Translanguaging for Emergent Bilinguals is a thorough examination of the development, evolution, and current realities of educating emergent bilinguals in U.S. classrooms. Through engaging vignettes, readers follow the experiences of emergent bilinguals in a variety of monolingual settings, tracing the challenges encountered by both the students and the schools that serve them. The authors argue that the future of emergent bilingual education lies in an inclusive translanguaging pedagogy. By embracing home languages and cultures, this approach nurtures the development of multiple literacies, enabling individuals to thrive academically, socially, linguistically, and intellectually. The text begins by showing how the authors evolved from monolingual language educators to translanguaging educators and ends with concrete takeaways for successfully using this approach in different education settings. “This book offers an uplifting alternative view of the lives and education of language-minoritized students. The authors present here a practice-based approach to translanguaging for all types of teachers of emergent bilinguals.” —From the Foreword by Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York “A fascinating volume offering practical as well as theoretical insights into translanguaging pedagogy.” —Li Wei, UCL Institute of Education, University College London “Contributes significantly to our understanding of the nature of translanguaging and its potential to transform the education of emergent bilingual students.” —James Cummins, University of Toronto

Looking closely at what happens when translanguaging is actively taken up to teach emergent bilingual students across different contexts, this book focuses on how it is already happening in classrooms as well as how it can be implemented as a pedagogical orientation. It extends theoretical understandings of the concept and highlights its promises and challenges. Using a Transformative Action Research design, six empirically grounded ethnographic case studies describe how translanguaging is used in lesson designs and in the spontaneous moves made by teachers and students during specific teaching moments. The cases shed light on two questions: How, when, and why is translanguaging taken up or resisted by students and teachers? What does its use mean for them? Although grounded in a U.S. context, and specifically in classrooms in New York State, Translanguaging with Multilingual Students links findings and theories to different global contexts to offer important lessons for educators worldwide.

A critical and accessible text, this book provides a foundation for translanguaging theory and practice with educating emergent bilingual students. The product of the internationally renowned and trailblazing City University of New York-New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (CUNY-NYSIEB), this book draws on a common vision of translanguaging to present different perspectives of its practice and outcomes in real schools. It tells the story of the collaborative project’s positive impact on instruction and assessment in different contexts, and explores the potential for transformation in teacher education. Acknowledging oppressive traditions and obstacles facing language minoritized students, this book provides a pathway for combatting racism, monolingualism, classism and colonialism in the classroom and offers narratives, strategies and pedagogical practices to liberate and engage emergent bilingual students. This book is an essential text for all teacher educators, researchers, scholars, and students in TESOL and bilingual education, as well as educators working with language minoritized students.

Winner of the British Association of Applied Linguistics Book Prize 2014 This book addresses how the new linguistic concept of 'Translanguaging' has contributed to our understandings of language, bilingualism and education, with potential to transform not only semiotic systems and speaker subjectivities, but also social structures.

This accessible guide introduces readers to the issues and controversies surrounding the education of language minority students in the United States. What makes this book a perennial favorite are the succinct descriptions of alternative practices for transforming our schools and students' futures, such as building on students' home languages and literacy practices, incorporating curricular and pedagogical innovations, using proven-effective approaches to parent engagement, and employing alternative assessment tools.

Espinosa and Ascenzi-Moreno demonstrate how our emergent bilingual students who speak two or more languages in their daily lives-- thrive when they are able to use "translanguaging" to tap the power of their entire linguistic and sociocultural repertoires. Additionally, the authors present rich and thoughtful literacy practices that propel emergent bilinguals into reading and writing success. The core of this approach is honoring and leveraging the language and cultural resources emergent bilinguals bring to school-- and rooting instruction in their strengths. Knowing more than one language is, indeed, a gift to the classroom! Includes a foreword by Ofelia Garcia.

"Shows teachers how to strategically navigate the dynamic flow of bilingual students' language practices to (1) enable students to engage with and comprehend complex content and texts, (2) develop students' linguistic practices for academic contexts, (3) draw on students' bilingualism and bilingual ways of understanding, and (2) support students' socioemotional development and advance social justice"--provided by the publisher.