Exploring Plurilingual Pedagogies across the College Curriculum

Abstract

Many students in US community colleges often speak a language other than English (LOTE) at home. They find it difficult to complete college requirements, and many drop out. Struggling with the acquisition of academic English and the content of their courses, they exhibit low academic confidence and are easily frustrated. In an attempt to raise students’ self-esteem and motivate them to remain enrolled, we explore plurilingual pedagogies across the college curriculum, in science, humanities, education, and linguistics courses. The four case studies presented demonstrate how we integrate dynamic translingual teaching practices such as translation, code-switching, cross-linguistic analysis, and the use of students’ linguistic repertoires to complete assignments in multilingual classrooms. We have found that plurilingual pedagogies enable students to discover their linguistic strengths and utilize them to complete college assignments. As bilingual faculty we found our educational goals supported and validated through interdisciplinary collaboration.