In it there are students of several different language backgrounds. As a class is conducted in English, a kind of invisible current of students’ knowledge in their home languages is running, and bilingual children, when allowed and encouraged, can draw on their full linguistic repertoire to make sense of the instruction in English.
Translanguaging Strategies
Throughout this book, we will describe translanguaging strategies that both monolingual and bilingual teachers can use to scaffold instruction for emergent bilinguals in mainstream classes with English learners. Using translanguaging strategies not only scaffolds instruction but also affirms students’ bilingual identities and their culture.
1. Turn and Talk
In our first reflective activity, we asked you to turn and talk with a partner to discuss different topics. In classes with emergent bilinguals, teachers can ask students to do a turn and talk using either their home language or English. This allows all students to draw on all their language resources as they discuss lesson ideas. They can report back to the class in English.
Allowing students to choose the language during a turn and talk can be extended to any small-group discussion time. Teachers may want to put students who share the same home language together for pair or group work. At other times, teachers might create groups of students with different home languages. The benefit of using linguistically homogeneous groups is that students may be able to communicate more fully and expand their language ability. On the other hand, if the groups are linguistically mixed, then some of the students will be encouraged to communicate in the language they are just beginning to acquire.
Standards based skills: draw on background knowledge, explain, summarize
2. Cognate and Multilingual Word Walls
A second translanguaging strategy is to draw on cognates and to make bilingual or multilingual word walls. This strategy helps build a multilingual linguistic ecology and also scaffolds instruction. Of course, there are no cognates if the home language is not related to English. However, about three-fourths of emergent bilinguals are Spanish speakers, and it is estimated that 30–40% of all English words have a related word in Spanish. Further, academic terms in English are often cognates of everyday Spanish words.
Teachers can draw on cognates in different ways. For example, students could be given a text in English and the translation in Spanish. Then, working in pairs, students could identify words that look alike. Next, students could report these words back to the teacher, who could make a chart of all the cognate pairs in the passage. Word walls with cognates based on terms from a unit of study can be posted around the room to serve as a resource for students as they talk, read, and write about the unit.
Standards based skills: compare and contrast, draw on background knowledge
In classes with students who speak languages other than Spanish, the word walls can be expanded to include words from Mandarin, Arabic, or other languages. Multilingual word walls might include words that are not cognates but rather important terms related to the unit. All students are interested in seeing how their classmates write and pronounce words in their home language.
Standards based skills: draw on background knowledge, compare English and other languages
3. Use Bilingual Books
A third translanguaging strategy is to find and use bilingual books. Many bilingual books, both fiction and informational, are available in Spanish and English, for example. Emergent bilinguals can read a bilingual book in their home language to learn the content the class is studying. In addition, they can read the book in English and use the home language version of the text as a resource, much like a dictionary. They could also first read the text in their home language and then, with the background the text provides, try reading it in English.
Teachers who implement translanguaging strategies should use the two languages strategically. Simply translating everything does not help students develop proficiency in an additional language. Opportunities for including the two languages should be carefully planned. Students can draw on their home language to scaffold learning in English, but they also need time to speak, read, and write English to develop academic English proficiency.
Conclusion
Many mainstream teachers who have English learners in their classes are expected to teach using district-adopted language arts textbooks. These materials may include a few suggestions for working with English learners, but textbooks are written for native English speakers. Our goal in this book is to show how teachers can adopt a new approach and use strategies and key practices that make language arts units of inquiry based on big questions accessible to both native English speakers and English learners.
The key points for working effectively with emergent bilinguals that we have discussed include:
Organizing your language arts curriculum around units of inquiry
Getting to know your English learners so you can best teach them
Creating a multilingual/multicultural environment
Understanding the language proficiency of your students
Using a gradual release of responsibility model of reading and writing
Drawing on English learners’ background knowledge
Drawing on students’ home languages (translanguaging)
The goal of this book is to give you the support you need to work effectively with the emergent bilingual students in your language arts classroom, using an approach that will make your language arts curriculum accessible to all of your students. Using this approach, you will see how to include both language and content objectives connected to Standards, how to make what you teach comprehensible to all your students, and how to choose appropriate texts for your students. When you use this approach, your English learners can develop the academic language and the academic content they need for school success.
Descriptions of Images and Figures
Back to Figure
This map of the world is titled, where is the world are you from? Map. The text on top of the map reads, From so many different lands… together we stand [exclamation point].
This map of the world has a portrait photo of Mrs. Porter, 3rd grade on the top left and an arrow from this picture points to the United States on the map.
The little girl in pigtails in the photo below has an arrow from her picture that points to Alaska, United States, on the map.
The little boy in the photo below has an arrow from his photo that points to Cuba on the map.
A row of photos is seen below the map and the first on this row of photos is a little girl. She holds books in her hand. An arrow from her photo points to Iran on the map.
The second photo is that of a girl with a back pack and the arrow from her photo points to Canada on the map.
The
