Translanguaging

As a teacher of emergent bilinguals, I often have others ask me, "how can you teach ESL when you do not speak Spanish?" This is a common misconception among those who are not educated on what it means and entails to teach emergent bilinguals. I then go on to explain that not all emergent bilinguals speak Spanish. I have had students who speak Polish, Mandarin and Bengali.

Image result for translanguagingTranslanguaging is a vital component of teaching emergent bilinguals successfully. Sometimes people confuse this with code switching, which it is not. Translanguaging is allowing students to use their language repertoire in order to be successful in the classroom. There are some great ways that this can be encouraged from allowing students who share the same home language to work together and in their home language, to encouraging students to write in their home language or whatever language they feel most comfortable using. 

I loved the short CUNY video that showed how a teacher used graphic novels with her emergent bilinguals. This is great because even if they can not yet fully understand the words, they can still follow along and comprehend based on the pictures. Having students create their own graphic novels is also a wonderful idea, especially allowing them to choose what language they would like to use. I liked the examples from her classroom that showed students' graphic novels, some were in English, some Mandarin, others in both!


The video highlighted the importance of culturally relevant text. This is a key way to include emergent bilinguals' cultures in the classroom. When I use culturally relevant text in my class, it encourages my emergent bilinguals and most times they get to be the teacher and explain to their peers particularly concepts, vocab and traditions.

Ofelia Garcia coined the term translanguaging and is leading the forefront in translanguaging education.
I have included a post that explains a bit more what translanguaging is as well as a short clip from Ofelia Garcia herself.

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