This past month I participated in a book study for Growing Language & Literacy as part of #EllChat_BkClub. One of the biggest take-aways was the idea of translanguaging. Multilingual students use & access all of their language repertoire and it is seen as a positive strategy. As a school system we should not legitimize one language and put home languages in a negative light. Translanguaging is something that we do automatically because it makes sense to us. We are not born thinking in one language and then completely switching in another language. My five year old nephew is the perfect example of a multilingual student that is translanguaging. He was reading a book in Spanish and he read pajoro estaba conduciendo el autobus. He said aloud in "What is conduciendo?" En el otro libro el pajaro estaba driving. Conduciendo quiere decir driving y driving es manejar. Conduciendo quiere decir manejar. El pajor estaba manejando el autobus." Without instruction he used both of his languages to determine the meaning of a word and make sense of what he was reading. All of our multilingual students should be encouraged to make those connections and not discouraged to use home languages because they are an asset.
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