Incorporating Australian Primary Students’ Linguistic Repertoire into Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Leveraging students’ languages as a resource for learning has been advocated in TESOL literature for the past three decades. This focus has recently been catalysed by a translanguaging perspective which challenges deficit understandings of the ‘English language learner’ and promotes the idea of a holistic linguistic repertoire (García, 2017). Confronting beliefs related to the institutional centrality of English in a country like Australia is an important step in leveraging students’ language resources at school. This chapter reports on research that aimed to encourage teachers in three linguistically diverse primary schools to draw on students’ repertoires in the classroom. Seven generalist teachers attended professional learning in which they worked to incorporate students’ language practices into their lessons. Data were collected from interviews, teachers’ group discussions, lesson plans, written reflections and students’ work samples. Thematic analysis evidenced a shift in teachers’ thinking of what it meant to be bi/multilingual. Further, the affirmation of linguistic identities was found to be less challenging for the teachers than the leveraging of students’ linguistic repertoire for specific learning objectives.

1 Introduction

Language separation is a traditional and well-established norm in the field of TESOL (e.g., Cummins, 2007). Monolingual forms of education for minority language speakers, such as mainstreaming with or without the provision of majority language support, are also very common, and are included in typologies of program models for bilingual students (Baker & Wright, 2017; García, 2009). In mainstream English-speaking contexts, despite research on the incorporation of minority languages as a resource for learning and teaching (e.g., Cummins & Swain, 1986; Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzales, 1992; Moll, Soto-Santiago, & Schwartz, 2013; Paris, 2012; Schecter & Cummins, 2003), competence at school still appears to be overwhelmingly understood in relation to English (Gee, 2004; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). An exclusively English focus can position other languages as having no real role to play in teaching and learning, and can ultimately threaten the maintenance of speakers’ other languages through its assimilationist orientation (see Baker & Wright, 2017).

Research on translanguaging in educational contexts has challenged deficit understandings of language practices that do not fit with English as a dominant named language, and propose that students should be encouraged to use their full linguistic repertoire flexibly in order to support and develop their understanding (e.g., García, 2009, 2017; García & Li, 2014). From a translanguaging perspective, the aim of TESOL can thus be understood as enrichment: the language practices of students are valued and leveraged in class. In the Australian state of Victoria, the context of the research discussed in this chapter, 27 percent of students attending government schools identify as coming from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE) (Department of Education and Training, Victoria, 2018). These students include children (born to immigrant parents) who are fluent in English and range from having limited to extensive exposure to other languages at home.

The chapter reports on a study which investigated the professional learning of seven in-service generalist primary school teachers who had a high number of LBOTE students in their classes. The professional learning focused on the incorporation of other languages in the classroom – a new approach for the teachers – and translanguaging was used as a conceptual tool. The professional learning took place over the course of 3 days, interspersed with the trialling of two lesson sequences (series of lessons). It was found to have a marked influence on teachers’ understanding of what it means to be bi/multilingual and on their perceived capacity to leverage students’ linguistic repertoires for learning. In the chapter, translanguaging, the principal theoretical frame, will be discussed in relation to languages as a resource for learning. The relationship between translanguaging and the performance of bi/multilingual identity will also be explained because this relationship was used to interpret the findings. The study and findings will be detailed and the final discussion will address the way the valuing of bi/multilingual identities can be a catalyst to encourage other pedagogical goals that teachers (and students) might find more challenging.

2 Languages as a Resource for Learning

The study was framed by translanguaging theory as it relates to teaching and learning. Translanguaging takes a holistic view of language (e.g., García, 2009; García & Li, 2014; Otheguy, García & Reid, 2015); “the language practices of bilinguals are complex and interrelated; they do not emerge in a linear way or function separately since there is only one linguistic system” (García & Li, 2014, p.14). The sophistication of what bi/multilinguals do (when given a choice) is emphasised, as is the repertoire of the speaker from the speaker’s point of view (Otheguy, García & Reid, 2015). This speaker-centred lens, or a shifting away from the idea of L1 and L2 can be beneficial in contexts of diversity, where speakers do not fit neatly into categories. For example, a child may have a mother who speaks to her in Japanese, a father who does not understand Japanese and speaks in English and different friendships where she either speaks Japanese, English or draws on her complete linguistic repertoire in interactions with friends who speak both. She may also choose to draw only on English with Japanese heritage friends who are exposed to Japanese but are far more confident speaking English. Understanding students’ language practices in order to leverage these practices in the classroom was an objective of the study discussed in this chapter and translanguaging was therefore considered to be useful.

Translanguaging pedagogy aims to guide teachers to think about their students’ linguistic repertoire as a resource for learning (e.g., García & Li, 2014; García, Ibarra Johnson & Seltzer, 2017). A pedagogy has been developed for which goals include the adaptation of instruction for students with different kinds of language experiences, metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness, flexibility of language practices, the development of background knowledge, the development and extension of knowledge, the engagement of students through identity work, and interrogating and disrupting linguistic hierarchies (García & Li, 2014). All the goals prioritise meaning-making: directly translating is not considered translanguaging if there is not some additional purpose to the translation, such as metalinguistic awareness or making connections to other goals.

3 The Performance of Multilingual Identities

As indicated above, the affirmation of multilingual identities is considered to be central to translanguaging pedagogical goals. Translanguaging can be understood – in the same way as language in general – as identity performance (cf Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García & Kleifgen, 2010). The extent to which bi/multilingual students who are fluent in English make visible multilingual identities in Australian schools can be influenced by the value ascribed to their extended linguistic repertoire in class. Students choosing whether to perform aspects of their identity based on perceived worth in a particular setting relates to Bourdieu’s (1977) and Bourdieu and Passeron’s (1977) theorisation of cultural capital, in which a particular kind of knowledge is considered to have value or ‘capital’ in a social group. As Norton (2000, p.11) pointed out in the case of learning English in Canada, the relationship between a speaker and a language is socially and historically constructed, and deeply influenced by structures of power. In its explicit interrogation of linguistic hierarchies, translanguaging places these power dynamics as central to what we do with language (Flores & García, 2017; García & Li, 2014).

Another translanguaging pedagogical goal, the development of background knowledge, is also inclusive of multilingual identities, or the idea that speakers’ representations of their linguistic and cultural world can help them interpret their own experiences (e.g., Dagenais & Jacquet, 2008; Prasad, 2015). This idea extends to the way teachers can use identity texts, or any kind of student creation that engages them with their linguistic and cultural repertoires (Cummins, 2006; Cummins & Early, 2011). Identity texts can take many forms. For example, Prasad (2018) discussed collage as a kind of identity text. In Australia, language maps have been implemented as a way to leverage students’ language resources in the classroom (D’Warte, 2014, 2015; Somerville, D’Warte & Sawyer, 2016). D’Warte et al. facilitated LBOTE students’ visual mapping of their everyday language practices to leverage these practices in ways that linked directly to curriculum content. Students were found to engage in the process, the quality of their English improved, and there was evidence of positive attitudinal change by the students towards their home language (Somerville, D’Warte & Sawyer, 2016).

Similar to D’Warte and her colleagues, identity texts were used as a pedagogical tool in the study discussed in this chapter to assist the teachers in leveraging their students’ language practices in class. The teachers in the study were accustomed to encouraging their students to maintain their home language(s), but in the community domain rather than at school, and language separation was the classroom norm. The active advocation of language maintenance in the home – and for parents to speak to their children in the language they knew best – whilst continuing with an English-only message at school can be categorised as an additive approach to languages. García (2009) considered an additive framework to fit into a monolingual view of language because languages are compartmentalised, and learning is conceptualised to be occurring within a separatist framework. However, although the relegation of language to the community domain is suggestive of a subtractive typology (see Baker & Wright, 2017), parents were traditionally instructed by teachers and school leaders to speak English to their children in Australia. In its focus on transition to the majority language at school, a subtractive orientation does not necessarily make visible a shift in institutional practices whereby languages and, by extension multilingual identities, are actively promoted in the community domain. The main point of investigation in the study was a blurring of the lines between institutional and community domains, and this was found to be assisted by the institutional move towards an additive mindset.

4 The Study

The qualitative study reported in this chapter was conducted in 2017 and investigated teachers’ leveraging of linguistic repertoire in primary school settings where a majority of students were born in Australia to parents who spoke at least one language other than English. The study used a design-based research framework (e.g., Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer & Schauble, 2003), which involves collaboration between the researcher and practitioners and ‘tests’ instructional hypotheses. The hypothesis for the research discussed in this chapter was:

Students’ creation of visual representations of their linguistic repertoires – how, where, when and with whom they speak particular languages and how they feel about them – can assist in the leveraging of the students’ language practices as a resource for their learning.

Because the approach of incorporating students’ language resources was new for the generalist primary teachers, the collaboration with the researcher was conceptualised as a form of professional learning in which the teachers would be introduced to translanguaging and to ways to (and objectives for) inviting students’ language practices into the classroom. As part of this professional learning, the teachers would also implement two lesson sequences (or series of lessons) and regroup to reflect on these sequences.

Three Victorian primary schools in the Catholic sector – given the pseudonyms Madison, Hampton and Campbell PS – took part. All three schools had a very large proportion of children who lived in low socioeconomic areas, and over 80% of students were LBOTE (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2017). In all three schools, students came from diverse backgrounds, with no dominant ethnicity at Madison PS and Hampton PS. At Campbell PS, diversity of student background was also conspicuous, but the principal reported that the number of Indian and Vietnamese families had been increasing.

The researcher worked with seven teachers in the study – six women and one man. Details of the teachers and the school at which they taught can be viewed in Table 9.1. Five classes in total took part – two Year 1/2 classes and one Year 3/4 class at Madison PS, one Year 3/4 class at Hampton PS and one Year 3 class at Campbell PS. (In Australia, it is common to have classes with combined grades). Frida, Sam, Jasmine, Sophie and Anne were the main teachers in charge of teaching the classes, and Cassandra and Helen participated in a supporting role. Six teachers identified as solely English-speaking and one – Jasmine – also spoke Hindi, Marathi and some Konkani.

Table 9.1 Teachers participating in the study

Teachers attended an initial seminar day in which they were introduced to translanguaging, and also learned how to conduct a language mapping lesson sequence in a way that would affirm students’ linguistic repertoire (D’Warte, 2013; see also Turner, 2019 for more detail on this lesson sequence). After delivering the sequence, teachers regrouped with the researcher to discuss how to leverage what they had learned about their students in a way that fitted with planned curriculum objectives. The teachers then implemented this second lesson sequence, and came together once more to reflect on the process. The findings reported in this chapter are drawn from the second lesson sequence, and how different teachers chose to incorporate their students’ language practices once they were more aware of what those practices entailed.

Data were collected from teachers’ individual (written) and group (oral) reflections, lesson plans, student work, and end-of-project teacher interviews. All seven teachers were interviewed for 20 min. Twenty-one students in total were also interviewed for 10 min – six students each at Campbell and Madison Primary and three students from each of the three participating classes at Madison Primary. All students interviewed were from LBOTE backgrounds. Interview questions for both teachers and students focused on the visual mapping and leveraging of the students’ linguistic repertoires with an additional question for teachers on whether the way they thought about bi/multilingualism and how it was recognised at school had changed over the course of the project. Work produced in the two lesson sequences by the 21 students interviewed was also sighted for the study. Thematic analysis (see Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to analyse the data. For example, similarities and differences between the way teachers understood bi/multilingualism, choices and implementation of lesson sequences, and student engagement were cross-referenced and analysed through a translanguaging lens.

5 Findings

Teachers’ understanding of what it means to be bi/multilingual was found to shift over the course of the study and this appeared to be strongly connected to the translanguaging pedagogical goal of bi/multilingual identity affirmation. The five main teachers, with the assistance of the two supporting teachers, also demonstrated a capacity to leverage their students’ language resources for specific learning objectives, either by making them central to the students’ learning of content, or making them relevant to this learning. This shift in thinking around bi/multilingualism will be addressed first, followed by the strategic leveraging of students’ linguistic repertoire.

5.1 Teachers’ Understanding of What It Means to Be Bi/Multilingual

For teachers – six of whom identified as monolingual in English – a shift in thinking around what it means to be bi/multilingual was found to occur most conspicuously as a result of a greater understanding of the linguistic experiences of their students. The teachers’ focus appeared to shift from being bi/multilingual to doing bi/multilingualism or to the children’s actual language practices. Helen at Campbell Primary summed this up in interview when asked whether her understanding of bilingualism¹ had changed – see the excerpt below:

I think particularly when [Anne] with her students did some background work to prepare for the language mapping, she found out to whom the children spoke particular languages and where they spoke it, and I think that has really added to my understanding of what bilingualism means.[…] Because I hadn’t stopped to think about speaking to a grandparent in one [language] versus a parent in another, versus at school it’s different.[…] It’s something quite sophisticated that perhaps I’d underrated to a degree. (Helen, interview)

The complexities around language use and how increased (linguistic) knowledge of their students was helping the teachers understand these complexities was also evidenced in another interview excerpt, this time from Anne. In the excerpt, Anne referred to Punjabi as her student’s first language but demonstrated an emerging awareness of the way an idea of L1 and L2 can fail to capture lived realities through the content of what she was saying.

Well there was one little girl in my room that, English is not her first language, and so I thought she would find the activity of translating quite easy. But she actually found the activity difficult, I’m not really too sure, because I taught her brother when he was in prep and he came just speaking Punjabi. She came speaking more English than him, and I think her brother speaking English influenced her a lot when she was growing up. (Anne, interview)

This shift to thinking about language practices also appeared to help overcome the notion that, although a good idea in principle, encouraging bilingualism required a daunting degree of expertise on the part of the teacher. For example, when asked why she had not brought children’s home languages into her teaching after she studied this idea in a Masters course, Frida reported:

I wasn’t using it because I probably didn’t feel I had the expertise to use it. […] Logistically how do I include everyone’s language, even though I had studied it, I wasn’t quite sure how to put it into place I suppose. (Frida, interview)

Sam, the other Year 1/2 teacher at Madison Primary reinforced this idea when he reported:

We can help these children in a way we never thought about. And really, we want them to be bilingual but I think it was all just pie-in-the-sky stuff, now we can probably do something to achieve that goal for them. (Sam, interview)

The understanding of achieving a ‘bilingual goal’ was underpinned by the recognition that the inclusion of languages in class would send a positive message about knowing languages other than English. For example, in the second group reflection Anne said:

It’s a real way of valuing language, isn’t it? We can say we value people’s languages, but by actually getting people at home to send something, you know, send something back to us, we’re showing that we are actually valuing it, because we’re [going to] use this to do this activity. (Anne, Group Reflection 2)

This idea of valuing language underscored the way teachers were affirming bi/multilingual identities in the classes. When they spoke of student engagement, they all used very positive language, for example, the students ‘absolutely loved it’ (Jasmine), ‘It was a really, really positive experience’ (Sophie) and ‘I have to say, they loved it’ (Frida). Students’ pride in what they knew, shared language-related experiences, writing about themselves and finding out about each other were the principal reasons given by the teachers for this enjoyment. Students also gave overwhelmingly positive feedback in interview and in written or oral reflections. Only one student was reported by the teacher (Sophie) to consider it boring because he couldn’t speak another language. This feedback helped to show the extent to which exposure to other languages at home was being valued in the classroom, and also the need to consider translanguaging pedagogy in relation to monolingual students. This will be taken up in the discussion at the end of the chapter.

Along with the shift in focus to using languages came a shift in awareness of students’ literacy practices. At the beginning of the study, Jasmine – the only teacher who spoke more than one language – included the idea of literacy in her response to what she understood bilingualism to be: ‘Bilingual, to me, is being able to speak, write and understand more than one language’. Frida, Anne and Sophie understood bilingualism in terms of communication and Sam’s answer was: ‘Bilingual, to me, means being able to talk in two or more languages’. Sam evidenced the greatest shift in thinking, but other teachers, most notably Helen, also showed a shift in thinking around home language literacy.

In the second lesson sequence in particular, all the teachers delivered lessons in which students needed either to read or read and write their home language. Jasmine demonstrated that she did not assume students would be equally proficient in their languages, or in both oracy and literacy. The interview excerpt below is illustrative of her lack of assumption that the students would be literate in their language:

[I was] just trying to tap into what their language ability was. So, just getting to know if they spoke any language besides English, and how fluent they were. And there were some […] who said they could even read and write the language. So, just getting to know all that. (Jasmine, interview, emphasis added)

Sam, on the other hand, appeared to have had an expectation that the children would be literate in the language(s) they spoke at home because he reported it as interesting when this was not the case. In his activity, seven children were able to read what their parents had written while three were not. He reported that no one was able to write. He spoke of the importance of literacy in the second group reflection and also in interview. An excerpt from the interview is below.

I think if [the children] want to be bilingual it’ll be a benefit for them to be able to write. Probably they concentrate on the language more when they’re writing it down, probably learn more about the language, and it may have some impact on them learning English as well. (Sam, interview)

Helen from Campbell PS also discussed the issue of home language literacy in the second group reflection. At the beginning of the study, she did not write down her understanding of bilingualism, but she did write that she understood a strong grounding/proficiency in the first language would make learning English easier. In the second group reflection, she appeared to add literacy to this idea of a strong grounding, something she had not necessarily considered previously:

We find people were speaking English at home, it wasn’t very high standard English, and we felt that was holding children back. Whereas if they were speaking their own language, the concepts, […] the language itself is richer […] so, that would help the child academically […] but we hadn’t ever talked about doing the reading and writing. […] This project has given that pull, […] something we can add to something we’re already pushing, and doing. (Helen, GR2)

From the above quotation, the idea of language separation, or the parents using a particular language rather than their complete linguistic repertoire to help their children is in evidence. However, the valuing of parents’ knowledge and the idea that becoming literate in another language is something that will help children improve their learning in English, rather than detract from it, is also clear.

5.2 Leveraging Linguistic Repertoire as Central for Learning

Although the affirmation of students’ bi/multilingual identities was a clear finding for all the seven participating teachers, teachers differed as to whether or not they positioned their students’ linguistic repertoire as central to the learning of content. Evidence from students’ work samples showed that two teachers – Frida and Sophie – were able to leverage their students’ repertoire in this way. Both teachers embedded meaning-making into activities, most conspicuously through the translanguaging pedagogical goal of metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness. Content was related to the English Curriculum: the teachers chose an English focus for their Year 1/2 class at Madison PS and Year 3/4 class at Hampton PS respectively. Frida chose a Level 2 speaking and listening curriculum content description²:

Understand that spoken, visual and written forms of language are different modes of communication with different features and their use varies according to the audience, purpose, context and cultural background (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2017).

After completing the identity texts, and discussing language practices, the children in Frida’s class taught each other the word ‘hello’ in their language and created puppets with speech bubbles (see Fig. 9.1). This approach led to the incorporation of more words as children were very enthusiastic about sharing what they knew. It also led to a student-initiated activity in which the students created speech bubbles for themselves, writing down what they wanted to say in their choice of language(s) and scripts.

Fig. 9.1

Examples of puppets created by Frida’s Year 1/2 students

At the end of the lesson sequence Frida asked the children to reflect orally on their learning and wrote down their responses. In these responses, the children evidenced an awareness that: (1) spoken and written forms of language vary between languages, (2) they could have some influence on the language that family members spoke to them (or used with them) by showing an interest, and (3) language use needed to be varied sometimes in order to communicate with people. Two of the children’s oral reflections (written down by Frida) evidencing these points appear below.

• Student 1 (Year 2)

• I learnt how to say different words in different people’s languages. I learnt how to say ‘hi’ in Bari and I learnt how to say ‘hi’ in Arabic. [Child S] speaks her language at her grandmother’s house because her grandmother doesn’t speak English and she wants to talk to her. I learnt that ‘Madan’ (Bari) is spelt like ‘Madan’ and I learnt how to count up to 30 in Bari. I learnt that my uncle speaks Bari and he taught us to say the months and the days.

• Student 2 (Year 2)

• I loved the language project. I said to my mum we are doing a really fun language project at school. I’m going to learn how to say ‘hello’ in other people’s language. After the language project, I asked my grandmother to teach me how to write my name in Russian. I learnt how to say ‘hello’ in Chinese and that’s my friend’s language. I learnt that Russian letters have different sounds to English letters. I learnt that [Child A] talks a little bit of Arabic when he plays soccer.

At Hampton PS, Sophie also chose to relate language incorporation for her Year 3/4 class to a specific Level 3 speaking and listening English curriculum content description:

Understand that languages have different written and visual communication systems, different oral traditions and different ways of constructing meaning (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2017).

She further related the lesson sequence to the writing of an information report and to an inquiry unit on geography. Her class took a sheet with geography-related words home so their parents/grandparents could translate the words into a home language. When the sheets came back to class, words were cut up and put on a word wall at the back of the classroom next to corresponding words in other languages, along with an illustration and definition in English. This word wall was then used as a springboard for discussion. Figure 9.2 is taken from a work sample of a student who completed the homework activity in Telugu.

Fig. 9.2

Extract from geography vocabulary activity in Sophie’s class

It was clear from the students’ written reflections at the end of the sequence of lessons that what they understood themselves to have learned corresponded directly to the content description and was made possible by the incorporation of different languages in the classroom. Two student reflections appear below:

• Student 1 (Year 4)

• I liked that when my mum wrote the words in Vietnamese she actually taught me how to say them. I learnt that all different countries have different letters and you can actually write Australian words using the different letters from other countries.

• Student 2 (Year 4)

• It was fun working in a small group for matching the meanings to the words and pictures. I liked thinking of sentences about Cambodia and telling my partner. I noticed some words in different languages looked the same but they aren’t actually because some of the letters look the same as the letters in other words like [student S’s] language and [student V’s]. [Student S’s] language is Telugu and [student V’s] language is Khmer. Some aren’t the same because they have Australian letters. Some of them are spelt with Australian letters. [Student S] taught me a bit of letters in her language and we did ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ in her language.

5.3 Making Linguistic Repertoire Relevant for Learning

Making linguistic repertoire relevant, but not so central, to chosen curriculum content was found in the three remaining classes in the study. In these classes, as with Frida and Sophie, students’ home languages were incorporated into class via translation, but the next step of connecting this translation to active meaning-making linked to content objectives was not so visible. For Jasmine at Madison PS, there was an extra step, or invitation for students to reflect on what they were hearing, but their use of extended language practices did not appear to play a pivotal role in meeting the chosen objectives. For Anne at Campbell PS and for Sam, also at Madison PS, the activity was only the translation. Jasmine and Anne both decided to incorporate the children’s languages into inquiry topics, and Sam into the same English curriculum content description as Frida.

First, in her Year 3/4 class, Jasmine chose the inquiry topic of values and identity and the relevant Personal and Social Capability Level 3 and 4 curriculum content description was:

• Identify personal strengths and select personal qualities that could be further developed (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2017).

Students were instructed to bring a text in their language into class – this could be, for example, a poem, a song, a prayer, or a self-introduction – and an English translation. They then presented their text by reading it out loud, their classmates were given time to try to guess what it had been about and then the same student read the English translation. In their written reflections, Jasmine’s students demonstrated learning of the relevant content description by identifying personal strengths. Two students’ samples appear below.

• Student 1 (Year 3/4)

  • My personal reflection:

  • At the start of my presentation I was nervous. When I started I was getting more and more confident. When I finished presenting I was proud of my presentation.

• Student 2 (Year 3/4)

  • My personal reflection:

  • I felt really nervous and oozy. It was really cool and fun presenting. I was really proud that I did it. After my presentation my friends were happy for me.

In Jasmine’s class, the incorporation of students’ languages in class fitted very well with the content description, but the students appeared to consider their personal strengths in relation to public speaking rather than to having a rich linguistic repertoire. Languages were positioned as something interesting and fun but did not appear to be central to the students’ personal reflections on their confidence and pride, perhaps because they took speaking their language for granted, or perhaps because there was no real exploration – or significance attached to – the content of what they were presenting.

In the Year 3 class at Campbell Primary, Anne also chose to link the leveraging of students’ linguistic repertoire to an inquiry unit on living things and sustainability, addressing two science (biology) Level 3 and 4 curriculum content descriptions:

• Living things can be grouped on the basis of observable features and can be distinguished from non-living things

• Different living things have different life cycles and depend on each other and the environment to survive (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2017).

She gave the students a list of questions to be answered in a home language by parents/ grandparents about an animal in their country of origin: for example, ‘where does the animal live?’ ‘What do they need to survive?’ and ‘what do they look like? (features)’. Students interviewed their parents/grandparents at home and recorded the interview. Back in class, they then needed to translate what their parents/ grandparents had said into English. Figure 9.3 is an example of a Year 3 student’s translation of her mother’s oral Vietnamese (spoken on video) into written English.

Fig. 9.3

Extract from science animal activity in Anne’s class

Again, this activity was relevant to the content description but students’ oral reflections at the time of translation and later interviews did not evidence the incorporation of languages as central to the teaching and learning objectives of the chosen content descriptions. Although only one of the six students interviewed at Campbell Primary – a boy who attended a Punjabi language school every Saturday – explicitly stated that he could not see how using another language in class at school could help him learn, other students found it difficult to elaborate on how other languages helped them when prompted, and this may have been a result of the lack of focus on content-related meaning-making beyond that of the direct translation.

In his Year 1/2 class at Madison Primary, Sam chose the same Level 2 speaking and listening English curriculum content description as Frida – the other participating Year 1/2 teacher at the school:

Understand that spoken, visual and written forms of language are different modes of communication with different features and their use varies according to the audience, purpose, context and cultural background (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2017).

Sam incorporated students’ linguistic repertoire into his teaching by writing out sentences, such as ‘I’m going home today’, ‘how are you?’ and ‘what are you doing?’ and asking parents and/or grandparents to write the sentences in a language they knew in order to be read and translated by their children in class. Similar to Campbell PS, from the data collected, students’ learning of the content description as a result of the incorporation of their extended language practices was not evidenced, but the activity was relevant to the chosen subject matter.

Thus, the leveraging of students’ linguistic repertoire and a deeper understanding of students’ extracurricular language practices did not necessarily lead to the kind of meaning-making that is considered to be an element of translanguaging pedagogy (see García & Li, 2014). However, given that the approach of incorporating students’ language practices was so new for the teachers, direct translation with no follow-up activity could be considered to be a positive preliminary step towards the inclusion of activities which position students’ repertoire as central to the learning of content, especially given the important finding of bi/multilingual identity affirmation.

6 Discussion and Conclusion

Shifting from a language-centred lens, or asking what language a child speaks at home, to the speaker-centred lens of translanguaging, or asking instead in what ways/ contexts the child uses her/his linguistic resources, was found to be key to shifting teachers’ perception of bi/multilingualism and also to their incorporation of students’ language practices into teaching and learning. Understanding their students more deeply appeared to lie at the heart of the teachers’ desire to engage with translanguaging pedagogy, and the affirmation of bi/multilingual identities – as an extension of who their students were in general – was the most conspicuous translanguaging goal for all the teachers. They reported that they were perceiving the LBOTE students as more sophisticated language users and also showed a growing understanding of the context-sensitive nature of students’ linguistic experiences. A focus on students’ linguistic repertoire (rather than the monolingual nature of their own) also appeared to take the mystique out of bi/multilingualism for the six monolingual teachers, allowing them to incorporate languages into student learning without feeling that they were not qualified enough, or did not have the relevant expertise.

Translanguaging pedagogy and its clear relationship to identity performance (see Creese & Blackledge, 2010) thus appeared to be a useful vehicle for the incorporation of students’ home language practices in the classroom, and the identity texts (cf D’Warte, 2014, 2015; Somerville, D’Warte & Sawyer, 2016) created by the students provided a useful springboard. However, the extent to which the active meaning-making aspect of translanguaging was incorporated by the teachers into their lessons was found to be uneven, and this was found to affect the leveraging of students’ repertoire for specific objectives. Teaching curriculum content appeared to be more conceptually challenging than the affirmation of bi/multilingual identities.

The two teachers who were found to be the most successful in meeting desired content descriptors via making students’ extended linguistic repertoires central to learning focused on the English curriculum and the translanguaging pedagogical goal of metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness. In their reflections, the students of these two teachers showed what they had learned was directly related to the inclusion of home language practices in the classroom. The other three main teachers who made the incorporation of languages relevant to their objectives but not central appeared to have a sole focus on the affirmation of students’ language practices in the community domain, and translation – with no subsequent meaning-making – was the main tool for doing this.

The extent of value, or cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), teachers ascribed to the language practices of their students therefore appeared to be important. The capital of students’ linguistic repertoire can be considered to be higher in a class where this linguistic repertoire is positioned as central to students’ learning, and it was in one of these classes where a monolingual student reported disengagement with the translanguaging pedagogy in the classroom. From his comment about not being able to speak another language, it appeared to be having a language to share with the class that was positioned as valuable, rather than learning from one’s peers. This finding indicates that the translanguaging pedagogical goal of disrupting linguistic hierarchies might be achieved through not differentiating instruction for bilinguals, emergent bilinguals and monolinguals (see García & Li, 2014) in that everyone is expected to interact with multilingual practices. However, giving monolingual students a more active role in the process by providing them with something to share, or placing importance on their positioning as a learner of language, may make translanguaging pedagogy more sustainable in a country such as Australia that takes institutional monolingualism for granted (e.g., Clyne, 2005; Scarino, 2014).

Viewing the attribution of capital, or value, to students’ extended language practices in the classroom on a continuum may also be useful. In Australia, even though still an additive and compartmentalised view of language (García, 2009), there is evidence of an institutional appreciation of the languages students speak at home and the importance of maintaining them (see Department of Education and Training, Victoria, 2018). This can be viewed as a positive step towards addressing the view of language deficit, or only understanding that English is important. Heritage languages in the community domain do not always thrive with such a strong institutional emphasis on English. Students’ language practices can be brought into class as a way to affirm students’ participation in that domain. Translation with no follow-up activities can be considered a bridge between formal and informal domains, and translanguaging pedagogy in the form of active meaning-making can then be considered as the next step in raising the cultural capital of an extended linguistic repertoire.

Another important element of cultural capital that arose in the study is that of literacy. Literacy has an enormous amount of capital in Australia, and this was reflected in all the teachers choosing to include a literacy component in their incorporation of their students’ language practices in the classroom. This then sparked an interest in the relationship between bi/multilingualism and bi/multiliteracy among the monolingual teachers. The centrality of literacy in formal education systems is worthy of attention when applying translanguaging pedagogy in the classroom because teachers may (perhaps unwittingly) prioritise the incorporation of reading and writing over oral activities, thereby marginalising languages with rich oral traditions, and/or family members who are not literate in their home language.

In sum, using translanguaging as a conceptual tool to blur the lines between institutional and community domains in a country like Australia, where language maintenance is supported, but usually only in principle, has the potential to help embed home language practices in everyday school-based learning in ways that are of direct benefit to students. A translanguaging lens can also give teachers the confidence to experiment. If the teachers think that they need to find and comprehend the language resources themselves in order to transmit information/knowledge to the students, this may feel overwhelming. Providing a space for students to work with (and explain) material that the teacher does not understand may feel more feasible. However, translanguaging as an end in itself in the classroom is likely to require a shift in thinking in settings where language separation is the norm. In the study, one way some teachers were able to engage with a holistic view of language was to draw on their students’ language practices in order to achieve English curriculum teaching and learning objectives. If TESOL is conceptualised broadly as Teaching English (language arts) to Speakers of Other Languages, the study demonstrated that teachers’ engagement with translanguaging has the potential to improve students’ learning of English as well as to increase the cultural capital of multilingual practices. This may be a preliminary way to shift the focus from English-only to using and developing linguistic repertoire as a worthwhile goal in its own right at school.