Translanguaging in Middle Level Education

Abstract

This case study explores the experiences of two teacher candidates (TCs) in professional development school (PDS) settings with multilingual learners. While valuing multilingual learner’s diverse linguistic backgrounds and language repertoires by drawing from a toolkit of responsive practices, the TCs embraced but struggled with layering translanguaging into their classroom practices. It also examines the middle grades program that these TCs attended while centering asset-based thinking and culturally responsive practices. Overall, this study shows that teacher education programs must include another critical layer to TCs’ experiences: building the toolkit of middle school cooperating teachers (CTs). This study also serves as a call to action for more research and training focusing on translanguaging in the middle grades and for creating more inclusive spaces for our linguistically diverse students in the middle grades.

Keywords

• translanguaging
• bilingual education
• teacher preparation
• english language learners (ell)
• professional development
• middle grades education