‘Translanguaging reminds me to stay humble’: impact of teacher candidates’ pedagogical knowledge of translanguaging on professional identities

Abstract

This study examined general education teacher candidates (TCs)’s PK of translanguaging and how it shaped their professional identity. Adopting the reflective framework, data were triangulated and included the TCs’ responses from (1) two reflective assignments, (2) a class assignment, and (3) video transcripts of a final self-assessment. The findings demonstrated the TCs’ PK of translanguaging had a positive impact on their teacher identity construction. Understanding the pedagogy from an asset-based perspective and gaining experience in its implementation, the TCs developed a deep appreciation for translanguaging. They believed pedagogical translanguaging is an approach to provide equitable education for emergent multilinguals and promotes all students’ learning and appreciation for diversity. Such a significant growth was greatly due to the professor’s intentional course design that reflected the principles of pedagogical translanguaging and the alignment with the TCs’ field experience. The TCs also expressed a desire to deepen their PK of translanguaging to increase their confidence in its implementation. As such, I argue that to normalize multilingualism, not only is it important to introduce translanguaging to all TCs early on in a teacher preparation program, ensuring they have adequate opportunities to incorporate translanguaging as their pedagogical repertoire expands, but course design needs to be intentional and strategic.