TY - JOUR
T1 - Reconceptualizing “Home” and “School” Language
T2 - Taking a Critical Translingual Approach in the English Classroom
AU - Seltzer, Kate
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 TESOL International Association
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - This article adds to the growing body of literature that calls for shifts in teachers’ and researchers’ stance and practice toward a re-seeing and re-hearing of students for their linguistic assets and expertise. By taking up the theory of translanguaging (García, 2009; García & Li Wei, 2014) to understand students’ language practices, I trouble the labels and terms so often assigned to language minoritized students, particularly those that fall into the larger categories of “home” and “school” language. To do this, I draw on data collected during a yearlong ethnographic study of an 11th-grade English language arts classroom in New York City. This study took up what I term a critical translingual approach (Seltzer, 2019), engaging language minoritized students—bilingual students as well as those students traditionally viewed as monolingual—in metalinguistic conversations, literacy activities, and writing that delved into the role language played in their identities and lived experiences. By centering students’ talk and writing about their own languages, this article serves as a call to educators and researchers to relinquish conceptualizations of “standard” or “native” language and to embrace those that foster students’ critical integration of new features into their existing linguistic repertoires.
AB - This article adds to the growing body of literature that calls for shifts in teachers’ and researchers’ stance and practice toward a re-seeing and re-hearing of students for their linguistic assets and expertise. By taking up the theory of translanguaging (García, 2009; García & Li Wei, 2014) to understand students’ language practices, I trouble the labels and terms so often assigned to language minoritized students, particularly those that fall into the larger categories of “home” and “school” language. To do this, I draw on data collected during a yearlong ethnographic study of an 11th-grade English language arts classroom in New York City. This study took up what I term a critical translingual approach (Seltzer, 2019), engaging language minoritized students—bilingual students as well as those students traditionally viewed as monolingual—in metalinguistic conversations, literacy activities, and writing that delved into the role language played in their identities and lived experiences. By centering students’ talk and writing about their own languages, this article serves as a call to educators and researchers to relinquish conceptualizations of “standard” or “native” language and to embrace those that foster students’ critical integration of new features into their existing linguistic repertoires.
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U2 - 10.1002/tesq.530
DO - 10.1002/tesq.530
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070827906
SN - 0039-8322
VL - 53
SP - 986
EP - 1007
JO - TESOL Quarterly
JF - TESOL Quarterly
IS - 4
ER -