Page 297 - Karmen Pižorn, Alja Lipavic Oštir in Janja Žmavc, ur. • Obrazi več-/raznojezičnosti. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2022. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 44
P. 297
rethinking language teaching: the theory and practice of plurilingual education
3.3 Translanguaging
As we explained in section 2.3.3, Scoil Bhríde’s pedagogical practice of hav-
ing pupils produce parallel texts in English and Irish extends to home lan-
guages (and in Fifth and Sixth Class, to French; see Little and Kirwan 2019,
pp. 112–114). This practice recalls “translanguaging” as it was originally de-
fined and practised in Wales in the 1980s (Lewis, Jones and Baker, 2022, p.
643). At that time there was a scarcity of instructional materials in Welsh,
so textbooks in English were used in Welsh immersion programmes but
classroom activities were carried out in Welsh (Williams, 2002, p. 36).
Translanguaging in this sense means using one language to reinforce an-
other in order to increase understanding and expand the learner’s capaci-
ty in both languages (Williams, 2002, p. 40). Learners listened and read in
English, then spoke and wrote in Welsh, and vice versa. As they switched
back and forth between languages, the texts they received and produced
in one language were scaffolded by and thus closely similar in content and
structure to the texts they received and produced in the other language.
The parallel texts produced and shared by Scoil Bhríde’s pupils perform
the same scaffolding function in the development of their plurilingual lit-
eracy. We noted in our introduction that the CEFR defines plurilingual-
ism as “a communicative competence … in which languages interrelate and
interact” (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 4). Translanguaging in its original
sense provides us with one way of understanding the verbs “interrelate”
and “interact” in this definition: as referring to patterns of language use
that promote conceptual and linguistic transfer across languages. This un-
derstanding coincides with what Cummins (in press) calls Crosslinguistic
Translanguaging Theory, and it is further exemplified in pupils’ production
of texts that focus explicitly on differences between languages: texts in Eng-
lish that include as many words borrowed from French as possible; narra-
tives in which languages alternate not within but between sentences.
Since Williams first coined the term (in Welsh), the sense of “trans-
languaging” has been extended to embrace the fluid language use typical
of bilinguals (code switching and code mixing) and a wide variety of bilin-
gual pedagogies. Ofelia García and her colleagues have also used the term
to question the nature of language itself (see, for example, García, 2009;
García and Li Wei, 2014; Otheguy, García and Reid, 2015). For them, a pluri-
lingual mind possesses not a multiplicity of sometimes overlapping linguis-
tic systems but an undifferentiated unitary system. According to this claim,
the verbs “interrelate” and “interact” in the CEFR’s definition of plurilin-
297
3.3 Translanguaging
As we explained in section 2.3.3, Scoil Bhríde’s pedagogical practice of hav-
ing pupils produce parallel texts in English and Irish extends to home lan-
guages (and in Fifth and Sixth Class, to French; see Little and Kirwan 2019,
pp. 112–114). This practice recalls “translanguaging” as it was originally de-
fined and practised in Wales in the 1980s (Lewis, Jones and Baker, 2022, p.
643). At that time there was a scarcity of instructional materials in Welsh,
so textbooks in English were used in Welsh immersion programmes but
classroom activities were carried out in Welsh (Williams, 2002, p. 36).
Translanguaging in this sense means using one language to reinforce an-
other in order to increase understanding and expand the learner’s capaci-
ty in both languages (Williams, 2002, p. 40). Learners listened and read in
English, then spoke and wrote in Welsh, and vice versa. As they switched
back and forth between languages, the texts they received and produced
in one language were scaffolded by and thus closely similar in content and
structure to the texts they received and produced in the other language.
The parallel texts produced and shared by Scoil Bhríde’s pupils perform
the same scaffolding function in the development of their plurilingual lit-
eracy. We noted in our introduction that the CEFR defines plurilingual-
ism as “a communicative competence … in which languages interrelate and
interact” (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 4). Translanguaging in its original
sense provides us with one way of understanding the verbs “interrelate”
and “interact” in this definition: as referring to patterns of language use
that promote conceptual and linguistic transfer across languages. This un-
derstanding coincides with what Cummins (in press) calls Crosslinguistic
Translanguaging Theory, and it is further exemplified in pupils’ production
of texts that focus explicitly on differences between languages: texts in Eng-
lish that include as many words borrowed from French as possible; narra-
tives in which languages alternate not within but between sentences.
Since Williams first coined the term (in Welsh), the sense of “trans-
languaging” has been extended to embrace the fluid language use typical
of bilinguals (code switching and code mixing) and a wide variety of bilin-
gual pedagogies. Ofelia García and her colleagues have also used the term
to question the nature of language itself (see, for example, García, 2009;
García and Li Wei, 2014; Otheguy, García and Reid, 2015). For them, a pluri-
lingual mind possesses not a multiplicity of sometimes overlapping linguis-
tic systems but an undifferentiated unitary system. According to this claim,
the verbs “interrelate” and “interact” in the CEFR’s definition of plurilin-
297
