Teaching with Translanguaging as a Critical Literacy Pedagogy in Elementary Dual-Language Immersion Education.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Translanguaging is a theory and pedagogy of language that understands multilingualism to be an inherently fluid, flexible, and dynamic practice (Garcia, 2009). As a pedagogy, a translanguaging stance aims to empower multilingual learners to draw on the entirety of their communicative repertoires to disrupt and transform classroom language borders and what counts as academic language (Otheguy, Garcia & Reid, 2015). In elementary dual-language immersion (DLI) contexts, where bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism are developed in two languages of instruction, the purpose of translanguaging pedagogy should be both biliteracy development and social transformation. Therefore, this study explores how teachers engage translanguaging for biliteracy and social transformation in elementary DLI contexts. There are two purposes that frame this research: to gain a global understanding of the purposes and tensions of a strong translanguaging stance, and to highlight local examples of how elementary DLI teachers think, plan, and teach with translanguaging as a critical literacy pedagogy. It is guided by the following research questions: a) What are the purposes and tensions of a strong translanguaging stance for elementary DLI teachers?b) How do elementary DLI teachers negotiate these tensions to design critical translanguaging literacy lessons? c)How do elementary DLI teachers critically and creatively shift their translanguaging pedagogy while teaching such lessons? Methodologically, this study is framed and operationalized via Garcia, Johnson, and Seltzer’s (2017) translanguaging pedagogy framework of Stance/Design/Shifts. It draws on semi-structured interviews with elementary DLI teachers to explore the global purposes and tensions of a strong translanguaging stance. It further draws on multiple case studies, including interviews, lesson plans, and classroom observations, to analyze local examples of teachers’ stances, designs, and shifts in practice. It concludes that, globally, teachers engage translanguaging pedagogy for the purposes of teaching for more than biliteracy/biculturalism, teaching as a co-learner, and teaching to disrupt raciolinguistic ideologies while navigating tensions related to resisting English hegemony, negotiating weak and strong translanguaging, and valuing teacher expertise. It further offers evidence of how teachers locally engage these purposes and tensions to teach with translanguaging as a critical literacy pedagogy.