"Translanguaging in ECE, a project designed to create safe environments where children can feel proud of their identity, express their ideas in multilingual and multimodal ways while making meaning of their world.”
The role of the Teacher
As the teacher plays the principal role in promoting translanguaging in the classrooms, the teacher should know how to design opportunities for students to explore, understand and take out the best from this approach.
Teacher training must become a regular and constant practice in schools. Teachers should be provided with the time to reflect on their practices in order to better prepare themselves and create the ideal environment to support the needs of the students. According to Garcia (2017), and described by Kirsch & Seele (2020), there are 3 major components of translanguaging that teachers should be familiarized with.
Stance
Is the commitment that teachers show to embrace each student's repertoire considering them as resources.
Design
Planning that teachers must o do in order to expose students to several languages, bridging home to school practices.
Shifts
It requires flexibility, is the ability to adapt their teaching to the students' needs.
A growth mindset (Dweck, 2004) should be promoted among teachers allowing them to get rid of old mindsets. Lot's of advice can be said and training can be done, but the key to success in schools is having school administrators that are always open to truly listen and support teachers.
References:
Dweck, C.S. (2009) Mindsets: Developing Talent through a growth mindset. Olympic Coach, 21(1), 4-7
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García, O., Johnson, S. I., & Seltzer, K. (2017). The translanguaging classroom: Leveraging student bilingualism for learning. Philadelphia: Carlson.
Kirsch C., & Seele C. (2020) Translanguaging in Early Childhood Education in Luxembourg: From Practice to Pedagogy. In Panagiotopoulou J., Rosen L., Strzykala J. (Eds.) Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging. Inklusion und Bildung in Migrationsgesellschaften. (pp. 63-81) Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
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