Translanguaging in teacher education: engaging preservice teachers in culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies

Abstract

This qualitative case study challenges monoglossic teaching practices in mainstream classrooms with emergent bilingual learners. I examine how pre-service teachers in a California teacher education course took up a culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy (CLSP) that centers students’ identities, cultures, and language practices, as well as the ways they engaged with translanguaging during an examination of their own and their students’ language practices, and in enacting a translanguaging pedagogy. I discuss the opportunities that teacher candidates experienced in their student-teaching placements as they planned and implemented CLSP, and the ways in which their interactions with the children informed the urgency of a transformative pedagogy. I argue that we must fully embrace translanguaging as a culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogical practice in our continued effort toward transforming education and in seeking to eradicate systemic injustices in schools and beyond.