Unilateral translanguaging: teachers’ language use, perceptions, and experience in a Portuguese-English two-way immersion program

ABSTRACT

This study documents the notion of unilateral translanguaging–the configuration of translanguaging spaces to disproportionately privilege a dominant language or its speakers. We analyze four teachers’ translanguaging practices in a Portuguese-English two-way immersion (TWI) program in the United States. Rather than focusing on whether and how translanguaging occurs, we highlight temporality and purpose to explore when and why participants engaged in translingual practices. Data stem from a three-year ethnographic project and include semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. We found that translanguaging mainly occurred during Portuguese lessons, during which teachers used English to give directions, discipline students, and give important announcements, linking English use to moments of high authority. English-dominant students’ translanguaging practices also tended to be more readily accepted than those of Portuguese-dominant students. Furthermore, in contrast to prior research on language status as unconscious bias, our findings demonstrate teachers’ keen awareness of practices and policies that disproportionately benefit English-dominant students. Still, structural conditions, parental power dynamics, and pressure to maintain the program left the focal teachers feeling unequipped to interrupt these practices. This research highlights how educators’ practices and perceptions of translanguaging interact with structural features of bilingual education programming as factors that may disrupt or reproduce inequities.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• two-way immersion
• language status
• teacher
• Portuguese

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 This article presents several excerpts from these interviews with the teachers translated into English. For the original quotes in Portuguese, we encourage readers to contact the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Boston College.

Notes on contributors

Mariana Lima Becker

Mariana Lima Becker is a doctoral student at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. She has taught English as a foreign languagein Brazil and is a licensed ESL teacher in Massachusetts. Her research interests involve immigrant children’s educational lives, bilingual education, and transnational literacies.

Chris K. Chang-Bacon

Chris K. Chang-Bacon is an assistant professor of education at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development. His research explores equity in multilingual and multicultural contexts. As a former ESL teacher, Chang-Bacon’s scholarship is informed by the dynamic language practices young people bring to classrooms.

Gabrielle Oliveira

Gabrielle Oliveira is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Associate Professor of Education and of Brazil Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on immigration and education—on how families and children move, adapt, and parent across borders.