Chiu-Yin (Cathy) Wong

As multilingual, transnational TESOL teacher educators, we recognize the transformative potential of translanguaging in preparing teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms in the United States. In response, we have intentionally integrated translanguaging into our teacher education courses, striving for curricular reform and ideological shifts within TESOL preparation. This collaborative self-study examines our experiences as we navigate the theoretical, pedagogical, and institutional complexities of promoting translanguaging in higher education. Through structured reflections and analysis of teaching artifacts, we identified three key themes. First, engaging with translanguaging prompted ideological reorientations, allowing us to critically reflect on our linguistic identities and challenge deeply rooted monolingual ideologies. Second, our efforts to implement translanguaging revealed pedagogical tensions—particularly in moving beyond viewing it as scaffolding and in addressing the translanguaging and code-switching debate—which required adaptive strategies. Third, collaborative dialogue served as a catalyst for professional growth, fostering a community of practice that enabled us to refine our approaches and advocate for translanguaging more effectively. This study contributes to TESOL teacher education by offering insights into the lived experiences of teacher educators, highlighting key challenges and possibilities in translanguaging integration, and underscoring the need for sustained professional learning communities to support faculty and teachers in enacting translanguaging in diverse educational contexts.

A growing body of literature highlights the benefits of translanguaging pedagogy in multilingual classrooms. However, its implementation in Chinese‐as‐a‐medium‐of‐instruction (CMI) contexts and its impact on student motivation to learn this language remain underexplored. This study examines how translanguaging was enacted in a short‐term CMI summer program in the United States to support and motivate novice‐level students learning Chinese, incorporating perspectives from both the teacher and students. Using multimodal conversation analysis, I analyzed classroom interactions and triangulated findings with ethnographic data, including field notes and transcripts from one‐on‐one interviews with the teacher and eight students. Guided by the teacher's own metaphor of “1 + 1 = 2,” which she used to describe learning as the integration of students’ prior knowledge with new content, the findings demonstrate that translanguaging serves as a mediator in enhancing motivation, building confidence, and making learning and writing Chinese characters more accessible and engaging. Intentional instructional design, such as backward design, connected classroom learning to real‐world applications, culminating in a community performance that provided students with a clear sense of purpose. This study underscores the potential of translanguaging pedagogy as a bridge between students’ prior knowledge and new learning, developing motivation, confidence, and an appreciation for cultural and linguistic diversity, particularly in the context of learning Chinese. Pedagogical recommendations are provided for implementing these strategies in academic settings to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes.

This is a critical self-inquiry study that explores how a motherscholar utilized her pedagogical expertise and grappled with structural challenges to support her children’s Cantonese heritage language development. Her strategic use of translanguaging pedagogy not only facilitated her children’s willingness and engagement in speaking Cantonese but also nurtured their transnational identities across the USA and Hong Kong. Despite her pedagogical background, she faced significant challenges due to resource limitations, highlighting systemic issues that affect many multilingual families. In addition, findings revealed tensions between her language ideologies and translanguaging practices, indicating the complexities of applying theoretical knowledge to real-world applications. This motherscholar’s experiences reflect significant societal deficiencies, revealing deep disconnect between her understanding of the importance of developing her children’s multilingualism, transnational knowledge, and identities, and the support available in their existing environment. The study calls for enhanced community and educational support that alleviates individual burdens and promotes a more equitable linguistic landscape, emphasizing the need for support for multilingual upbringing within diverse communities. The implications of these findings are discussed further in the study.

While existing literature has addressed teachers’ translanguaging practices in diverse educational settings, its integration into assessments remains limited. Adopting a participatory research design in the form of a teacher-research collaboration, the present study examined in detail how a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) teacher integrated translanguaging into a summative assessment in a Chinese immersion setting. I also delved into the perceptions of the teacher and her students regarding the assessment. The data were triangulated and included co-design notes, in-class and post-observation field notes, as well as transcripts of one-on-one interviews with the teacher and students. The findings show that the teacher skillfully integrated translanguaging, including using planned strategies and leveraging students’ full linguistic repertoires into the summative assessment. The concept of juntos (García, Ofelia, Susana I. Johnson & Kate Seltzer. 2017. The Translanguaging classroom: Leveraging student bilingualism for learning. Philadelphia, PA: Carlson), a collaborative dynamic among teachers and students appeared to play a major role in the assessment. Integrating translanguaging into the assessment appeared to render complex topics more comprehensible and relevant to the students’ lived experiences. Additionally, it is evident that the teacher–researcher collaboration deepened the teacher’s pedagogical practices in translanguaging and garnered positive feedback from students, indicating an increase in confidence, engagement, and the strengthening of their multilingual identities. I conclude with a call for assessments integrated with translanguaging, transmodalities, and co-learning practices, aiming to transform evaluations into affirmations of students’ funds of knowledge in today’s socio-cultural-political context.