Challenging the translingual turn: TESOL student teachers' perceptions, practices and networks. ELT Research Papers 19.08

Hirsu, L. and Zacharias, S. (2019) Challenging the translingual turn: TESOL student teachers' perceptions, practices and networks. ELT Research Papers 19.08. Other. British Council, London. ISBN 9780863559655.

Abstract

Whether discussed as an ideology, orientation, practice or pedagogy, translanguaging has been embraced for its potential to build inclusive environments where language differences are celebrated and worked through in dynamic and fluid ways. If many studies focus on where and how translanguaging occurs, very few studies have looked into the ways in which practitioners new to the term respond to it. What happens when student teachers in a TESOL programme first encounter the term and have to (re)negotiate beliefs, practices and connections in light of new learning and teaching experiences? To address this question, the present research followed nine TESOL student teachers over the course of a year and a half as they studied for their masters’ and moved into new environments afterwards. Drawing upon translingual research and cognitive approaches to language, the researchers conducted a thematic and metaphor analysis into students’ language ideologies, their evolving conceptualisations of what languages are and how they are used, their language practices and networks. Findings reveal that student teachers negotiate complex ideological configurations that make translanguaging an alternative yet hard-toimplement framework, especially in the context of classroom teaching. Given student teachers’ language histories, and the current demands of teaching and learning, they tend not to make strong ideological and practical commitments and recognise that context is the primary determinant of their beliefs, practices and networks. While this flexibility is necessary and useful for current global contexts, it also potentially leaves new teachers with multiple unresolved, contradictory and, at times, problematic language positions and practices.

• Item Type: Research Reports or Papers (Other)
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Hirsu, Dr Lavinia and Zacharias, Dr Sally
• Authors: Hirsu, L., and Zacharias, S.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education; College of Social Sciences > School of Education > Culture, Literacies, Inclusion & Pedagogy
• Publisher: British Council
• ISBN: 9780863559655