Teacher-initiated translanguaging in German classrooms

Posted on October 22, 2018

Anouk Ticheloven and Yagmur Celik made a presentation on translanguaging in German schools, a project led by Prof. Sara Fürstenau at Hamburg University. The presentation was made in the Technica

During their visit at the CEA in July 2018, the two German researchers from Hamburg University described translanguaging as the approach for teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms in a German context, in which teachers recognize and use all of students´ languages as a resource for teaching and learning.

In their presentation, a distinction was drawn between dependent translanguaging patterns, for pragmatic reasons and providing support in understanding and independent translanguaging patterns, for enhancing and expanding existing knowledge.

With regards to dependent patterns, translanguaging is useful when students do not yet speak the schooling language fluently, while, on the other hand with independent patterns, students may understand everything and learn without problems in the schooling language. Here, the use of other languages may serve deeper goals such as reducing identity confusion, fostering creativity, or improving social cohesion among peers.

In our current work in the MIKS-project[1], we focus on teachers´ multilingual practices in schools that opened up for multilingualism:  How do these teachers use students´ languages for teaching and formal learning in productive ways?

An ethnographic observation protocols in 97 lessons in four primary schools in the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). We analyse these protocols with the key-incident-analysis, by searching classroom moments that represented dependent and independent translanguaging patterns. The examples may serve further research and empowering of schools, teachers and children to see languages as a resource.

 

[1] MIKS stands for: Mehrsprachigkeit als Handlungsfeld Interkultureller Schulentwicklung – English translation: Multilingualism as a field of action in intercultural school development. ( https://www.ew.uni-hamburg.de/forschung/miks/about-miks.html)

Anouk Ticheloven and Yagmur Celik made a presentation on translanguaging in German schools, a project led by Prof. Sara Fürstenau at Hamburg University. The presentation was made in the Technica

During their visit at the CEA in July 2018, the two German researchers from Hamburg University described translanguaging as the approach for teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms in a German context, in which teachers recognize and use all of students´ languages as a resource for teaching and learning.

In their presentation, a distinction was drawn between dependent translanguaging patterns, for pragmatic reasons and providing support in understanding and independent translanguaging patterns, for enhancing and expanding existing knowledge.

With regards to dependent patterns, translanguaging is useful when students do not yet speak the schooling language fluently, while, on the other hand with independent patterns, students may understand everything and learn without problems in the schooling language. Here, the use of other languages may serve deeper goals such as reducing identity confusion, fostering creativity, or improving social cohesion among peers.

In our current work in the MIKS-project[1], we focus on teachers´ multilingual practices in schools that opened up for multilingualism:  How do these teachers use students´ languages for teaching and formal learning in productive ways?

An ethnographic observation protocols in 97 lessons in four primary schools in the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). We analyse these protocols with the key-incident-analysis, by searching classroom moments that represented dependent and independent translanguaging patterns. The examples may serve further research and empowering of schools, teachers and children to see languages as a resource.

 

 

[1] MIKS stands for: Mehrsprachigkeit als Handlungsfeld Interkultureller Schulentwicklung – English translation: Multilingualism as a field of action in intercultural school development. ( https://www.ew.uni-hamburg.de/forschung/miks/about-miks.html)

Anouk Ticheloven and Yagmur Celik made a presentation on translanguaging in German schools, a project led by Prof. Sara Fürstenau at Hamburg University. The presentation was made in the Technica

During their visit at the CEA in July 2018, the two German researchers from Hamburg University described translanguaging as the approach for teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms in a German context, in which teachers recognize and use all of students´ languages as a resource for teaching and learning.

In their presentation, a distinction was drawn between dependent translanguaging patterns, for pragmatic reasons and providing support in understanding and independent translanguaging patterns, for enhancing and expanding existing knowledge.

With regards to dependent patterns, translanguaging is useful when students do not yet speak the schooling language fluently, while, on the other hand with independent patterns, students may understand everything and learn without problems in the schooling language. Here, the use of other languages may serve deeper goals such as reducing identity confusion, fostering creativity, or improving social cohesion among peers.

In our current work in the MIKS-project[1], we focus on teachers´ multilingual practices in schools that opened up for multilingualism:  How do these teachers use students´ languages for teaching and formal learning in productive ways?

An ethnographic observation protocols in 97 lessons in four primary schools in the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). We analyse these protocols with the key-incident-analysis, by searching classroom moments that represented dependent and independent translanguaging patterns. The examples may serve further research and empowering of schools, teachers and children to see languages as a resource.

 

 

[1] MIKS stands for: Mehrsprachigkeit als Handlungsfeld Interkultureller Schulentwicklung – English translation: Multilingualism as a field of action in intercultural school development. ( https://www.ew.uni-hamburg.de/forschung/miks/about-miks.html)

 

- Author Gabriel Mokoena

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