Translanguaging with Multilingual Students: Learning from Classroom Moments by Ofelia García and Tatyana Kleyn (review)

As the concept of translanguaging continues to spark vigorous debates in the field of language and literacy education, in Translanguaging with Multilingual Students: Learning from Classroom Moments, Ofelia García and Tatyana Kleyn contribute to the growing body of translanguaging research and pedagogy by providing a comprehensive and evidence-based answer for the critical question of how the theory of translanguaging interacts with practice. In so doing, they highlight both the possibilities and the challenges associated with the use of translanguaging in different classrooms and programs. This classroom-oriented research is relevant to the interests of researchers, teachers, teacher educators, and students across the fields of language education and applied linguistics.

Part One of the book’s three-part organization provides a framework for the entire volume and sets the stage for the chapters to come. García defines translanguaging as “an approach to bilingualism that is centered, not on languages as has been often the case, but on the practices of bilinguals that are readily observable” (44). In this volume, García and Kleyn further explicate that translanguaging takes full account of bi/multilingual speaker’s linguistic resources as one single repertoire, not as socially and politically named languages (14).

In Chapter 1, García and Kleyn explicate the theory of translanguaging in relation to a number of traditional models of bilingualism (e.g., Cummins’ interdependence hypothesis, code-switching), followed by a brief review of how educators across disciplines have taken up the theory of translanguaging in research and instruction, along with recommendations for applying translanguaging pedagogy. Chapter 2 presents a detailed and contextualized description of the authors’ translanguaging educational project in New York City public schools, CUNY-NYDIEB, in which the theory of translanguaging has been put into practice in both schools and teacher education. As the authors share their experiences while carrying out the CUNY-BYDIED, they briefly review past and present language education policies, particularly those focusing on bilingual education and bilingual speakers.

In Part Two, Chapters 3 through 8 provide in-depth consideration of several case studies conducted in a variety of New York City public school settings to provide evidence of how translanguaging can be incorporated into practice with bilingual student populations in different programs and at different grade levels. Each chapter describes both the activities implemented and examples of students’ responses, work, and reflections and ends with each teacher’s reflection and discussion questions for the reader. Chapter 3 explores how translanguaging can be used to teach bi-literacy with multilingual students in an eighth-grade English-medium language arts classroom. In one example, the authors describe that students read a culturally relevant novel and engage in various oral and written activities, in which they are encouraged to use both English and their home languages in creative, complementary ways.

Focusing on a similar student population in a similar classroom setting, Chapter 4 addresses the question of how a translanguaging approach copes with the varied needs of students in multilevel and multilingual classrooms. In a fifth-grade classroom, where students speak eight different home languages, the authors found that translanguaging can be deployed “as a mirror” for students to see reflections of themselves and as a “window into new ideas, language practices, or perspectives” (98). The teacher strategically utilizes home languages alongside English to provide a safe space for students to engage with new information and ideas. Both multi- and monolingual students learn about languages and from one another, as they relate to and reflect on personal experiences and language practices. Chapter 5 outlines the advantages of translanguaging in a second-grade transitional bilingual (Spanish-English) classroom, including some bilingual students with or without disabilities, and with a Spanish-English bilingual teacher. Translanguaging pedagogies are incorporated into lesson planning and implementation as “a valid resource,” not “as a temporary bridge or crutch to English” (104). Using their home language and English allows the “grupito” of emergent bilingual (EBL...