BEIS Newsletter - April 2017 (Plain Text Version)
|
||||
|
In this issue: |
LETTER FROM THE COEDITORS
We would like to welcome the reader to the new issue of Bilingual Basics, the publication of the Bilingual-Multilingual Education Interest Section (B-MEIS). This year, the topic is translanguaging. According to various scholars, translanguaging as pedagogy holds the promise of enabling multilinguals to use their full dynamic language repertoire in ways that could enable them to fully participate in society: to communicate in the family, with friends, on the streets, in schools; to better master the academic knowledge; to interact in professional settings; and to maintain and develop their multiple facets of identity, to name a few. The authors in the current issue share with you their understanding and scholarly and pedagogical interpretations of translanguaging. The first author, Zhongfeng Tian, offers a review translanguaging in the classroom. He briefly describes the evolution of the term and then dwells on its pedagogical use via the analysis of six ethnographic case studies. The next author is Dr. Maria Estela Brisk, a well-established scholar in the field of bilingual education and ESL writing. She offers interesting perspectives on the definition of translanguaging and brings in a number of invaluable examples of translanguaging practices in the elementary classrooms where she conducts research. Our last author, Kate Seltzer, is a coauthor with Ofelia García and Susana Ibarra Johnson of the recent book The Translanguaging Classroom: Leveraging Student Bilingualism for Learning. In her detailed interview, the reader may find various aspects of translanguaging: its role in a child’s language education, differences from other similar terms, practical applications of translanguaging in the classroom, the role of the monolingual and bilingual teachers to support translanguaging, and much more. We hope you enjoy these insightful contributions to continue the discussions on translanguaging among pre- and in-service teachers, educators, and scholars. Alsu Gilmetdinova is head of the Office of International Affairs at the Kazan National Research Technical University named after A.N.Tupolev-KAI (KNRTU-KAI) in the city of Kazan, Russia. Her interests revolve around multilingual education, international English medium programs, and English for engineers. Andrés Ramírez is assistant professor of TESOL and bilingual education at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Ratón, Florida, USA. His research focuses on the academic achievement of emergent to advanced bilinguals in K–16 contexts. |
|||