Teachers’ Awareness and Management of the Social, Cultural, and Political Indexicalities of Translanguaging

Abstract

ABSTRACTTranslanguaging scholars have debated whether dismantling boundaries between “named” languages is necessary for social justice in education. To explore this issue, we examined teachers’ reported use of named languages or translanguaging in classroom activities. We used a survey as an interview protocol to compare the extent to which four primary teachers in different international settings implemented two types of bi/multilingual practices with a recently taught class: translanguaging to learn without regard for boundaries between named languages, and symbolic valuation of students’ (named) home languages and languages of affiliation. Using the sociolinguistic construct of “indexicality” as a lens of analysis, we found that only sometimes do teachers describe attaching positive indexicalities (social, cultural, or political meanings) to dynamic translanguaging or to named languages, and only sometimes are these indexicalities egalitarian—suggesting that the answer to the debate lies in positionings teachers create while marshalling translanguaging or named languages to manage classroom identities.KEYWORDS: bi/multilingualismdiscourse analysislearner identityteacher expertisetranslanguaging Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. CACTI stands for Classroom Approaches to CLIL and Translanguaging Inventory. While “Content Language Integrated Learning” (CLIL) or “English-Medium Instruction” (EMI) often means academic subject learning in English in a country where English is not the dominant language, we use it here to refer to any subject class taught in English in primary and secondary education.2. We do not mean to suggest that Yvette grades the written texts in languages she doesn’t understand, but that she recognizes their function as a tool for making meaning, to help her students learn.3. Link to instrument on Principal Investigator’s website: https://annamend.com/cacti/. Also see Mendoza and Ou (Citation2022).Additional informationFundingThis research has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) at Anna Mendoza’s former institution, the University of Hong Kong, Project No. EA200204. The study was funded by RGCAS Grant No. 202009185059, University of Hong Kong. We extend our gratitude to those who participated in the research.Notes on contributorsAnna MendozaAnna Mendoza is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She studies how to create critical translanguaging spaces in primary and secondary education that are characterized by reciprocal learning and communal accountability.Jiaen OuJiaen Ou is an EdD student in the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, in Hong Kong, China. She also worked as a primary school English language teacher for a few years. Her research interests are English language education and teacher education.Shakina RajendramShakina Rajendram is Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream and the Coordinator of the Language Teaching Field at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Canada. Her teaching and research focus on language education, K–12 teacher education, and supporting multilingual learners and international students through translanguaging and multiliteracies pedagogies.Andrew CoombsAndrew Coombs is a Teaching Assistant Professor at Memorial University (Newfoundland & Labrador). Andrew’s research programme focuses on understanding the factors shaping early career teachers’ assessment practices and assessment learning needs. He teaches courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level including quantitative and qualitative research, curriculum theory, and classroom assessment and evaluation.