Translanguaging in Multicultural Classrooms: Discoveries, Dilemmas, and Directions

• Main Author: Canilao, Maria Luz Elena Nabong
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2023
• Subjects: English only policy; Innovations; Linguistic inequities; Multicultural classrooms; Translanguaging; Arts and Humanities; Education; English Language and Literature; Language and Literacy Education; Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/english-faculty-pubs/224; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8589-0_1
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This chapter describes how the English Only Policy has been deeply entrenched in the educational system in the Philippines because of the country’s colonial past, and it discusses how educators have been conditioned to believe that languages should be segregated in academic settings. It addresses the difficulties and dilemmas that teachers may face in adopting a translingual position (Canagarajah, 2013) and reveals how teachers have resisted this policy by employing translanguaging (Garcia, 2009) as a pedagogical resource. Based on my research observations and teaching experiences in the Philippines, I offer the key principles that teachers may consider in using translanguaging as a teaching tool in multicultural contexts and propose a framework that may be considered to address linguistic inequities and empower their learners. Using the proposed framework, I demonstrate how translanguaging can be employed in enhancing activities and tasks for local and international university students coming from different cultural backgrounds. The issues in this chapter reflect the struggles of language educators in multilingual and postcolonial contexts such as the Philippines and the insights in this work show the possibilities for pedagogical innovations that other academic institutions in multicultural settings around the world may adopt.