Translanguaging

I was not familiar with what Translanguaging was before I began watching these videos and reading this article. I related most to the videos on Cuny. I am monolingual, and I have always been nervous about how I would teach a class with emergent bilingual students. I liked hearing about those teachers stories, and how they were able to communicate with students who were emergent bilinguals. I especially connected with the teacher who used graphic novels as a way to help their students communicate. I am a firm believer in visuals (being an art teacher myself), and I believe that art does not have to only take place in the art classroom, but can be a very great tool for any classroom. Especially for emergent bilinguals as we saw in this video. Visual language is universal, and should be utilized all the time in my opinion. Although, I am a visual learner so I could be a bit bias.

Translanguaging vs. Code Switching

As I was doing further research on Translanguaging I stumbled upon this TED talk called The Cost of Code Switching. I thought to myself, is that the same as Translanguaging? As Chandra Arthur began her story I started to see the difference between the two terms. Code switching lacks diversity whereas Translanguaging embraces it. I never realized the difference until I heard someone put it into context. Translanguaging embraces the use of both languages in order to gain understanding whereas code switching forces the person to switch her/his way of speaking or dressing or interests in order to fit in. It made me more aware of how society is set up, and how society expects people to code switch, and if they do not they will be judged. It's unfortunate that code switching is expected. Translanguaging should be the expectation, not code switching.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love Has No Labels

Image
"I think gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, into a society in which they were supposed to be safe." This is a quote from James Baldwin from "The Last Interview". James Baldwin is a Black gay male who does not use the word gay. He does not associate with it because he sees love as a personal matter, and to classify himself as gay seems impersonal. Love is love and there should not be a label put onto it. After reading the whole interview I found this quote to be particularly interesting, and it made me wonder if this is a common thought for some White gay people. They were born White, and therefore have White Privilege, but is that White Privilege taken away because they are gay? Is this why some gay males are angry about their sexual desires? I do not think being gay takes away from their White Privilege, but it does take away from their Sexual Orientation Privilege. A straight person has privilege because they do not need to worry about ...
Read more

Restorative Justice

Image
I struggle with how much care I give my students. I have colleagues saying I need to discipline more, but I see the results they get from giving the same student lunch detention over and over again and I just don't see anything changing. Sure, I give the occasional lunch detention when I see fit, but one of my colleagues introduced me to this knew way of disciplining that reminded me of restorative justice that is talked about in Ginwright's chapter from  Hope and Healing in Urban Education: How Urban Activists and Teachers are Reclaiming Matters of the Heart . Instead having lunch detention, or after school detention or sending the students to the Principal right away she makes them write a letter of apology. They are to say what they did wrong, and how they will correct it in the future. This is not always the change I want to see though. So Now What? Ginwright's chapter made me rethink the format she gave me for this letter of apology. Students are too consumed with...
Read more

Snow Day Post - UDL

Smart from the Start: The Promise of Universal Design for Learning by Bart Pisha & Peggy Coyne My article focused Universal Design for Learning, and how it came to be. It began with architecture. It was mandated by law that buildings must be accessible to all people. Ramps, elevators, curb cuts, and the use of brail on signs made our world more accessible to more types of people, but our intellectual world still was not. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) began to take shape. It is a way of creating curricula that has supports built into. There is no longer a need to come up with individual modifications because the curriculum already has those supports built into it. This means that with every lesson there are multiple forms and ways of learning. One example the article used is that with the use of technology, textbooks can be read to students as well as students reading them themselves. This is two different ways that a student can obtain the information of the textbook and ...
Read more