Hello everyone, my name is Garrett and I'll be your host for today's
podcast. For this podcast, we'll be discussing the best techniques for
translanguaging with faith, Brianna, Sammy and Alyssa. Translanguaging
is the way people who are multilingual go about speaking their
different languages and mixing them together while speaking. They do
this in order to help themselves understand the language they're
trying to learn more efficiently because that may be how they are
processing the language as they take it in. This is very common with
people who speak multiple languages. Translanguaging is done very
commonly in everyday life and it's something that should be more
accepted as people who know multiple languages could struggle with
going back and forth between languages. And now for our first
question. In what ways can we center the voices of our students and
make them feel comfortable and translanguaging? To truly center the
voices of our students, we must get to know their journeys. Each child
or student brings to the classroom their own unique experiences. The
history and background of adolescence influence their learning
strategies and habits, as well as the way they communicate and behave
in various situations and interact with others. Taking the time to
learn about a student's background and engaging with them, asking them
questions will result in a comfortable bond between you, the teacher,
and the student and create an environment where the student feels
comfortable enough to use their translanguaging abilities. Respect is
earned by taking the time to listen and learn. About their
experiences. Teachers who interacted with me growing up asked me how I
was doing and genuinely wanted to hear about about it. Where my
favorite teachers and I held them in high regard and felt comfortable
talking with them. Everyone has a back story and as a teacher it's
important to understand it. Does anyone have anything to add? Yeah, I
really enjoyed how you express the importance of getting to know your
students backgrounds and journeys. It's really difficult to promote
translanguaging without promoting the backgrounds of multilingual
students. This is something which we all of that think about when
trying to encourage translanguaging, making sure everyone is
encouraging translanguaging is also super important. I just want to
touch upon the. When you're interacting with teachers itself, because
I think people really underestimate their emotions behind interacting
with the teacher. Most of the time, teachers end up being under the
parent for students, so teachers being able to connect with students
without facing language as an obstacle can be really healing for them.
Yeah, I agree, and even having respect with the just like the teacher
student respect, it's a big thing. And making the student comfortable
so they can continue to share their languages and whatnot. For our
next question, what's an easy way to promote translanguaging in
classrooms with younger students? And this is a very important
question because many students who aren't native English speakers
struggle at a young age because not only are they learning the ends
and outs of their native language, but English as well. For teachers,
this may seem difficult issue to combat, but realistically there are
some easier techniques help promote translanguaging one thing a
teacher can do is label objects in their classroom, and multiple
languages. Odds are when you walk into an elementary classroom
anyways, you'll find nearly everything labeled. This helps familiarize
students with written forms of words they already know in use. The
same idea can be applied through translanguaging by labeling objects
in multiple languages. It allows students to make connections between
their native language and the one they're learning. This is just one
example, but many others suggest like stocking your classroom with
media and the languages of your students. Allow students with the same
native language to work together in class. Learn keywords in your
students, native language, etcetera. All of these things can help
promote your students native language. I don't have anything to add.
Yeah, I really like your ideas on how to promote translanguaging in
the classroom. I thought the idea you had about labeling objects in
the classroom in multiple languages was really clever. Yeah, I think I
really like enjoyed that whole labeling idea only because it's like
not a new concept to introduce in the classroom like we seen it
before. So this really allows students to feel like they're not
forcing teachers to accommodate for them just because they speak a
different language. Yeah, I think we all really love the labeling
idea. I feel that it might even be a great idea to only label things
in another language that is in English. So this way the association
between the word and the object is even stronger. Yeah, I agree with
Sammy and the way the label things. I think that's a very smart idea.
Let's move on to our next question. Would you consider Translanguaging
a natural process or something that you purposefully do?
Translanguaging can be both a natural and purposeful process.
Sometimes when someone speaking to somebody, sometimes when I'm
speaking a language that we can both speak. I will naturally
incorporate some words or phrases from the other language to make
myself easier to understand. Sometimes I accidentally do this to
speaking someone who doesn't speak the second language too. On the
other hand, I trans language purposefully too. When speaking to
somebody who speaks the same 1/2 languages that I do, while sometimes
have to reiterate something in another language for the listener to
better understand something. I also may forget a word in one language,
and sometimes I'll just say in the other language, keep the sentence
flowing at the end of the day, Translanguaging is best used naturally
and purposefully. I would like to add. Yeah, I just wanted to mention
how like seeing little quirks like this are always pleasing to see,
especially in the students eyes. I think it will definitely definitely
make them feel a lot more comfortable and like at ease. It's also
interesting as a person who only speaks English to learn from others
how they use translanguaging. In your case, I love seeing how trans
language doesn't always have to be purposeful, but natural too. Yeah,
I thought it was really interesting to hear about translanguaging from
you, Sammy and I think it's great that you do it. I know some Spanish,
but I myself don't trans language a lot, so I think it's great that
you're comfortable and able to. Yeah, I think building off with Faith
said about only speaking English and seeing how other people trans
language, even my own life. My mom speaks fluent Italian with my
grandma and there will be times where they'll be speaking Italian for
like 20 minutes straight and then out of nowhere like there's a few
English words that are put in there just because my mom may not know
it. As you may not have learned the word in Italian, so I think it's
interesting to see how it can be done purposefully and naturally
without even realizing. And moving on to our next question, are there
any translanguaging techniques that have debates and countries behind
it and if so, have we move past these issues? So I know that when
showcasing multiple languages, it can be confusing to students,
especially for younger students. I know for me as a child, my language
development was like stunted, maybe because there's two languages
being spoken at home. So it confused me a lot. Additionally, another
issue would be that in the classroom some might use like translation
dictionaries to do, like a quick translation, but those can become
very inaccurate and awkward, so that will only confuse the student
even more. So some solutions that we could come up with is just
allowing students to interact with people from different backgrounds
just so they can recognize the differences a lot more easily,
especially if they're younger. And additionally emphasizing and
strengthening a trustworthy relationship between teacher and student.
That way, students don't feel embarrassed to ask questions like, oh,
what does this mean and things like that? I I just think that would be
just be more helpful and it'll prevent any more confusion within the
classroom. Thank you Alyssa. Does anyone have anything to add? Yeah, I
just want to say that those solutions are all super important in
building a trans language and community. Developing trust and exposing
monolingual students to bilingual students or just people that speak
multiple languages in general will definitely help encourage students
to start translanguaging themselves. Yeah, and I'd like to mention
like before, it is really important to allow students with different
backgrounds and stories to intermingle. It allows for there not to be
a disconnect between those students who are native English speakers
and those who are multilingual. It seems like a social norm nowadays
for multilingual students to be almost outcasted in the classroom and
intermingling a classroom can really help against that. Yeah, I loved
your solutions here, especially your last one. I think your last
solution is very similar to my ideas in the first question, and I
think a good teacher student bond is extremely important. Yeah, just
building off Elissa's answer. You're talking about. How there might
not be like direct translations for things I think. It's important to
help out with that and like I think, definitely make it known that
with the students that there may not be a direct translation with like
maybe certain sayings or. Really, anything that goes into how we speak
the language and how multilingual students may be learning it just to
help them better. So to end, I'd like to thank everyone who is a part
of our podcast and I was able to listen. It has shown that
translanguaging can happen on purpose and just by casually talking
translanguaging is something that speakers should feel more
comfortable with as it is natural and allows them to be more confident
and continue to keep learning their language. Promoting
Translanguaging is some that should be happening in all schools with
multilingual speakers, so we can create a more inclusive environment
and make them feel more comfortable. Thank you and we hope you all
enjoyed.