Challenging the ‘Dual’: designing translanguaging spaces in a Mandarin-English dual language bilingual education program

ABSTRACT

In response to a growing call for developing flexible, multilingual spaces in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs, this paper explored how [Sánchez, M. T., O. García, and C. Solorza. 2018. “Reframing Language Allocation Policy in Dual Language Bilingual Education.” Bilingual Research Journal 41 (1): 37–51.] translanguaging allocation policy could be strategically and purposefully implemented in a Grade 3 Mandarin classroom in a U.S. Mandarin-English DLBE program where the majority of the students were English-dominant speakers. Taking the form of participatory design research [Bang, M., and S. Vossoughi. 2016. “Participatory Design Research and Educational Justice: Studying Learning and Relations Within Social Change Making.” Cognition and Instruction 34 (3): 173–193.], I (as a researcher) and a Mandarin teacher worked together to co-design translanguaging spaces within and across three content areas: Chinese Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies. Data collection included classroom and design meeting recordings, observational field notes, and teacher and students’ artefacts and interviews throughout one whole school year. Inductive and deductive coding were adopted for data analysis. Findings revealed that it was a balancing act to create translanguaging spaces while maintaining the language-minoritized space and privileging students’ use of Mandarin. Translanguaging spaces took many shapes based on contextual factors such as different learning objectives and curricular demands of each content area. Students were able to demonstrate a fuller picture of their academic performance, develop deeper content understandings, build cross-linguistic connections, and become more aware of their bi/multilingual and bi/multicultural identities.

摘要

为了响应近年来在双语沉浸式项目中建立灵活、多语教学环境的呼声, 这篇文章探讨了如何在三年级的中文课堂里有策略、有目的性地实行Sánchez, García & Solorza (2018) 的超语分配政策。本研究在一所开设了中英双语沉浸式项目的美国学校展开, 项目中绝大多数的学生都以说英语为主。采用参与式的设计研究方法, 我 (作为研究者) 和一位中文教师在语文、科学和社会学三门学科中共同设计了超语教学活动。收集的数据包括一整学年的课堂和设计会议的录像、观察笔记、对教师和学生的采访, 还有来自教师和学生的作品。数据分析采用了演绎与归纳译码法。结果表明要谨慎平衡超语空间同中文的教学与使用时间。基于不同的背景因素例如学习目标或者不同学科的课程需求, 超语空间会采用不同的形态。超语教学能够使学生更充分地展示自身的学术表现, 加深对学科内容的理解, 建立跨语言联系, 并且更加注重多语言多文化的个性发展。

KEYWORDS:

• translanguaging allocation policy
• Mandarin-English dual language bilingual education
• participatory design research
• multilingual space

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The teacher’s last name is used with her permission. Students’ names are not revealed in this study.