"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.”
Translanguaging
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Translanguaging, as a pedagogical approach, is an invitation to let students use their whole repertoire to make meaning of their world (Otheguy et al, 2015). Moreover, it encourages children to leverage their full potential by using, as a resource, all their cultural and linguistic background to develop their unique identities in the classrooms. Translanguaging provides an opportunity for children to express themselves with freedom, favoring multilingual and multimodal communication (Li, 2018). It challenges the mindset of named languages (such as English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) leaving behind the monolingual perspective, and moving towards a more inclusive pedagogy that values and supports diversity. (Li, 2018; Otheguy et al, 2015; Morell & Lopez, 2021).
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From a translanguaging perspective, children have one whole repertoire where all their knowledge is interrelated, and as a consequence, named languages do not have clear boundaries, they fusion with each other creating a unique vision of the world (Li, 2018). To
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understand better this concept, we can compare a child's mind to a watercolor painting where each color will represent a named language. We can't define exactly where they begin or end, because borders are not clearly defined, they overlap with each other creating new colors. In the same way, languages are entangled inside the brain of a child.
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Evolution of the concept
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According to Li (2018), translanguaging first emerged as a descriptive label for language practice. It arises from the revitalization programs of the Welsh language. It is a term proposed by Williams in 1994 to describe a practice and a process of knowledge that goes beyond languages.
Then, Li (2018) builds the concept from the word Languaging borrowed from the Chilean biologist and neuroscientist Humberto Maturana and his co-author Francesco Varela in 1980. He invites us to think that language doesn't exist alone, it only exists as a continual languaging process. Therefore, language is not seen as an accomplished goal, but as a process of being made.
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If we consider it, "as a theoretical concept, Translanguaging embraces the multimodal social semiotic view that linguistic signs are part of a wider repertoire of modal resources that sign makers have at their disposal and that carry particular socio-historical and political association" (Li, 2018, p. 27).
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Wrapping up
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In simple words, and summarizing the ideas from Otheguy et al, (2015) and Li (2018), translanguaging is a practice and a process, it goes beyond named languages, it prioritizes each child's whole repertoire, provides opportunities for learning from multisensory and multimodal experiences while leveraging creativity and criticality to make meaning of the world.
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References:
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Li, W. (2018) Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30.
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Morell, Z. & Lopez, D. (2021) Translanguaging and Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood
Education. In O. Garcia (Ed.) Translanguaging and transformative teaching for emergent bilingual students: lessons from the CUNY-NYSIEB Project, pp. 149-150. Routledge
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Otheguy, R., García, O., & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review, 6(3), 281–307.
Translanguaging is “...the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages.” (Otheguy et al., 2015, p. 283)
