Raising Critical Language Awareness in a Translanguaging-Infused Teacher Education Course: Opportunities and Challenges

ABSTRACT In this classroom-based qualitative study, we examine how a small group of content area teacher candidates developed emerging critical language awareness (CLA) during one graduate-level translanguaging-infused teacher education course on multilingual theories and practices. The findings point out the potential of translanguaging in prompting spontaneous reflections on pre-service teachers’ personal experiences with language and languaging, paving way for them to critically rethink the status of English in teaching, learning, and communication for social justice. Yet, although teacher candidates demonstrated their emerging CLA as manifested at the ideological level, they encountered difficulties enacting critical translanguaging into practice. In their lesson plans, English was largely positioned as the end goal of content-area education and translanguaging was often reduced to a translation strategy to scaffold academic language development. Based on the findings, we propose suggestions for teacher education course design and advocate for program-wide efforts in sustaining and strengthening CLA across the curriculum.