Translingual Disciplinary Literacies: Equitable Language Environments to Support Literacy Engagement

Abstract

Average from three academic years (2017-2020) High school 1 High school 2 Number of home languages in addition to English, as represented by EBs 24 8 EBs' percentage of the school population 10% 2.5% Total EBs in the school 215 55 Beginner EBs 9 0.6 Intermediate EBs 78 18 Advanced EBs 95 25 Advanced high EBs 33 11.6 Estimated number of heritage-language speakers in the school who are not EBs a 250 200 Languages spoken at the school Arabic,

Supporting Early Biliteracy in English‐Medium Classrooms: Initiatives for Family Engagement and Instructional Innovations

“…We advocate for a “new linguistic normal” (Zapata & Laman, 2023, p. 245) in early childhood classrooms where reading, speaking, listening, singing, and writing occur in all students' languages. Regardless of the languages you speak, like other English‐medium educators (Stewart et al., 2022), you can take action to champion students like Nancy and Carlos! Through surveys or conferences, find out what languages are present in each home.…”

Bridging Theory to Practice: Exploring the Role of an Educative Translingual Curriculum to Support Linguistically Diverse Classroom Practices

“…For example, Menken and Sánchez (2019) show how, over the course of a school year, the introduction of translanguaging pedagogies led to a shift in participants' language ideologies, so both teachers and administrators took on a translanguaging stance. In other words, if teachers are practicing translanguaging pedagogies, the value placed on students' linguistic assets provides opportunities for teachers to alter their perceptions of students and multilingualism, in turn, fostering a more heteroglossic stance (e.g., Stewart, Hansen‐Thomas, & Núñez, 2022). Additional studies associated with the CUNY New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (CUNY‐NYSIEB) project have provided educators with resources for working with MLLs (see http://cuny-nysieb.org), as well as providing professional development that promotes translanguaging stances within entire school communities (Menken & Sánchez, 2019).…”

Translanguaging as a Resource for Teaching and Assessment:

“…Macawile and Plata (2023) reported that teachers used PT as a scaffold, while Perfecto (2022) reported teachers' use of translanguaging as a bridge for students who had difficulty understanding the lesson. In addition, Stewart et al (2022) found that teachers used translanguaging to solve the problem of access to content that leads to a lack of student participation. Examples of translanguaging are translations to solve the problem of comprehension (De Los Reyes, 2019;Gonzales, 2019).…”

“…Examples of translanguaging are translations to solve the problem of comprehension (De Los Reyes, 2019;Gonzales, 2019). Another example is providing resources such as reading texts, word walls, using subtitles in viewing activities both in the target language and home language (Stewart et al, 2022). Espino et al (2021) report the monolingual bias in the basic education curriculum in the Philippines, especially in terms of content standards and assessment.…”

“…Moreover, Saputra and Akib (2018) found that translanguaging was a "strategy to make sure the students understand the questions, motivate the students to speak, especially for low-level students, and to encourage them to answer immediately when the teacher tries to give the formative assessment through the questions in the classroom". Finally, Stewart et al (2022) concluded that "we cannot expect adolescent students to be engaged in literacy if they do not have equitable opportunities to comprehend and enjoy their reading, write to best express themselves, engage in classroom discussions, and apply critical thinking to content learning. Thus, language equity in the disciplines is a crucial element to consider as we move forward in conversations of literacy engagement" (p.199).…”