The students in Ms. Chapman-Santiago’s eighth-grade English language arts class in New York City file into class and read the “Do Now”questions on the board, questions about the novel they have been reading. They take their seats that are organized so that students speaking the same languages—Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, Bengali, Fulani, and Arabic—sit together. At their desks they find a sheet with the same questions that are on the board translated into the students’ languages. The teacher directs the students to read the two questions and then talk to their same-language peers about the questions for just a few minutes. She then directs students to write a response in English to the questions they have discussed in their various home languages.

The teacher in this classroom is drawing on students’ strengths and backgrounds by encouraging them to translanguage as they work to understand the novel they have been reading. While Ms. Chapman-Santiago doesn’t speak or read all of the students’ home languages, she used Google Translate to provide each group with at least a rough translation to start their discussions. The use of their home languages helps them make sense of what they are reading. As they move back and forth across their languages, drawing on their entire linguistic repertoires, they are strategically constructing meaning.

Ms. Chapman-Santiago is well aware of the academic challenges these students face. The Common Core State Standards call for students to do close reading of texts in order to comprehend and analyze what they read. Students need teachers to scaffold their instruction to perform tasks like this. For emergent bilinguals, translanguaging is a key to that success.

Second language learners have been referred to as English learners (ELs), English language learners (ELLs), or culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, among other terms. García has suggested that a more appropriate term to be used for these students is emergent bilinguals (EBLs; García, 2009, 2010; García, Kleifgen, & Flachi, 2008). This term validates the language students bring to school as well as the fact that, as they learn English or another language, they are becoming bilingual. They are not simply learning English, as the term English language learner implies; they are emergent bilinguals. In fact, many students learning English are becoming emergent multilinguals as they already speak more than one language before beginning to learn English. In this article, we suggest ways that teachers can support EBLs through translanguaging.

Translanguaging

When bilinguals and multilinguals use language, they often translanguage. García (2009) points out that bilinguals’ everyday language involves the natural use of translanguaging. They translanguage with other bilinguals for different reasons as they communicate. While many refer to this practice negatively as code-switching, García emphasizes that bilinguals make meaning by translanguaging all the time.

One reason code-switching has a negative connotation for many people is that they assume that EBLs switch languages because they don’t have full command of English. Many believe that true bilinguals should speak both languages perfectly, as if they were two monolinguals in one person, and that they should never mix the two languages. However, bringing in words from both languages enriches the conversation in the same way that having a large vocabulary in one language allows a person to express herself more fully.

For example, Ann’s husband’s family is Greek American. Although most family members are dominant English speakers, they use Greek expressions and words when appropriate to communicate. They greet each other and Greek friends the first day of every month with Καλό μήνα (Kalo mina), which literally means "good month." Greeting one another in English would simply not convey the same meaning. Through exchanging this greeting and using other Greek words and expressions with Greek relatives, Ann’s children are expanding not only their language repertoires but also their understanding of their world.

Translanguaging Strategies in the Classroom

If bilinguals naturally translanguage to communicate, a question for educators to consider is how to use translanguaging with emergent bilinguals in schools. Even when EBLs are not in bilingual programs, and even when teachers do not speak students’ home languages, teachers can help EBLs develop competence in English through translanguaging strategies. By providing students with a translation of the questions they should answer, Ms. Chapman-Santiago used translanguaging effectively. Below is a list of translanguaging suggestions that teachers can use to support emergent bilingual students.

1. Create bilingual and multilingual word walls. Use visual representations of the words as well as key words that support the content being taught. Also, display bilingual/multilingual sentences with key ideas. Use students, aides, or parents or go to http://translate.google.com to translate into languages you do not speak. You can find images of key words at www.wordsift.com.

2. Supply school and classroom libraries with books, magazines, and other resources in students’ home languages. Students can read in their home language and retell and discuss stories in English or read in English and refer to books in their home languages to clarify their understanding.

3. Encourage emergent bilinguals to produce bilingual books in English and their home languages. These can be produced by groups of students at various levels of proficiency in the languages. Use bilingual books and books in which authors use translanguaging in the text as models for their writing.

4. Have students work in pairs with students who speak their home languages so that they can discuss concepts and support one another to clarify reading or writing assignments in English.

5. Use videos in other languages produced professionally or by the students to support academic learning and raise self-esteem.

6. Use preview, view, review (Freeman & Freeman, 2011). In the preview, the teacher, a bilingual peer, a bilingual cross-age tutor, a bilingual aide, or a parent explains to the emergent bilinguals in their home language what the upcoming lesson is about. During the view, the teacher conducts the lesson in English using strategies to make the input comprehensible. Finally, the review allows students to summarize and clarify in their home languages.

These and additional translanguaging strategies can be found online in the translanguaging guide produced by the City University of New York under its New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (Celic & Seltzer, 2001). Using translanguaging strategies allows emergent bilinguals to draw on their home language as a resource, promotes their sense of self-esteem, and promotes their academic success.

References

Celic, C., & Seltzer, K. (2001). Translanguaging: A CUNY-NYSIEB guide for educators. New York, NY: City University of New York, Graduate Center. Retrieved from http://www.nysieb.ws.gc.cuny.edu/files/2013/03/Translanguaging-Guide-March-2013.pdf

Freeman, D., & Freeman, Y. (2011). Between worlds: Access to second language acquisition (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Garcia, O. (2010). Misconstructions of bilingualism in U.S. education. NYSABE News, 1(1), 2–7.

From English language learners to emergent bilinguals. New York, NY: Teachers College.

David Freeman is a Professor Emeritus from the University of Texas, Brownsville, who writes and speaks about linguistics, reading, and second language acquisition.