“It’s How We Get Along” – Translanguaging in Middle-School Mathematics Class

Abstract

This article explores the translanguaging practices of five middle-school emergent bilinguals in mathematics. Situated in a Spanish-English dual language school in Miami, Florida, this ethnographic case study utilized student shadowing as the principal method of data collection. Data sources included six months of classroom observations, students’ mathematics work, and interviews with students and their mathematics teachers. Findings illustrate how translanguaging was not a random, haphazard experience among participants; rather students and their teachers transcended modes in a dynamic way that reflected their personal histories as members of Spanish-speaking families, as Latinas/os living in Miami, as members of a dual language school, and as individuals with different mathematics histories. This research underscores the multimodal aspects of translanguaging that students used to make sense of their mathematics learning. It highlights translanguaging as an asset-based pedagogy in its recognition of students’ funds of linguistic knowledge. Pedagogical implications are provided for the teaching and learning of mathematics among emergent bilinguals.