Shownotes
Discover the transformative power of translanguaging with your English language learners!
In this episode, Beth unpacks practical strategies and provides a compelling example of how teachers can effectively integrate translanguaging to support bilingualism. From understanding what translanguaging is not to implementing purposeful techniques in lesson planning, Beth offers actionable insights tailored to educators working with diverse language learners. Learn how translanguaging enhances communication, fosters deeper understanding, and accelerates language acquisition by leveraging students' existing linguistic repertoires. Dive into Beth's classroom model and explore hands-on approaches for promoting multilingual fluency, engagement, and academic success for your ELLs.
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Transcripts
Hey there, and welcome to another episode of the Equipping Ells podcast. I'm so glad you are joining me today, and I hope that you're really enjoying our series on supporting bilingualism. We are coming to an end on this one, and we'll be starting a soon series all about collaboration, so I can't wait to get into that. But before we end the series on bilingualism, I want to give you the strategy today that is going to really help with supporting bilingualism, even if you don't know the native languages that your students speak. So there's a new trend that you might say or a new buzword that you might be hearing called translanguaging. And translanguaging is something that can be used in a really powerful way, but can also feel a bit uncomfortable for the teacher. If you're not aware of the native language that's being spoken, it can feel a bit outside of your comfort zone, I would say, personally, I've felt that, but I've also really seen the power behind using the native language in specific and intentional ways to support learning their l two. Okay, so we want to find specific and intentional ways to connect the l one and the l two. So before we begin, let's talk about what translanguaging isn't. Translanguaging is not just letting the students use their native language all the time, okay? Because at the end of the day, our goal, unless you're in a bilingual program, our goal is to be teaching them English. And so we really want to make that difference. And we really want to make that difference. It's not a free for all that. They just use their native language all the time. I've seen that happen before, and it gets really frustrating for the teacher because they feel like their students now don't have any desire to work in English or learn English, and they keep falling back into their native language. And so that's where I can see sometimes this tension happens around when conversations are had around when to use the l one. I know sometimes you might be feeling that right now, right? But if I let them use it a little bit, then what if it just gets out of control and they really don't catch on to English? I've been in those situations before, so translanguaging is not just letting them use it whenever they want. Okay? All.
You. So along with that, translanguaging is also not language replacement. Okay? It's not trying to replace or undermine the importance of learning and using the target language, which is, in our situation, English. Okay? So it's not meant to do that at all. It's rather meant to complement the language learning by leveraging the students existing language that they already have and really connecting and making that really strong connection between their native language and the language that they're learning. What we see as we go deeper and deeper into research and we see how the brain learns, we see the power behind that transfer skill. And we see, especially if it's a language that is similar, if it's like Spanish and English, they have 40% of their words are cognizants. So when we can strengthen that, it's very powerful for speeding along the learning of another language. But if we leave out one completely, then we really are lacking some major ways that we can help support the students.
And then last, language, translanguaging is not just random and just arbitrary here. This is not just meant to be done whenever they feel like it, or it's not just code switching where all of a sudden a student throws in a word that is in their native language. Those things are not translanguaging. Like I said, translanguaging really is strategic and purposeful, and there is a goal that is meant to happen. And so let's talk about what translanguaging is. Okay. Translanguaging, one understands that language is fluid. Allowing a speaker to draw from their entire linguistic rapport, allowing a speaker to draw from their entire linguistic repertoire to make meaning, shows that we support having this fluid language where they're going to be pulling some words from that, they're going to be using that, especially in an academic context. And when they can do that, there's going to be more fluency happening between the languages, and they are going to grow in their second language at a much quicker rate. Okay. Translanguaging is enhanced communication. So translanguaging really focuses on meaning making and effective communication, rather than strict adherence to monolingual norms. This really helps all the students in your classroom express themselves more fully and accurately by really tapping into what they know. Think of when you're working with a group of students of all different language levels and you are. Hitting on a topic and you have maybe three or four students who have something to say. And usually those are the students who have been in the program for a while or they have a really good foundation in English, especially when we're talking about academic content here or in the homeroom classroom, you have the students who are monolingual and they have a lot to share, maybe. How often do your english language learners volunteer answers? Right away in my situation, it wasn't very often. And what you're going to see, though, is with trans linguaging, all of a sudden you're going to unlock opportunities for those students to first focus in their native language on the topic that's being learned, transfer, and then share out. And there's a lot of power behind this, of them just really opening those doors for them to have opportunities to share and make meaning effectively. All right.
And then last, translanguaging. It's really used as a strategy to help scaffold language learning, to help promote deeper understanding with your students and help support students in accessing content across languages. So it's really an incredible shift that you're to see when you do this. And now I want to get into an actual lesson because sometimes we hear these things, but it's hard to really place what this would look like in your classroom. So I want to walk you through a lesson of how to do this, and I want to just make one point before we dive into this lesson. I remember when I had Emily Francis on the podcast last June, and if you have not read her book, if you do not follow her, please stop right now and go do that because she is such an incredible voice in this community and shares her experience in such a beautiful way. She's so passionate. And she said on that podcast something that has stuck with me. And she said a lot of times teachers have fear of letting their students speak their native language. And she said, but what if instead of that fear, what if we didn't sit in that fear, but instead we look at it as trust? What if we flip that and say, instead of I'm afraid because I don't speak the language, that they are going to get out of control or they're going to say things that are inappropriate? What if we switch that and said, I'm going to trust that my students are going to engage with this activity and that they are going to show up and it's going to be something that's beneficial to them and to our whole class. So as we get into this, because I know it can sometimes be uncomfortable. I want you to have it with that mindset without outlook instead of that fear guiding this lesson. Let's start with trust. And, yeah, you know what? There's going to be groups that it doesn't work well and it does get out of control, and maybe you can do it with them, but there's going to be other groups that you are going to see. Some of your students who maybe never volunteer, who maybe never share out answers, all of a sudden get really engaged, get really, because they feel seen, they're able to. Understand first in their own language and then respond. So let's walk through what this would look like to use the translanguaging strategy for teaching a fifth grade group of students mixed language level all about explorers and exploration. Okay, so this could happen in one lesson. It could be 45 to 60 minutes. And the main thing here is you're going to want some materials that are in the native text of your students. So this works really well if you have a few students speaking the same language. So maybe you have your English speaking group, and then maybe you have four or five students who are spanish speaking, and then maybe you have two or three students who speak Portuguese, and then maybe you have one or two students who speak an additional language. And so you will want to prep some sort of reading. So if our topic is on explorers and exploration, then I would go and I would find maybe a news article, maybe news ela. I'll find an article on that. Or maybe I'll look at my student population and see if I can pull out an explorer from know someone that they might be familiar. Um, here in Panama, we have Belboa, who came to find Panama, and so he has a lot of students know him.
There's statues about him. So finding an explorer that might be important to the country of where your students are from or know an interesting explorer that you want to learn more about. So I'd find an article about that or an exploration. I would find it. So it could be at the language level of your students. And then what's really amazing now is you can just take that article, you can copy it, paste it into Google Translate or another translation device. If you have immersive reader on your students'devices, it will translate it for them into multiple languages. So you could just upload that there and let them work then in their native language, depending if they have that on their device. But you will want to prep that beforehand. So take the same passage or text and then prepare beforehand that text in the different language groups that you have with your students. Okay, so you're going to dive into this topic, and I love to do this at the beginning of a new unit. So let's say we're just starting this new unit on explorers and exploration. And when they walk in, my students are going to have different realia. They're going to have different maybe maps at one table and then maybe some pictures or if I can find some other type of realia of different things, of what an explorer would bring with them, or maybe I'd have some boats at some areas and just letting them walk around, do a gallery walk, let them walk around, touch things, talk about them. They can talk at this point in their native language if they want. Talking about the vocabulary. You walk around with them, maybe prompt them, ask questions. Where do you think, what do you think this has to do with our lesson? What do you think we're going to be learning about today? So this is just an opportunity to really start to get their brains hooked on what you are about to begin to do. After they go and take a gallery walk, they have some ideas and if you don't have the realia, you can always put pictures up on the wall and have them just write down their ideas.
What do you see in this picture? Write it right around the. Make a little border on the picture and just have them start to write their ideas down. Now come back together as a group and you in English talk about these different things. What do you think we're going to be learning about? I see boats and I see explorers and I see maps. See what they can come up with, write down their ideas, brainstorm together, have them work with partners, share out their ideas. Okay, so this takes five to ten minutes, maybe even longer, of letting them just really start to understand and go deeper on what the topic is going to be all about. Now, you might share at this point we're going to be moving into a lesson on explorers and exploration. Maybe you give them a little video that can kind of help paint the picture of the time that you're going to go back to to learn about these explorers, to see what the world looked like during this time. Maybe they can point out on a map where different explorers came from and what they found during this time. Anything. That's kind of a quick way to build that background. Maybe they have some information already that they can share with you about that. So this is going to take another five to ten minutes. You're just painting that picture. You're really taking them step by step into where you are heading with this lesson. Now comes the translanguaging part. So before you get into any teaching, before you get any redoing, a read aloud or anything like that, you are going to now split your students up in small groups by language and you're going to share with them those text that you had already prepared and you are going to let them read in their native language. Now, again, this works for older students who are already literate in their native language, but you're going to let them read in their native language all about this explorer that you already had found this text for. So you have your english group reading in English, you have your spanish group reading in Spanish, so on and so forth. So let them read together out loud in their native language the passage that you've given them. Now let them after that, ask questions and discuss the text in their native language. Now, it's always good to give them some parameters so you can say, I'm going to give you 15 minutes to do these things. You need to read the text. You need to answer these questions, or just maybe come up with questions on your own. I want you to take some of the words that you see in your native language, pull out some of that vocabulary, and then tell what those words are in English.
So now you're bridging that into their, into English. Dollars. So you want to give them that time to get into the language. What I have seen is they get excited about being able to read something in their native language and then have a conversation around it. So give them about 15 minutes to do that. All right, now what you want to do is you want to provide some discussion question prompts related to that by bilingual text that they read. And now you're going to have them give them an opportunity. They can answer in their native language, but they also need to prepare the answer in English because that's the language of the classroom. And so they can take it and first talk together as a group. And they're going to come up with answers together as a group so they can write it first in their native language if they want, and then they can help each other translate it so that their question or their answer is prepared in English. They can read it first in their native language so that all the students are hearing another language spoken. But then the answer out to everybody will be in English so that everybody can understand. So each group is going to take your question prompt. They're going to provide an answer on their own together as a group, and then they're going to share out.
Now, you can take this in multiple different ways. You can give a question prompt. You can have them share out one interesting fact that they read. You can have them ask questions and come up with some ideas of now that they're thinking about explorers, they've read it about an explorer already. What are some questions that they have going into this unit of what they want to learn about? Now, again, as we go back into whole group conversations, the discussion is going to be in English because in this, that's the language of the classroom. And so that all can understand. That's what we want to really go back and forth between. As they're discussing in their small group, if they all speak that same language, they can have that conversation in their native language, translate it and share out in English. So this is where, this is a very powerful strategy because all that's happening in the brain as I've shared in the weeks past, as they go from one language to the next in that academic setting, there is a lot that's happening in the brain that is building up and strengthening specific areas of the brain that are going to help them really remember these words that they are translating in English, really remember this content that they're learning as they connect it to their native language. And it's going to really prepare them for this unit that's coming so again, have them ask questions. What do they wonder? Do they have any experience? Can they think of any explorers? Just really give them opportunities to think, talk with their group in their native language and share out in English.
Now, a follow up activity then could be exploration route. And on that map they need to go in and they need to label key locations. And they could do that in both English and their native language. So they're continuing to make that connection independently if that's something that they want to do or that you want them to do. So you can continue that bilingual approach even in some follow up activities. And so then again, as you do any closing, any reiterating, you might have some vocabulary words, maybe part of the lesson is let's start with the english group, okay? Pull out one of your vocabulary words. Okay. The word is route. Let's look at each of these groups and let's find out what's that word in Spanish, in Portuguese, in Ukrainian, and start to learn different languages together in that way. So that's another way that you can pull in the native language without having to speak their language. But really just identifying that key vocabulary and highlighting it and showing that that's a really important part of this classroom and this lesson.
So that really is the strategy of translanguaging. It's not that tricky. It takes a little bit of prep work, but I want to challenge you to use this. And this is not something you need to use every day, but it's something, especially at the beginning of a new unit. Just think of the difference of starting a unit on explorers and exploration and you're doing your best to scaffold and you're giving them scaffolds and you're giving them vocabulary and you're really doing a lot of that front loading and a lot of that teaching. Now, what if you flip that and you do a strategy like translanguaging where you're putting a lot of that on them to begin to make sense of what this unit is going to be about, and you're giving that opportunity to them to unlock if they have any vocabulary in their l one or if they have any stories that go along with it or any connections that they can be made to that unit. Think of the difference of as they move forward in this unit, how much more, one, engaged they're going to be, and two, how much deeper they're going to be able to go on this content because they were given that opportunity to unlock it with their l one first. That's really the power behind translanguaging. And when it's purposeful and intentional, all you will see those things happen with your students as well. So going quickly, briefly over this, to do translanguaging with your students, I would recommend to do it at the beginning of a new unit. You will want to prep some passages in your students reading level in their native languages. You'll want to do some building background. Some quick overview, and then have your students get into groups by languages, read the passage in their native language, talk about it, and then share out any answers in English so that everybody can understand. So that's really translanguaging in a nutshell. I would love to hear if you've done this before or if you're planning to try this out, and I would love to hear how it goes. Please send us a message on Instagram at equipping elove and let us know so we know how we can continue to help you. We're going to be closing out here on our bilingual series, but before we do, I'm going to be sharing the next couple of weeks some really powerful testimonies and stories of some bilingual students and where they're at today and sharing just some of the ways that teachers can continue to support and encourage bilingualism in their students and stories that you really could share with your students so that they know what the future could look like for them as well if they keep with it. So stay tuned for those stories, and then we'll move into a series on collaboration. So I can't wait for more episodes to come. Each Friday on the Equipping Yells podcast us. If you have any topics you would like to see in the future, please reach out to us. Let us know we are here to help support you in any way that we can. All right, have a great week, everybody, and I'll see you next week. Bye.