Volume 13, Issue 3 - Special Issue: Translanguaging practice in Diverse Contexts; Guest Editors: Danling Fu and Xenia Hadjioannou

Traditionally strict language separation policies in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs reflect parallel monolingualism and have been criticized as failing to recognize the sociolinguistic realities of bilingual students (García, Ofelia & Angel M. Y. Lin. 2017. Translanguaging in bilingual education. In Ofelia García, Angel M. Y. Lin & Stephen May (eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education , 117–130. Cham: Springer International Publishing). To recognize the dynamic nature of bilingualism and leverage bilingual learners’ full semiotic and linguistic repertoire as a resource, this study looks at how to strategically and purposefully develop flexible and multilingual educational spaces in a third grade Chinese Language Arts (CLA) class in a Mandarin-English DLBE program in the New England area, U.S. Drawing upon Sánchez, María Teresa (Maite), Ofelia García & Cristian Solorza. 2018. Reframing language allocation policy in dual language bilingual education. Bilingual Research Journal 41(1). 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2017.1405098, translanguaging allocation policy framework, the researcher and the teacher co-designed and implemented translanguaging documentation, translanguaging rings, and translanguaging transformation spaces in the CLA class throughout the school year of 2018–19. Taking the form of participatory design research (Bang, Megan & Shirin Vossoughi. 2016. Participatory design research and educational justice: Studying learning and relations within social change making. Cognition and Instruction 34(3). 173–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2016.1181879), this collaborative inquiry demonstrates that translanguaging pedagogies could promote student engagement, contribute to their academic learning, and build home-school connections. It aims to provide authentic, sustainable knowledge for both researchers and practitioners to better serve bilingual learners in DLBE programs.

This article is focused on the discussion of three 4th grade students’ translanguaging practices in math and science classes in a Mandarin/English one-way dual language immersion program. In the U.S., the number of dual language immersion programs is increasing. While research strongly supports the benefits of bilingual programs, implementation challenges caused by a “dual” perception seem to remain unsolved. This article presents data excerpts collected and analyzed for a multi-case study to describe and discuss students’ translanguaging practices and their benefits in content learning contexts. Findings reveal that bilingual students are engaged in highly flexible and dynamic language use for meaningful learning, which contradicts the monolingual ideology permeating dual language programs. In addition, findings from this study contribute to the understanding of Chinese/English bilingual students’ translanguaging practice in their learning, which adds to the research on students’ linguistic practice in dual-language bilingual education.

This study explores how translanguaging pedagogy was practiced in a New York City Chinatown middle school to engage emergent bilingual students (EBs) with diverse language literacy backgrounds in their study of the grade level social studies curriculum. The data were collected over the past two decades while we worked with classroom teachers in search of effective ways to improve EBs’ school performance. We revisited this data utilizing a translanguaging lens to reconceptualize this past work and reframe our analysis to deepen understanding of translanguaging teaching praxis. Therefore, this research not only seeks possible ways to meet challenges in the education of EBs in U.S. schools but also to add to a research method that looks back at past data as an approach to looking ahead in scholarship.

This study explores the complexity of the languaging processes of Chinese graduate students in the context of their English academic writing. Utilizing a qualitative case study approach, we found that translanguaging was ubiquitously present in the writing processes of the Chinese graduate student participants. The participants leveraged translanguaging tools and strategies to support their English writing by accessing and utilizing resources in Chinese, using Chinese to support thinking and drafting, and integrating literacy knowledge across their linguistic repertoires. However, negative perceptions of these practices contributed to ambivalent bilingual identities and hindered them as writers. Findings also revealed perceived barriers and process hindrances that challenged the participants when composing academic text in English. The study highlights the importance of creating translanguaging spaces to support international students in higher education, but also the need to provide instruction in academic writing to support their academic performance.

Existing literature argues for the urgent need to improve workplace and professional communication in the engineering field across the world. This paper reports on a study examining Chinese/English bilingual engineers’ translanguaging practices in their communications in English-speaking high-tech corporations in the United States. Evidence showed that bilingual engineers translanguaged extensively to construct meaning to meet the diverse communication needs at their workplace, which enables them to demonstrate their professional talents and skills. However, when English was the sole language for the interaction, they struggled to sound like English native speakers to convey their ideas and present their work, which disadvantaged them professionally, socially and emotional as professionals. Therefore, this study calls for a creation of a translanguaging space in the workplace to empower bilingual engineers and also a need to modify engineering education programs that recognize multilingual competence of bilinguals and enhance the development of their English professional communication ability (speaking and writing) in higher education.

Recently, research theorizing bilinguals’ fluid and transcending language practices has flourished. As the strategic use of more than one named language in meaning-making begins to gain validation, educators and researchers have explored the pedagogical implications of such practices in the understanding and education of bilinguals. Aligning with these explorations, this article presents a case study of a bilingual scholar’s meaning-making practice. Relying on a translanguaging lens and a multilingual perspective on creativity, I document how Professor Wang, a Chinese-American anthropologist, utilizes his full communication toolkit to navigate the academic activities of teaching, researching and writing. The findings suggest Wang translanguages to achieve the purpose of culture learning and representation. Particularly, translanguaging creativity emerges as perceived boundaries between named languages are crossed. This study of an experienced bilingual aims to inform our understanding of how to support emergent bilinguals in reaching their full learning potential in our schools.

With a critical narrative approach, this reflective practice research aims to do a personal narrative inquiry on the researcher herself during her dissertation research/writing period. The researcher explores and reflects on her various translanguaging strategies used throughout the course of her dissertation research and writing. Data collection includes her reflective journal entries, interview recordings and transcriptions with her research participants, reflective conversation audio recordings with her peers and research voice memos during her dissertation writing process. Using narrative analysis, this study indicates translanguaging allows the researcher to establish her dual-identities in both U.S. and Chinese educational settings, and helps her to develop her own writer’s voice and also engages her to think more creatively and critically as a researcher and a writer. This study presents a first-person reflective practice that deconstructs bilingual PhD students’ dissertation writing journey. It highlights the significance of bilingual international graduate students’ language repertoire to their academic writing, which matters not only to individual students, but may better serve international student community cross the world.