THE TRANSLANGUAGING CURRENT
IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Ofelia García
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
October 8, 2015
ogarcia@gc.cuny.edu
www.ofeliagarcia.org

Framing Question
How do I today teach Swedish as a second
language to children, adolescents and
adults?

Overview
• Where has language education been?
• Where is language education going?
• Two teachers and a translanguaging
pedagogy.
• US situations.Translanguaging theory beyond.

Traditional conceptualizations of language
in language education
Languages (and cultures) as autonomous
bounded concepts
• Norms of idealized “native language” speaker.
• Acquisition of a “second” language.

Traditional conceptualizations of language
based on constructions
of standards and norms….
Why? To “manage” differences

Traditional conceptualizations
of language education
• Subtractive bilingualism for those
considered “others”
• Additive bilingualism for those who belong

Traditional conceptualizations
Subtractive bilingualism for “others”

Traditional conceptualizations
Additive bilingualism for the elite

Traditional conceptualizations
of language education
Goal of language education = to teach a
“second language”
• To “others” who will not participate
meaningfully
• To “own” who could only “add” to a linguistic
and cultural identity that is left undisturbed.

Traditional language education pedagogy
based on language construction
Pedagogies of
complete separation
Pedagogies based on
diglossia

The world has turned……
and language education has not always
Why not?

How has the world turned?
A neoliberal economic regime
(Harvey, 2005)
• Deregulation of markets
• Privatization and withdrawal of state from social
provisions
• Deterritorialization & displacements
• Spaces are interconnected
• Transnational circulation (capital, commodities,
labor and people). Technology
• Migrations & displacements

What have been the effects
of deregulation and deterritorialization on
language education?
Breaking out of the box

Breaking outs?
• 1. Many marginalized communities have
broken out of boundaries that had been
imposed
• Subtractive bilingualism questioned
• 2. The powerful have broken out of their
national borders
• Additive bilingualism no longer sufficient
• Turn toward plurilingualism

Breaking out has made
Dynamic bilingualism
visible
• Complexity
• Interconnectivity
• Multiplicity
but
• One tree

How does dynamic bilingualism re-shape
conceptualizations of “second language” education?
è
Dialogic, formed through social interaction
+
Not a “second” language. New language features & practices

Can learners acquire a “second language”
as a self-contained system?
• No!!!!!!
• Example: Two 5 year old “English language learners” who
are speakers of “Spanish” in a bilingual classroom
• What are they doing?

A 5 year old “English language learner” in
an “English” class
T: This tree is bigger. That tree
is smaller.
Alicia: [Tries out under her
breath]. This tree is grander.
(9/23/2007)

Snack Time for a 5 year old “English
language learner”
[Looking out the window and
talking to himself]
A: Está lloviendo mucho. [It is
raining a lot]
Look [telling the others]. It's
washing. There washing
afuera [outside] (10/19/2007)

What are these “English learners” doing?
• These learners are not simply adding
“English”, a whole autonomous language to
a “Spanish”.
• They are using their own language
features in interrelationship with new
ones to make meaning and communicate.
• They are constructing their dynamic
bilingual repertoire by adding features to
those they already have.

What are the “English learners” doing?
They are not code-
switching
From one national
language to another
They are TRANSLANGUAGING
Using their full language repertoire of
features to make meaning and extend
their repertoire

Translanguaging:
From bilingual speaker’s perspective
A single language system
“Even though Spanish runs through my heart,
English rules my veins”

Language performances of bilinguals –
Not code-switching but One language system – 36.06

Language performances from the bilingual speaker´s angle
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Socially constructed as
English LOTETranslanguaging Space

What “language learners” do….
Whether they are
deploying ONLY FEATURES THAT HAVE BEEN
APPROVED BY SCHOOL for the task
Or
deploying ANY OF THE FEATURES in their language
repertoire to show what they know and can do
Learners ALWAYS leverage their entire language
repertoire in the process.
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Not “language learners”
but Emergent Bilinguals/
Voices always under construction …..

The translanguaging corriente
García, Johnson & Seltzer, forthcoming (Caslon)
“Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don’t” but always
present
Why? Coordination of all language features into a linguistic
performance

How do you leverage the translanguaging
corriente in teaching?
TRANSLANGUAGING PEDAGOGY
The deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire
to learn and develop ways of using language and extend
their repertoire
& to equalize positions of learners

CUNY-NYSIEB, 2012 - today
www.cuny-nysieb.org
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
RISLUS (Research InsCtute for the Study of Languages in Urban Society & the
Ph.D. Program in Urban EducaCon
Funded by The New York State EducaCon Department
Principal InvesCgators: Ricardo Otheguy, Ofelia García, Kate Menken
Project Director: Maite (María Teresa) Sánchez
LEADERSHIP COMPONENT
Associate InvesCgators: L. Ascenzi-Moreno, B. Collins, A. Ebe, C. Espinosa, M.
Kaya, E. Kearney, and K. Mahoney, V. Pérez
Research Assistants: K. Carpenter, I. Espinet, L. Guzmán Valerio, Maria Peña,
and K. Seltzer
Field Associates: C. Celic, and C. Solorza
NETWORK COMPONENT
Research Assistants: L. Herrera, S. Hesson
Contributors In the past : N. Flores, T. Kleyn, L. Pappas, H. Woodley

www.cuny-nysieb.org
Publication tab
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Translanguaging!in!Curriculum!and!Instruction:!
A!CUNY7NYSIEB!Guide!for!Educators!
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Sarah!Hesson!
Kate!Seltzer!
Heather!H.!Woodley!!
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A “monolingual” teacher in an English-medium
classroom
5th grade – 10 year olds
What is Andy Brown doing?

What is Andy Brown doing?
Constructing a translanguaging space
• Linguistic landscape of classroom reflects multilingualism of children
• All ways of using language in classrooms in conversation with each
other
• Building metalinguistic awareness
• Building linguistic tolerance toward each other
• Working against linguistic hierarchies
• Involving families and others
• Developing multiliteracies

What is Andy Brown doing?
Translanguaging to build on the existing language repertoire
of students
• Acting as co-learner
• Recognizing & building on linguistic strengths
• Putting classroom’s language repertoires in conversation with each other
• Questioning dictionaries & manuals (“means”/”medios” -- “significa”)
• Recognizing difficulty of translation
• Recognizing the variability of language
• Recognizing differences in script & literacy directionality
• Normalizing linguistic diversity
• Bringing forth the translanguaging corriente

A teacher who is bilingual in an English-medium
classroom
11th grade – 17 year olds
What is Camila Leiva doing?

Pan American International High School
Rap Monday with music videos from
El Chivo of Quinto Sol & Eminem

“SÍ SE PUEDE” “YES WE CAN”
El Chivo of Quinto Sol
Against deportation of undocumented immigrants & separation of
children.
Call to action
“I’ll tell you the truth about illegal aliens!
Immigration is out of control, Fellows”.
“We got to do something.”
“If you take my mother, it will hurt my heart.”
“No me separen de mi mamá y mi papá.”

“Mosh” by Eminem
Against policies of then Pres. George Bush – War in Iraq
Call to action
• Pledge of allegiance by schoolchildren- “One nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” cf. with
• Deaf ears of then President George W. Bush, the US
Supreme Court and Congress to the pleas of the people
against the war in Iraq.

Sí se puede Mosh
El Chivo of Quinto Sol Eminem
Terrorismo es un pretexto. Esto no
es algo nuevo.
Lo mismo le pasó a mi padre;
también a mi abuelo.
El racismo no termina,
Es el mismo duelo.
¿Dónde quedó la libertad
que fundó este suelo?
Con miedo nos rechazan,
Le temen a mi raza.
Son miles de niños que han
perdido su casa,
Separando a padre, hijos y
hermanos.
Unidos todos, sí se puede.
All you can see is a sea of people,
some white and some black.
Don’t matter what color, all that
matters we gathered together to
celebrate for the same cause,
Don’t matter the weather.
If it rains, let it rain, Yeah, the
wetter the better.
They ain´t gonna stop us.
They can´t.
We stronger than ever.
They tell us no. We say Yeah!
They tell us stop. We say Go!
Rebel. With a rebel yell raise hell.
We gonna let ‘em know.

The music videos:
Translanguaging in LISTENING/VIEWING
• Multimodalities in music videos
• Simultaneous listening and viewing
• Translanguaging & transculturation in music videos
• Deconstructing autonomous language
• Different language practices
• Rapping, spoken, written, “slang”
• Call for unity of all practices – Unidos todos/ a sea of people together
• The continuum of translanguaging performances by
people in videos
• Different points along the monolingual-bilingual continuum
• El Chivo born in Los Angeles but rap is in Spanish; Eminem born in the US
but moving back and forth with whole repertoire.
• Different entry point to lesson

The music video: Translanguaging in
DIALOGUE & DISCUSSION
• In groups, students translanguage with each other
• In discussion with teacher, students translanguage to
participate
• I-Pads for meaning.
• Teacher makes links to translanguaging & transculturation
for strength in unity
• “Even though the song is in Spanish, we’re choosing words in
English. Quinto Sol grew up in the US but they do hip-hop in
Spanish, and we’re doing the same.”
• Sí se puede”“unidos todos con esta canción” (El Chivo) vs.” “all
that matters we gathered together” and it is then that “they ain’t
gonna stop us” since “we stronger now more than ever” (Eminem)

LITERACY and Translanguaging

Literacy and Translanguaging

Translanguaging for literacy
• Discussion of reading using translanguaging
• Translation/writing using translanguaging
• Different entry points to writing

Translanguaging for metalinguistic awareness
• The power of language practices that are not the
dominant ones when speakers are all together
• Awareness of different language practices.
• “We gathered” together. “We stronger”
• Let ‘em know.
• Rhyming: Together, weather better, ever,
• Alliteration: Wetter/better
• Awareness of the construction of standard language
• Awareness of complexity and dynamism of bilingualism
• Drawing on students’ full linguistic repertoire to perform
with features desired in formal school settings

Translanguaging to create a trans-subject
to change perspectives and terms
through which conversations are had.
FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

What translanguaging enables
• Translanguaging equalizes the distance between home
language practices and those desired in school.
• Translanguaging liberates and includes the multilingual
voices of speakers that have been constrained or
repressed in school
• Translanguaging normalizes multilingual use, speakers
and audiences
• Translanguaging is more than a simple scaffold, it is
expressive/transformational (changes terms through
which conversations are had).

Reframing the question through a
translanguaging lens……
• How do I teach
Swedish as a second
language to children,
adolescents and adults
who are new to
Sweden?
• How do I engage
students in appropriating
the language features
associated with Swedish
into their own unique
language repertoire?

To answer the question: A translanguaging pedagogy
Acknowledge the translanguaging current and learn to
navigate it to move forward
Andy & Camila’s translanguaging pedagogy:
1. Stance
2. Design
3. Shifts

Atranslanguaging pedagogy can assist us in answering the
transformed question of how to engage students in appropriating
the language features of Swedish into their language repertoire.
Adjö