A professional development course in translanguaging: Teachers, parents and children working together.

Translanguaging pedagogy promotes deeper understanding of school subjects, increases
metalinguistic awareness, affirms multilingual identities, and encourages home-school collaboration
(García, 2017). Given that multilingual education is mandatory In Luxembourg, our project aims to (1) offer a professional development (PD) course in translanguaging to preschool teachers, (2) involve children’s families to reinforce home-school collaboration, and (3) foster children’s cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional engagement in the classroom. We used a mixed-method approach: language portraits, questionnaires, and focus groups with teachers, questionnaires and interviews with parents, and a test in early literacy and numeracy in school and home language and video observations with children. During the period of six months, we delivered a 22-hour PD course that focused on the development of teachers’ multilingual classroom, home-school collaboration, information about the multilingual brain and cross-linguistic transfer, oracy and multiliteracies. We worked with 40 teachers, children in their preschools, and the children’s parents. In the final focus groups, the teachers shared that they felt more relieved that children’s home languages do not confuse them and do not hinder the learning of Luxembourgish. They saw children’s emergent multilingualism as beneficial for their learning and let them express themselves freely. In addition, they understood that translanguaging is about communication, which invited them to start using languages they did not know to better relate to the children in their class. The effect of the PD course on parents and children was also positive. Some children were more involved in learning activities when their languages were used and some parents were enthusiastic to share their language through storytelling in the classroom.

García, O. (2017). Translanguaging in schools: Subiendo y Bajando, Bajando y Subiendo as afterword. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(4), 256-263. doi:10.1080/15348458.2017.1329657