Grappling with translanguaging for teaching and assessment in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts: teacher perspectives from Oaxaca, Mexico

ABSTRACT

Multilingual practices of translanguaging – fluid, complex, and dynamic processes of using one's complete linguistic repertoire – have been increasingly embraced by researchers and educators in bilingual education. Applying this perspective within the field of assessment has proven more challenging. In this project, we explore the role of multilingualism in teaching and classroom assessment design and practice, drawing upon the concept of translanguaging as a lens through which to explore the perceptions and practices of teachers. Working from assumptions that multilingualism in classrooms is an important tool to enhance the learning of linguistic minority students, we examined how teachers perceive and practice translanguaging in classroom language assessments through an action research case study with 40 language teachers in the linguistically and culturally diverse state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Their reflections ranged from the pressure to train students to produce monolingual-like language in order to pass international standardized tests to the potential to validate students’ linguistic repertoires and multicultural identities through increased use of translanguaging. Our analysis of this action research study and discussion of the potentials and limitations of translanguaging in teaching and assessments aims to contribute to the development of more equitable and effective multilingual education environments in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• bilingualism
• classroom assessment
• multilingualism
• translanguaging

Acknowledgements

Much gratitude to the teachers who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jamie L. Schissel is an assistant professor of TESOL at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. Her research centers on understanding issues of equity related to assessments and educational policies in linguistically and culturally diverse communities. In her work, she stresses locally-based learning goals that are attuned to different ideological belief systems and/or historical influences.

Haley De Korne (PhD Educational Linguistics) conducts research and advocacy in relation to minoritized language communities, multilingual education, and language politics in a variety of contexts, most recently in Oaxaca, Mexico. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan at the University of Oslo, Norway.

Mario López-Gopar is professor in the Faculty of Languages of Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. He holds a doctorate in second language education from the University of Toronto, Canada. His main research interest is intercultural and multilingual education of Indigenous peoples in Mexico.

Notes

1 Due to word restrictions, we have provided the English translations. The original Spanish versions are available upon request.