Los pájaros are feliz and are dreaming about gwiazdy: facilitating translingual creative writing in the primary classroom

ABSTRACT

Although one in five state-educated children in England speaks a language other than English at home, there is little space in the National Curriculum for the expression of this linguistic heritage. In this article, we make the case for facilitating multilingualism in the primary classroom through translingual creative writing, which involves mixing two or more languages. We draw on empirical research with a class of lower Key Stage 2 children of diverse linguistic backgrounds and abilities at a school in south London. The pupils were set the task of writing a poem that combined English with other languages so that we could observe how they engaged with the process of translanguaging. We suggest that translingual writing exercises in the classroom provide a range of benefits, including the creation of a space for the valorisation of children’s cultural capital; the facilitation of valuable peer-teaching and collaboration; freedom to explore playfulness with language; and a chance to experiment with and reflect on creative writing processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Translingualism
• translanguaging
• heritage languages
• creative writing
• key stage 2

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The project underwent full ethics review at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Parental consent was granted for the anonymous dissemination of the children’s work.

2. All translations into English are our own.

3. The children who participated in the study have been given pseudonyms to protect their identities and ensure full confidentiality.

4. We have transcribed the children’s poems exactly as they wrote them without amending their spelling or punctuation.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Open World Research Initiative (OWRI), Translingual Strand “Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community”. For further information on the project, see “OWRI Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community Translingual Strand” https://crosslanguagedynamics.blogs.sas.ac.uk/about/about-the-project/

Notes on contributors

Catherine Barbour

Catherine Barbour is Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Surrey. She was OWRI Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London in 2018. Her current research centres on translanguaging pedagogy and translingual migrant writing in Hispanic contexts.

Karina Lickorish Quinn

Karina Lickorish Quinn is Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Leeds School of English and a final year PhD candidate in Queen Mary University of London's School of English and Drama. Karina was previously a secondary school English teacher and holds an MA from the UCL Institute of Education. Translanguaging and multilingual literature are key research interests for Karina in both her critical and creative practice.