Academic uses of language (re)defined: A case of emergent bilinguals engaging in languages and literacies in and outside of school

Abstract

This paper provides nuanced description of the academic uses of language in which Spanish-English emergent bilinguals in Grade 4 engage in and out of school. This qualitative research conducted over one academic year at school and in children's homes, captures the ways in which six focal children from two classrooms (one bilingual, one English medium) use and move between repertoires of English and Spanish. The author argues that these ways have important implications for examining the “language of school.” Findings illustrate that although teachers explicitly teach some aspects of academic language, students strategically draw from multilingual repertoires to accomplish academic tasks and communicate for academic purposes in a variety of settings. By using a translanguaging approach, which takes into consideration children's entire linguistic repertoires, this analysis makes visible children's ways of using language (not just one language or another) and thus helps redefine what is considered academic language.