has caused a need for language education where adults can learn the language(s) used in their new country. In Sweden, the language programme SFI (Swedish for immigrants) provides basic second language education for adult immigrants. For those learners who are not yet functionally literate, basic literacy education is included. This article aims to explore the concept translanguaging pedagogy in relation to the articulated and embodied language norms of one SFI teacher. The empirical data, produced by ethnographic methodology, consists of classroom observations and semi-structural interviews. The method of analysis comprises a set of sociolinguistic questions, three categories of language norms (double monolingualism, integrated bilingualism and polylingualism) and discourse analysis, centering on deictics, indexical signs and reported speech. Findings show that although the teacher does engage in translanguaging practices, her teaching practices cannot be referred to as translanguaging pedagogy because she has made no deliberate decision to include the students’ full linguistic repertoires and there are contradictions both within and between her articulated and embodied language norms. It is concluded that it is crucial for educational development in contexts characterised by mobility that teachers in linguistically heterogeneous classrooms increase their awareness of their language norms and the students’ linguistic resources.

Multilingual Stories for Immigrants and Refugees: A Language-as-Resource Approach

“…Immigrants and refugees come to the host country with skills, experiences and languages that are too often not valued in the host country, notably by the fact that their first language is either ignored or silenced through explicit or implicit "English only" and equivalent school and classroom level policies [12]. Even many teachers who are in favour of including students' first language, struggle with competing norms and ideologies, and fall short of a truly inclusive and innovative practice through pedagogical translanguaging [16].…”

“…Norlund Shaswar [16] found that a teacher expressed multiple competing language ideologies in both discourse and practice, allowing for and employing some level of translanguaging in her Swedish for adult immigrants classroom, but not sufficient to be considered pedagogical translanguaging. Rosén and Lundgren [12] similarly report contradictions and tensions opening for the use of multiple languages, including how translanguaging can create barriers between students who speak the same language (i.e., languages with many speakers, such as Arabic) or English, which the teacher and some students speak, effectively excluding some students.…”

“…Rosén and Lundgren [12] similarly report contradictions and tensions opening for the use of multiple languages, including how translanguaging can create barriers between students who speak the same language (i.e., languages with many speakers, such as Arabic) or English, which the teacher and some students speak, effectively excluding some students. Translanguaging as a pedagogy for teaching and learning, as proposed by Creese and Blackledge [17], clearly holds great potential, but "[w]hether a specific translanguaging practice is transformative in a specific context depends, to a large extent, on who has initiated it and can decide and control its purpose" ( [16], p. 16). Translanguaging, and language in general, is implicated in the power relations in both the classroom and the wider society.…”