[Edling] trying to understand "translanguaging": yet another context

Thu Apr 21 14:12:22 UTC 2016

*oh my, i thought i knew of all the possible contexts and situations that
"translanguaging" intended to cover (i will continue to use scare quotes
til i know what it is), but there is Hartmut bringing up one more context
that NEVER occurred to me: textbooks in different languages.*

*there is an academic principle here of great importance which i implied in
my last message: *
*if one wants clarity in concepts, one must be clear on the limited domains
covered.*
*one cannot cover everything and *
*too many domains seems always to lead to vacuousness and takes away from
understanding, never mind wisdom. thus, the number and types of domains to
be covered must be stated upfront.*

*the discussion continues. *
*harmut, i was **intrigued*
* by this statement, which i hope you will clarify: *
*> *what counts is not how many languages are present in the university
classroom (far more than before) but how many shared languages are
available (often only English).

*why do you believe that? do you have any evidence?*
*but more important to this discussion, *
*doesn't your statement go against the "translanguaging" ethos?, *
*i.e. in the "translanguaging context", as i understand it in my limited
way, one should avoid referring to discrete languages cos the practices
involved in bilingualism are more dynamic with participants using whatever
resources they have in trying to communicate or, as Mim elegantly said: *
*> t*he focus on using all resources to make meaning

*i think garcia is really adamant on that point in the g*
*rosjean *
*interview i referred to last message. and wonder how you relate to this
central point, the assertion being that discreteness is artificial and out
the window.*

What is Translanguaging?  An interview with Ofelia García  Posted Mar 02,
2016
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201603/what-is-translanguaging

*Best, Cheers, LarryLarry Selinker*
*ls110 at nyu.edu <ls110 at nyu.edu>*
*http://www.researchproductionassociates.com/
<http://www.researchproductionassociates.com/>*

On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 5:40 AM, Hartmut Haberland <hartmut at ruc.dk> wrote:

> I agree with Larry that we have to make clear what we mean by that elusive
> term, and of course also with Peter
> ("it seems most people using it are trying to capture Garcia’s notion of
> a post-structural approach to looking at multilingual repertoires through
> language practice").
> It is important for me to insist that translanguaging is something quite
> different from polylanguaging and that the practice of teaching in one
> language (e.g. Danish) while using textbooks and other material in other
> languages (like, in Denmark, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, English and
> German) was a form of translanguaging widely practiced until the '90. The
> success of EMI did stop that for teaching in English - not because there is
> anything wrong with teaching in English in an non-English-speaking country,
> but because under conditions of internationalization, what counts is not
> how many languages are present in the university classroom (far more than
> before) but how many shared languages are available (often only English).
> This is Taina Saarinen and Tarja Nikula's *paradox of
> internationalization*. (See also the paper by Fabricius, Mortensen and
> myself on "The lure of internationalization" now available on-line in *Higher
> Education*.)
> Hartmut Haberland
> ------------------------------
> *Fra:* edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se [edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se]
> på vegne af Larry Selinker [larry.selinker at nyu.edu]
> *Sendt:* 21. april 2016 03:28
> *Til:* The Educational Linguistics List
> *Emne:* Re: [Edling] trying to understand "translanguaging", continued
>
> *thank you so much, peter, for sharing this info on AAAL and the debates
> there. *
>
> *notice how many goals and purposes are out there. if this concept is hard
> to pin down,then what are people applying and why?*
>
> *So, we can** agree that "translanguaging" is being used in a number of
> different ways that may not be compatible? *
> * if so, this must mean that there is no one unique " translanguaging
> perspective " that can be applied, the danger being that the concept
> becomes so amorphous that it becomes vacuuous. *
>
>
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>
> * now,  why is the concept popular?  will this last? or, will it become
> the flavor of the day? so, for that not to happen, then some things are
> necessary: 1. whenever it is used, that person must say what they mean by
> the concept. 2. look for commonalities in all the variants. 3. and, of
> course, distinguishing features of the variant approaches. basically,
> trying to pin it down, let me suggest some common characteristics; please
> tell me if these make sense and feel free to add: - - all the variant
> approaches  are interested in linguistic  practices as opposed to
> linguistic systems - - all the variant approaches thus g o for dynamism as
> opposed to static linguistic systems. so, what has come before is too
> static for the various goals. all that work cannot be totally useless. what
> is being drawn upon from prior work to cover all these dynamic contexts?
> well, let's try to get some clarity. Best, Cheers, Larry Larry Selinker*
> *ls110 at nyu.edu <ls110 at nyu.edu>*
> *http://www.researchproductionassociates.com/
> <http://www.researchproductionassociates.com/>*
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Peter Sayer <peter.sayer at utsa.edu> wrote:
>
>> At AAAL in Florida a few weeks ago there were at least 3 symposia dealing
>> with multilingualism in the classroom, many from a translanguaging
>> perspective, which followed several symposia and papers from last year’s
>> conference on translanguaging, and including a lively debate about the
>> differences between code-switching and translanguaging framework.  To
>> answer the “many ways” part of Larry’s comment: the translanguaging work
>> has included looking at bilingual K-12 classrooms, but also heritage
>> language schools, higher education settings, academic second language
>> writing, as well as looking at it from an interactional perspective of what
>> students in classroom do to negotiate academic content, from the teacher’s
>> perspective of how she more effectively draws on students’ multilingual
>> resources; it’s also been used to look at multilingual workspaces,
>> transnationals’ social media posts, as so forth.
>>
>> I agree that the term is being used in a variety of ways that aren’t
>> always consistent with each other (as with any newer concept, and hence
>> those questioning if the term is really needed if “code-switching” still
>> does perfectly well), but generally it seems most people using it are
>> trying to capture Garcia’s notion of a post-structural approach to looking
>> at multilingual repertoires through language practice – which therefore
>> includes but is broader than code-switching (and like most po-mo concepts
>> quite hard to pin down).
>>
>> From: <edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se> on behalf of Larry Selinker <
>> larry.selinker at nyu.edu>
>> Reply-To: "larry.selinker at nyu.edu" <larry.selinker at nyu.edu>, The
>> Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
>> Date: Monday, April 18, 2016 at 8:25 PM
>> To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
>> Subject: Re: [Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher
>>
>> *sorry, i have no knowledge on this, but something peter mentioned did
>> intrigue me:*
>>
>> *> *Anne Marie mentions the concept is being used in many ways recently,
>>
>> *i did see a message from Anne Marie but did not see mention of these
>> "many ways".  i must confess i have had trouble getting a clear idea of
>> this concept from the vast and growing literature. **i would really like
>> to know what are the many ways that the concept is being used, either from
>> Peter or *Anne Marie.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> * Best, Cheers, Larry Larry Selinker*
>> *ls110 at nyu.edu <ls110 at nyu.edu>*
>> *http://www.researchproductionassociates.com/
>> <http://www.researchproductionassociates.com/>*
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 5:25 PM, Miriam E Ebsworth <mee1 at nyu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Peter,
>>>
>>> Thank you for your thoughts and for taking the time and trouble to share
>>> them.
>>>
>>> I'll forward them to the teacher.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Miriam
>>>
>>> Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, PhD
>>> Dir. of PhD & Post-MA Programs in Multilingual Multicultural Studies
>>> NYU Steinhardt,
>>> 316 East Building
>>> New York, NY 10003
>>>
>>> Research Editor: Journal of Writing and Pedagogy
>>> Chair, NABE Research SIG Advisory Board
>>> Co-chair, ELL Think Tank
>>>
>>> office phone: (212) 998-5195
>>> office fax: (212) 995-3636
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 3:15 PM, Peter Sayer <peter.sayer at utsa.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ofelia Garcia’s (2009) *Bilingual Education in the 21 Century* is a
>>>> good comprehensive text and has a clear explanation of translanguaging,
>>>> though as Anne Marie mentions the concept is being used in many ways
>>>> recently, and also harkens back to earlier bilingual approaches to
>>>> bilingual ed such as Jacobson’s (1980s) “New Concurrent” approach which
>>>> advocated the teacher’s use of purposeful and strategic language mixing.
>>>>
>>>> About the positioning of above-below vs. side-to-side: I’m not aware of
>>>> any work on this specific aspect of language positioning, but would say
>>>> from a (1) linguistic perspective, it makes good sense to put a particular
>>>> sentence in one language above another so that students can more clearly
>>>> see how syntactic and lexical elements line up.  However, from a (2)
>>>> language valorization perspective, the problem the observer may have had
>>>> was not above-below per se, but rather that English was positioned ABOVE
>>>> Spanish, which may be seen as implicitly reinforcing the subordinate
>>>> position of the minoritized language.  In that case, positioning the
>>>> languages side by side represents them on more equal footing (or even use
>>>> above/below, but put Spanish on top).  Or maybe the observer was just being
>>>> cranky… but kudos to the teacher for taking the critique seriously and
>>>> following up.
>>>>
>>>> - peter.-
>>>>
>>>> From: <edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se> on behalf of anne marie
>>>> devlin <anne_mariedevlin at hotmail.com>
>>>> Reply-To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
>>>> Date: Monday, April 18, 2016 at 9:04 AM
>>>> To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher
>>>>
>>>> Miriam
>>>>
>>>> Current research is coming out strongly in favour of 'translanguaging'
>>>> where code switching is seen as a benefit to learners rather than a sign of
>>>> lack of acquisition.
>>>> I'm not at my desk and don't have access to references at the moment,
>>>> but a google search should bring up some interesting findings to support
>>>> your colleagues approach.
>>>>
>>>> Hope that helps
>>>>
>>>> Anne Marie
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 07:29:35 -0500
>>>> From: mee1 at nyu.edu
>>>> To: francis.hult at englund.lu.se; edling at bunner.geol.lu.se
>>>> Subject: [Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher
>>>>
>>>> Dear Colleagues,
>>>>
>>>> A grad of one of our programs is a bilingual (Spanish) social studies
>>>> teacher in New York City, with 11 years of teaching experience.
>>>>
>>>> The teacher received a super-critical review of a class observation
>>>> from somebody outside the school who observed a single lesson. The observer
>>>> knew nothing in advance about the teacher's curriculum or approach; there
>>>> had been no communication with the teacher in advance of the observation.
>>>> After having written a scathing observation report, the observer refused to
>>>> have a conversation with the teacher, who sought politely to explain their
>>>> perspective and try to understand better the nature of the critique.
>>>>
>>>> The teacher has requested input on one issue in particular:
>>>> At the top of the lesson, the teacher had written a guiding question in
>>>> English with the Spanish version directly underneath.
>>>>
>>>> The teacher, as I understand it, sought to have the students first try
>>>> to understand the text in English, then read it in Spanish, and using all
>>>> linguistic resources make meaning out of the question. (And ultimately, the
>>>> students will be tested in English.)
>>>>
>>>> One of the many criticisms in the observation report was that the
>>>> English and Spanish versions should have appeared side by side rather than
>>>> one above the other. The teacher is perplexed.
>>>>
>>>> While the teacher's explanation makes sense to me, I have been asked
>>>> whether there is any objective guidance available from the research on best
>>>> practices to advocate for EITHER of the 2 approaches (2 languages side by
>>>> side versus one above the other).
>>>>
>>>> Thank you in advance for sharing your perspective. I'll pass it on.
>>>>
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>> Miriam
>>>>
>>>> Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, PhD
>>>> Dir. of PhD & Post-MA Programs in Multilingual Multicultural Studies
>>>> NYU Steinhardt,
>>>> 316 East Building
>>>> New York, NY 10003
>>>>
>>>> Research Editor: Journal of Writing and Pedagogy
>>>> Chair, NABE Research SIG Advisory Board
>>>> Co-chair, ELL Think Tank
>>>>
>>>> office phone: (212) 998-5195
>>>> office fax: (212) 995-3636
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________ Edling mailing list
>>>> Edling at bunner.geol.lu.se
>>>> http://bunner.geol.lu.se/mailman/listinfo/edling
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>
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>>
>
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