Translanguaging in a reading class

Abstract

Using translanguaging as a theoretical foundation, this paper analyses findings from a Grade 2 reading class for low achieving students, where Malay was used as a scaffold to teach English. Data come from one class in one school in Singapore and its Learning Support Programme (LSP), which is part of a larger research project on biliteracy. The LSP is an early intervention reading programme in English for students in lower primary school. Our key finding is that the broad goal of translanguaging in teacher talk was to mediate academic content. Specifically, the purposes for translanguaging in teacher talk were to aid comprehension (in 41% of switches) and translate vocabulary (in 39% of switches). The use of Malay changed interactional patterns by closing the gap in talktime between teacher and students: though the ratio of talktime between teacher and students on Day 1 was 76%:20%, this became a more democratic 47%:49% on Day 8. Finally, the scaffold of Malay changed the way the students attempted to answer questions.

Translanguaging: Definitions, Implications, and Further Needs in Burgeoning Inquiry

“…in verbal interactions included informal exchanges between students or between students and adults during unstructured spaces in the classroom or social spheres (Milu, 2013;Wei, 2011a), formal lesson delivery and assembly addresses (Creese & Blackledge, 2010;Palmer, Martínez, Mateus, & Henderson, 2014;Williams, 1996Williams, , 2000Williams, , 2002, and conversations about academic content during collaborative work (López-Gopar, Núñez-Méndez, Sughrua, & Clemente, 2013;Martin-Beltrán, 2014;Sayer, 2013). Likewise, translanguaging in literacy included translating and clarifying texts (Hélot, 2011;Vaish & Subhan, 2015); codemeshing in composition to establish an author's voice or to convey complex ideas academically or in online social network forums (Canagarajah, 2011a(Canagarajah, , 2011bCenoz & Gorter, 2011;Makalela, 2014); and consulting texts (both printed and online) in multiple languages during research (Martin-Beltrán, 2014;Mazak & HerbasDonoso, 2014;Sayer, 2013). In addition, multimodal texts featured in this category, including music videos (García & Leiva, 2014), and compositions that included images and symbols (Canagarajah, 2011a(Canagarajah, , 2011bVelasco & García, 2014), to aid in conveying meaning and constructing authorial identity.…”

Translingual Discursive Spaces in Language and Arts Lessons

“…Mica's intermittent use of Portuguese is reminiscent of other research findings where translanguaging fulfills a pragmatic scaffolding function to help the students acquire the societally dominant language and ameliorate achievement gaps with a socioculturally informed pedagogy [13]. Vaish and Subhan [18], for example, have shown that the teacher was drawing on the students' home language, Malay, to help them become proficient in the target language, English. Surprisingly, here, it is not the teacher but one of Afomito's peers who engages in 'pedagogical' translanguaging [15] by contextualizing the German word 'teilen' and, hereby, taking over the role of the more knowledgeable other.…”

“…The mobilization of the students' linguistic resources translated into the liberation of their funds of knowledge [7]. In a 5 th grade English medium mainstream class in Queens, a New York City borough, García and Kleyn [20] have found that teacher translanguaging encouraged the students' participation and in a 2 nd grade class for low achieving students in Singapore, Vaish and Subhan [18] have found that it changed the patterns of classroom interaction by ensuring the students' comprehension of the target language and by developing their agentive languaging.…”

“…Research has shown that, in the primary school, teachers flout the fixity of the language teaching and learning regime by widely drawing on translanguaging practices [19]. However, the translanguaging practices are frequently restricted to shifts from German into Luxembourgish, a Germanic language [18], which equally limits the access to the curriculum for students with a Romance language background. The students' participation dynamics remain hereby unbalanced.…”

Exemplary Reading Teachers’ Use of Instructional Scaffolds With Emergent Bilinguals: How Knowledge and Context Shape Their Choices

“…However, a few observation and interview‐based studies examine teachers’ use of instructional scaffolds during second language reading instruction with EBs and suggest promising scaffolding strategies for both language and reading development. These include studies of teachers’ use of planned scaffolds, such as teachers of EBs’ use of tiered texts (Moss, Lapp, & O'Shea, ), digitally embedded literacy supports (Proctor, Dalton, & Grisham, ), and interactional scaffolds, such as teachers’ use of students’ native languages during English instruction (de Oliveira, Gilmetdinova, & Pelaez‐Morales, ) and other translanguaging practices (Vaish & Subhan, ).…”