Navigating Hybridized Language Learning Spaces Through Translanguaging Pedagogy: Dual Language Preschool Teachers’ Languaging Practices in Support of Emergent Bilingual Children’s Performance of Academic Discourse

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in early bilingual development and the unique role of the educational setting’s language policy in this development. In this article, we describe how one dual language preschool teacher, in partnership with two co-teachers, navigated the tensions between language separation ideology and its practical realization in early bilingual education by co-constructing and enacting flexible bilingual pedagogic practices in support of Spanish-English emergent bilingual children’s participation in language and literary activities and performance of academic discourse. Teachers’ translanguaging practices of code-switching, translation, bilingual recasting, and language brokering drew on children’s linguistic and cultural funds of knowledge, supported experimentation with new language forms, and integrated various languages and language varieties, while recognizing, validating, and expressing their shared bilingual identities.

Keywords:

• bilingualism
• code-switching
• dual language
• emergent bilinguals
• preschool
• translanguaging

Notes

¹ A substantial proportion of Miami-Dade County residents live in poverty, with 30% of households making a total annual income of $25,000 or below, and 19% falling below the poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012).

² There were several weeks over the fall semester during which Show-and-Tell activity did not occur due to field trips, whole-school special activities, or other interruptions to the regular schedule.

³ For a fuller discussion of the invention of languages, see Makoni and Pennycook (2007).