Translanguaging Views and Practices of Indiana Dual-Language Bilingual Education Teachers

Abstract

As of fall 2018, the United States had 5 million English language learners (ELLs) in the public K–12 education system (National Center for Education Statistics, 2021). Within this population, ELL students in Indiana number over 50,000, or 5.9% of all public K–12 students in the state. Dual-language bilingual education (DLBE) programs often neglect the strategy of translanguaging in the classroom, disadvantaging ELLs. Translanguaging is defined as drawing “on all the linguistic resources of the child to maximize understanding and achievement” and is demonstrated in the natural switching of languages in bilinguals (Lewis et al., 2012). Further, translanguaging attempts to correct past English-only ideals for the equity of ELL students. Th is case study aims to answer two questions: (1) What are the translanguaging views and practices of elementary school teachers in DLBE classrooms? (2) Are there differences in translanguaging views and practices between bilingual native Spanish speakers, bilingual native English speakers, and nonbilingual native English speakers? Data was collected from the course data of seven elementary school teachers who are part of DLBE programs in two schools in Indiana to better determine the correlation between DLBE teachers’ linguistic backgrounds and their views and practices of translanguaging in their classrooms. Results found a connection between teachers’ own bilingualism and an increased use of translanguaging practices in their classrooms, which can help off set decades of inequity between English language learning students and their monolingual peers.