Insights from a faculty learning community on translingual community-engaged pedagogy at a Hispanic serving institution

Abstract

Despite emerging scholarship on translanguaging pedagogies and the potential Faculty Learning Communities (FLC) have on shifting pedagogical beliefs, there are limited studies that explore the impact a faculty learning community has on educators’ perceptions and reflections on translanguaging as a teaching and learning tool in higher education. The authors explore educators’ perceptions and enactment of translanguaging practices across disciplines in the context of a FLC on translingual community-engaged pedagogies. Through semi-structured interviews and written reflections, the authors used thematic analysis to investigate how the FLC impacted faculty participants’ critical reflection on their practice from the perspective of translanguaging as a pedagogical tool. While faculty participants questioned the implementation of translanguaging pedagogies, they acknowledged students’ language experiences as they grappled with linguistically inclusive approaches to teaching and learning. Teaching and research implications for embracing translanguaging pedagogies across academic disciplines are identified.

Keywords:

• Translingualism
• translanguaging pedagogies
• faculty learning community
• Hispanic
• serving
• institutions
• language inclusivity

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the faculty members who participated in this study; your thoughtful reflections and openness to conversations on translanguaging are appreciated. We also wish to thank Ms. Letty Gonzalez-Leal for her assistance in conducting and transcribing interviews as well as her insights on the analysis process. Finally, we wish to thank the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Transforming Our World Strategic Plan initiative for supporting this work through an internal grant.

Disclosure statement

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