Translanguaging pedagogies in a Mandarin-English dual language bilingual education classroom: contextualised learning from teacher-researcher collaboration

• Published in: International journal of bilingual education and bilingualism 2023-09, Vol.26 (8), p.960-974
• Main Authors: Tian, Zhongfeng, Lau, Sunny Man Chu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bilingual Education; Bilingualism; Code Switching (Language); Collaboration; contextualised learning; Cooperation; Cooperative learning; critical moments of dissonance; Elementary school students; Elementary School Teachers; English; English language; Grade 3; Immersion Programs; Learning; Mandarin; Mandarin Chinese; Mandarin-English dual language bilingual education; Public Schools; Researchers; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; teacher-researcher collaboration; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Translanguaging; Translanguaging pedagogies; Translation
• ISSN: 1367-0050; 1747-7522
• DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2022.2161815

Teacher-researcher collaborative inquiry helps illuminate contextual demands and affordances of teaching and learning and how they shape and inform theory and practice. Elaborating on a university-school study in a Mandarin-English dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programme in the U.S., we examine how the researcher worked alongside a Grade 3 Mandarin teacher in implementing translanguaging approaches across different content areas. We focus particularly on critical moments of dissonance in their research partnership that capture their changing understandings and constant negotiations of translanguaging stance, design, and shifts. Through open and focused coding of qualitative data, we identified both parties' evolving perspectives and teaching/research practices. Ambivalence, doubts, and contradictions characterised their collaboration process as both researcher and teacher wrestled with what translanguaging means to Chinese education within a DLBE context where English hegemony reigns both inside and outside school. Important critical moments are highlighted to illuminate how the pair gradually developed a shared understanding about the need for a more comprehensive, critical, and contextualised lens to translanguaging pedagogies and to learn how to orchestrate translanguaging spaces in DLBE programmes while privileging students' use of Mandarin.