Engaging Opportunities: A Small Moments Reflexive Inquiry of Translanguaging in a Graduate TESOL Course

ABSTRACT

This article draws upon a small moments writing strategy to support language teacher educator learning as a form of reflective practice. Three language teacher educators formed a community of practice to analyze audio recordings of a graduate level TESOL course focused on dynamic bilingualism and translanguaging to identify opportunities where a professor and his students might leverage and enact their own linguistic repertoires to enhance their meaning-making about translanguaging as theory and praxis. Findings reveal four types of engaging opportunities: to expand and continue the co-construction of knowledge about translanguaging; to create space for teachers and students to translanguage; to engage students in clarifying inaccuracies or misunderstandings about translanguaging; and to complicate prior understandings of and socialization into language and how it works. Implications are provided to support the language teacher education community in developing pedagogy that better supports students’ understandings of translanguaging as a theory of language and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• language education
• teacher learning
• community of practice
• TESOL

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Although the course was scheduled for six weeks and 12 meetings, the class met a total of 10 times due to one meeting falling on a federal holiday and the instructor being out of town for another.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew R. Deroo

Dr. Matthew R. Deroo is a former language teacher and teacher educator who spent 10 years in China ahead of his graduate studies. He is an assistant professor at the University of Miami. His interdisciplinary research centers around three lines of inquiry: supporting immigrant youth from a translanguaging perspective, multimodal and semiotic theoretical framing in teacher learning, and community engaged scholarship. Dr. Deroo serves as the co-chair of the Multilingual and Transnational Innovative Community Group for the Literacy Research Association and is the current Awards Chair for the Writing and Literacies Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Deroo is a Mandarin speaker committed to supporting teachers and students to draw upon their full linguistic repertoires in support of their learning.

Ryan W. Pontier

Dr. Ryan Pontier is a former 2nd and 3rd grade dual language teacher, and an assistant professor of bilingual education at Florida International University. He has expertise in bilingualism, biliteracy, bilingual education, and teacher education. His research interests include authentic instructional practices for emergent bilingual learners, teacher education preparation for working with emergent bilingual learners, and teachers’ language ideology. Dr. Pontier serves as President of the Florida Association for Bilingual Education (FABE), Chair for the Research and Evaluation Special Interest Group within the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), Co-Moderator of the Sunshine State TESOL advocacy group, Chair of the Early Childhood Bilingual Education Council for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Florida, and Chair of the Government & Media Relations Committee for LULAC Florida.

Zhongfeng Tian

Zhongfeng Tian is an Assistant Professor of TESOL/Applied Linguistics in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Theoretically grounded in translanguaging, his research centers on developing equity-oriented pedagogies with pre- and in-service teachers to advance cultural and linguistic pluralism and justice in K-12 urban classrooms and beyond.