Sustaining Multilingualism and Sensemaking: A Collaborative Exploration of Translanguaging Reading Pedagogies for Emergent Bilinguals
2021-07
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Sustaining Multilingualism and Sensemaking: A Collaborative Exploration of Translanguaging Reading Pedagogies for Emergent Bilinguals
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2021-07
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This three-part dissertation explores the complexity of collaboratively designing and implementing translanguaging reading pedagogies for students classified as English learners in a second-grade English-medium classroom. With the increasing linguistic heterogeneity in the United States, public schools have a pressing need to develop culturally and linguistically relevant reading pedagogies. Thus, this means that teachers and researchers cannot study and pedagogically engage multilinguals’ reading processes without recognizing social aspects such as the inequitable schooling conditions they often experience, the cultural backgrounds they share with their peers and families, and/or their multilingual practices inside and outside of school. To this end, teachers must provide generative literacy learning opportunities that honor students’ diverse sensemaking processes (Aukerman, 2013; Garc a & Kleifgen, 2020; Street, 1993; Shepard-Carey, 2020).Translanguaging pedagogies are one avenue for exploring this issue, which can be defined as intentional strategies for “building on bilingual students’ language practices flexibly in order to develop new understandings and new language practices, including those deemed ‘academic standard’” (Garc a & Li, 2014, p. 92). Effective translanguaging pedagogies require educators to take up three interwoven components: ideologies that view multilingualism as an asset and an integral part of students’ identities, intentional design of lessons and assessments, and flexibility to meet learners’ linguistic needs moment-to-moment (Garc a et al., 2017). Few studies have explored the practical implementation of these pedagogies with English learners in early grades, particularly with learners from less common language (such as Somali) and refugee backgrounds. Drawing on translanguaging pedagogies research (e.g., Garc a et al., 2017) and sociocultural, critical, and multilingual approaches to literacy instruction (e.g., Aukerman, 2013; Garc a & Kleifgen, 2020; Hornberger, 2003; Street, 1993), this longitudinal participatory design research study (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; PDR) addresses this gap in research by examining the collaborative (teacher-researcher) development and implementation of translanguaging pedagogies during reading instruction in a linguistically diverse second-grade classroom. This dissertation is structured into three studies that highlight the multifaceted nature of co-designing and implementing translanguaging reading pedagogies, and further describes processes of collaboration with my research partner, the classroom teacher, Ms. Hassan. PDR is a hybrid design research methodology that asserts the power of relationship building and community partnerships in research to create more sustainable and meaningful change for the populations the research intends to impact (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; Guti rrez & Jurow, 2016). To carry out translanguaging reading pedagogies, Ms. Hassan and I engaged in iterative cycles of planning-implementing-reflecting on lessons over the course of two school years (2018-2020).
With three complementary studies and analyses, this dissertation specifically explores (a) tensions and opportunities in Ms. Hassan’s and my ideologies, pedagogical designs, and linguistic practices during our first year of collaboration (qualitative case study), (b) Ms. Hassan’s and my translanguaging and how it impacted the translingual sensemaking opportunities for students (critical discourse analysis), and (c) aspects of Ms. Hassan’s and my collaboration and the pedagogical benefits of our work together (qualitative thematic analysis). Across the studies, findings broadly pointed to a need for more materials and pedagogical guidance for students from less common language backgrounds (Allard et al.,2019), closer attention to teacher translanguaging and students’ agency to use their linguistic resources, and long-term and engaged collaboration for necessary change in translanguaging pedagogies research. One practice-based goal of this project is to develop and disseminate guidance and materials related to implementing multilingual literacy pedagogies in English-medium elementary classrooms that serve English learners from various language backgrounds. Yet, while this study addresses a local need, the long-term, collaborative, and iterative approach to designing and implementing pedagogies in this context generates theory that can transfer and resonate with other linguistically diverse elementary classrooms and teacher-researcher partnerships (Gutierrez & Jurow, 2016).
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University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2021. Major: Education, Curriculum and Instruction. Advisors: Martha Bigelow, Lori Helman. 1 computer file (PDF); xiii, 223 pages.
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Carey, Leah. (2021). Sustaining Multilingualism and Sensemaking: A Collaborative Exploration of Translanguaging Reading Pedagogies for Emergent Bilinguals. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/258708.
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