Composition Forum 46, Spring 2021
http://compositionforum.com/issue/46/

“We Are Going to Negotiate!”: Graduate Teacher-Scholars’ Understanding of Translingual Pedagogy

Havva Zorluel Özer

Abstract: Drawing on qualitative data gathered from interviews with twelve doctoral students in a composition program at a mid-size public university in the Northeast United States, this article documents graduate teacher-scholars’ conceptual understanding of translingual pedagogy in the context of college writing instruction. I analyze and describe the possibilities and challenges confronted by prospective composition teacher-scholars in implementing translingual pedagogy and conclude the article with a discussion of implications for mentoring programs, WPAs, and TAs.

How Did I Get Here?

It was Fall 2017, the first semester in my doctoral program, when I was introduced to translingual approach through the edited collection Literacy as Translingual Practice: Between Communities and Classrooms (Canagarajah) in my Second Language Literacy course. At that time, a “trans” view of language was new to me, and I had difficulty conceptualizing its implications for teaching writing. On the edge of experiencing an academic imposter syndrome, I found that my situation was not unique. Several of my peers had also been struggling with the theory-laden concept “translingual” and its assumptions about language and writing. Throughout the semester, by reading scholarship and engaging in critical discussions on translingual theory and practice, I could make sense of what a “trans” understanding does to us and our pedagogy — or so I thought until Spring 2019. In the last semester of my doctoral coursework, I found Gevers’ critique of translingual pedagogy and Schreiber and Watson’s response article addressing the problems that Gevers associated with this pedagogy. After reading Schreiber and Watson’s piece, I realized that I, like Gevers, had a false perception of translingual pedagogy in terms of its connection to a particular practice called codemeshing, and I began to reconceptualize my notion of it. This self-exploration drove me into thinking about how other graduate teacher-scholars understood and took up this emerging approach to teaching writing.

I reviewed the literature to learn more about the topic, but I did not come across what I would call a comprehensive analysis of teachers’ understanding of translingual pedagogy. While such pedagogy has increasingly become part of the teaching and studying of writing, an accurate and deep understanding of it has not occurred readily. Missing from the growing body of literature on translingualism has been a nuanced understanding of what translingual pedagogy meant to teachers, and, more specifically, future generations of teacher-scholars. Several questions demand answers in recent scholarship: How do graduate teacher-scholars conceptualize translingual pedagogy? What are their approaches toward using such pedagogy to teach writing? What concerns do they have, if any? What challenges do they confront? The reason I focus on graduate teacher-scholars in this study is not only because I identify with this population, but also because I believe that “future generations of teachers will be the ones who decide which theories survive in the field of rhetoric and composition” (Ray 199). As the leading actors of pedagogical transformation and practice, prospective teacher-scholars have enormous potential to shape the future of composition. Therefore, it is crucial to scrutinize their conceptual understanding of an emerging pedagogy that has already come to inform composition courses, programs, and curricula in the past epoch-making decade.

In the remainder of this article, I first provide background to translingual pedagogy drawing on practical examples from recent scholarship. I then describe the methodological process by which I conducted the current study. Following that, I analyze and describe graduate teacher-scholars’ understanding of translingual pedagogy and their approaches to teaching writing with such pedagogy. I also show how the thinking of graduate teacher-scholars aligns with, informs, and extends previous research in the field, and I discuss broader applications of their views. I conclude the article arguing for moving forward with a deeper understanding of translingualism and its implications for teaching writing in the context of U.S. college composition and beyond. To this end, I suggest implications for mentoring programs, writing program administrators (WPAs), and teaching associates (TAs). The premise of this article is that it provides a window into prospective composition teacher-scholars’ thinking on the nature and purpose of an emerging pedagogy that has not yet been fully outlined. The results from this study establish the need for composition community to dedicate further work to building a more articulated and unified theoretical framework to effectively implement translingual pedagogies and practices in college writing instruction.

Translingual Pedagogy: What Is It?

In theory, translingual pedagogy attempts to challenge the dominant ideologies colonizing students’ minds in the writing classroom. While the dominant ideologies drive students to uphold a static, standardized, and unilateral view of language and writing, translingual pedagogy attempts to make students aware of language as fluid, dynamic, and performative (Horner et al.). It helps students to develop critical consciousness of what language does to them as writers and to take critical inquiry toward language (Guerra). In the discourse of translingual pedagogy, students are seen as “active rhetorical agents, positioning themselves in relation not only to genres and rhetorical situations, standard issues in R&C pedagogy, but now also in relation to their individual repertoire of language resources” (Hall 33). As a pedagogy that takes issues of language difference into greatest account, translingual pedagogy provides a social context in which students can explore the varied ways in which people use language and practice writing. In this regard, it supports the 1974 resolution of the CCCC (National Council of Teachers of English), offering students an opportunity to become aware of their right to their own language in their own writing.

To understand what translingual pedagogy looks like in practice, practitioners can find pedagogical frameworks from composition scholarship and related fields including applied linguistics, TESOL, language teaching, and translation studies (De Costa et al.; Flores and Aneja; Horner and Tetreault; Jain; Kiernan et al.; Lee and Jenks; Liao; Sanchez-Martin et al.; Wang). One compelling example of this appeared in Lee and Jenks that reported on the outcomes of a classroom partnership project established between two writing courses, one offered in a U.S. university and the other in a Chinese university. During the courses taught from a translingual lens, students produced critical literacy narratives and participated in an online peer review activity after sharing drafts of their work with their international peers. The goal of such course design was to facilitate opportunities for students to develop “a general openness to plurality and difference in the ways people use language” (Lee and Jenks 317). Launching global partnership programs, as in this example, is a common approach to designing a writing course around translingualism (e.g., Lalicker; Wu). It is possible to implement translingual-oriented composition pedagogies through course assignments such as: 1) a translation narrative assignment in which students translate academic articles or cultural stories from their home languages into English, compare individual translations, and reflect on the translation process (Kiernan et al.), 2) a remix assignment that invites students to transform an earlier project into a new composition, repurposing the text into varied languages, styles, modes, and modalities (Sanchez-Martin et al.), and 3) a writing theory cartoon assignment that involves a sequence of activities leading from an inquiry into students’ experiences with language and writing to the completion of a multimodal text that represents students’ theorization of writing based on their experiences (Wang). By designing assignments like these, writing teachers can foster students’ translingual dispositions and raise their awareness of the connections between linguistic and composing practices.

Schreiber and Watson call on composition instructors to experiment with translingual pedagogy and “talk about and publish their experiences employing it without fear of being labeled as uninformed and uncritical” (97). While it is necessary to embrace translingual pedagogy without “awaiting the kinds of large-scale and top-down changes that will take lifetimes to fully unfold” (Schreiber and Watson 97), it is also important that teachers are theoretically grounded in order to make informed pedagogical choices and shape the curriculum effectively. Teachers must have a robust theoretical understanding of translingual pedagogy, or any pedagogy, to know what they are doing and why they are doing it. Unfortunately, a review of the literature demonstrates how discussions of translingual pedagogy from the teachers’ point of view have been absent from the field. Without an examination of teachers’ understanding of translinguality, the collaborative efforts to incorporate language difference into composition pedagogy have limited chances of success. In an effort to address the gap described above, I report on the findings from a qualitative analysis of prospective composition teacher-scholars’ understanding of translingual pedagogy and use these understandings to inform our work toward a more explicit difference-oriented composition pedagogy.

What Is Graduate Teacher-Scholars’ Understanding of Translingual Pedagogy?

For an in-depth analysis of how graduate teacher-scholars understood translingual pedagogy, in the spring of 2019 I interviewed 12 doctoral students in a composition program at a mid-sized public research university in the Northeast United States{1}. The rationale for interviewing the participants was that interviews enabled an in-depth exploration of individuals’ thoughts, experiences, feelings, and knowledge in ways that other tools could not (Patton). Also, the interviews were semi-structured because “it permits flexibility rather than fixity of sequence of discussions, allowing participants to raise and pursue issues and matters that might not have been included in a pre-devised schedule” (Cohen et al. 182). To guide the interview schedule, I developed a set of open-ended questions prior to conducting the interviews (see the Appendix: Interview Questions). I interviewed nine participants face-to-face on campus and three participants, who lived at some distance from campus, on Zoom. Table 1 presents the demographic background of participants{2}.

Table 1. Demographic Background of Participants

Participant	Gender	Age	Self-identified Linguistic Identity	Language Resources	Experience in Teaching Writing	Teaching Context
Carmen	F	38	multilingual	Spanish, English, French	12	Mexico
Amira	F	40	multilingual	Arabic, English, Spanish, French	14	Lebanon, U.S.
Jiao	F	26	multilingual	Mandaran Chinese, English, Japanese	0	-
Angelina	F	45	bilingual	Spanish, English	3	U.S.
Xiaobao	F	31	translingual	Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, English	3	China
Bo	M	31	multilingual	Japanese, English	4.5	U.S.
Khloe	F	31	translingual	English, dialects of English	4	U.S.
Joey	M	31	gen 1.5	English, Japanese	0	-
Brooklyn	F	34	monolingual	English	4	U.S.
Yulia	F	28	multilingual	Ukrainian, English	1	U.S.
Indah	F	36	translingual	Indonesian, Sudanese, English	1 semester	Indonesia
Rahima	F	31	multilingual	Arabic, English	2	Saudi Arabia

Participants had diverse linguistic identities. Half of the 12 participants identified as multilinguals who spoke English in addition to other languages. Three participants were self-identified translingual language users. When asked in what ways they identified as translinguals, Xiaobao explained that she used to identify herself as a Chinese multilingual speaker of English in the past when her goal was to write and sound like a native English speaker, but with a translingual orientation, this was not her goal anymore as she could go beyond native speaker status by drawing on her rich linguistic repertoire. Similarly, Indah once identified as multilingual, but when she realized the complexity and flexibility of the ways in which she used her languages, she came to think herself as a translingual in the sense that her languages were more than compartmentalized, distinct entities as suggested in a multilingual view of language. Differing from Xiaobao and Indah in the repertoire of her language resources, Khloe stated that the only language she was fluent in was English. However, the more she read about translingualism, the more she embraced the dialects that she was versed in and therefore identified as translingual. One participant reported being a generation 1.5 who was born and raised in Japan until he was five years old, then he migrated to and started elementary school in the United States.

All participants had passed the Qualifying Portfolio Exam, a degree requirement in order to continue in the program. At the time of data collection, nine participants were at the coursework stage with two being first-year and seven being second-year students, while three reported completing their coursework and proceeding with the dissertation process. The participants represented various levels of experience in teaching composition, ranging from none to as many as fourteen years of experience3. The two participants who had no experience in teaching composition noted that they were hired as TAs to teach first-year composition in a mid-size U.S. college in the 2019-2020 academic year. At the time of this study, four out of twelve participants reported that they were actively teaching composition—three in different U.S. higher education institutions and one in an American university in the Middle East. In interviews, all graduate teacher-scholars reported that they were introduced to translingual pedagogy during their doctoral coursework. What follows is an analysis of how they understood it4.

Codemeshing

I think it [translingual pedagogy] means, when students are learning a new language, teachers who believe in that type of pedagogy allow them to do codemeshing. While they are in the process of learning the new language, they can shuttle back and forth between writing in English and their native language. If they need to substitute a word, if they don’t know the word in English, they could substitute it with their own language. I can figure out what they are saying based on what they say in English before and after that word. – Angelina

Most of the participants (83%) described translingual pedagogy as permission of a particular communicative practice called codemeshing, i.e., using multiple languages and modalities to negotiate meaning in writing. In Carmen’s understanding of translingual pedagogy, “you have a wider menu to choose from,” or in Joey’s words, “you have more tools in your toolbox.” In the participants’ view, teaching writing with translingual pedagogy is to open up opportunities for students to use their full resources or their entire “toolbox” to produce meaning, which is not easily conveyed through single language and single modality in writing (You, “Cosmopolitan”). The current focus on codemeshing as the essence of translingual pedagogy is not so uncommon among composition community that Guerra questions whether it is codemeshing that translingualism is all about or whether it is the cultivation of dispositions toward a more flexible view of language. Indeed, a closer review of the scholarship demonstrates that incorporating a translingual approach into composition pedagogy is not simply about allowing students to bring together multiple languages in a single text (Guerra; Lee and Jenks; Schreiber and Watson). Rather, it is a broader approach to teaching writing; “it is about the disposition of openness and inquiry that people take toward language and language differences” (Horner et al. 311). By fostering the development of writers’ critical and inquisitive thinking about language, language difference, and writing across the difference, translingual pedagogy attempts to serve a greater purpose beyond codemeshing (Guerra; Schreiber and Watson). Why, then, do we tend to fallaciously equate translingual pedagogy with the practice of codemeshing? A possible reason for this common perception could be that it is less complicated to consider and describe an emerging pedagogy, which is in progress, through visible discursive practices, i.e., codemeshing. In other words, while it is not easy to characterize the tenets of a process, it is simpler to discuss the heuristics of a product. Inarguably, codemeshing facilitates opportunities to honor and value the repertoires of diverse language resources students bring with them; however, as Schreiber and Watson remark, “in a translingual pedagogy, code-meshing, like all writing strategies, is a rhetorical choice” (95). So, students must decide for themselves whether or not to codemesh in the context of their writing situation (Guerra). Consequently, reducing the definition of translingual pedagogy to codemeshing is a problematic trend because it signals a problem with theory—a problem that needs to be fixed immediately, as it influences pedagogical decisions and practices in the teaching of writing.

Raising Language Awareness

Translingual pedagogy is an attempt to teach students about language as practice as opposed to language just as a form. We are teaching language in writing as opposed to imposing rules on students. We give students options and we help develop students’ awareness and ability to use their linguistic resources. – Khloe

Six participants (50%) featured translingual pedagogy as a critical approach that attempts to cultivate students’ awareness of the possibilities for language difference in writing. Jiao, for example, said: “teachers using translingual pedagogy could give students the awareness that there’s not only one type of English writing.” In fact, research confirms Jiao’s hypothesis, showing that translingual pedagogy can help to develop students’ translingual dispositions, raising their awareness of and cultivating their openness to plurality in the ways people perform language in writing (Kiernan et al.; Lee and Jenks; Wang). Such awareness mediates against the socio-linguistic injustice that monolingualist ideologies support and sustain because translingual pedagogy facilitates opportunities for students to draw on their rhetorical sensibilities, cross boundaries, and challenge the standards and norms imposed upon them (Lee; Schreiber and Watson). While we must acknowledge the criticisms that students may not want to challenge the prescriptive norms of writing (Atkinson and Tardy; Gevers), we have to recognize the pedagogical need to help students develop an awareness that “writers can, do, and must negotiate standardized rules in light of the contexts of specific instances of writing” (Horner et al. 305). Ultimately, it is each student’s choice to make, just as it is in the case of codemeshing, whether to challenge and negotiate norms or not. To make informed choices, however, students need to know the ways in which they can deconstruct “Standard English.” The responsibility falls on our shoulders to make our students aware of their options and help them understand that it is possible to challenge norms.

Negotiating Meaning

Translingual pedagogy is not just about codemeshing. That’s just a small part of this pedagogy. It’s how we practice. It’s how we are being reflective on how we teach, how we work with students. It sounds cliché that language is intended to communicate, but we forget that all the time. This pedagogy helps me to understand my failures as a teacher. I have to reorient my practices to communication. Teachers need to orient themselves towards negotiation, not deficiency. It’s going to affect a lot of things like the way you provide feedback. It’s not going to focus heavily on grammar because if communication is the focus, then grammar shouldn’t be prioritized. We’re going to negotiate! – Indah

Of 12 participants, five (41%) described negotiation as an essential component of translingual pedagogy. Shifting their perspectives on teaching and assessment from traditional to negotiation-based, these participants envisioned teachers who adopt translingual pedagogy as facilitators of negotiation. The value of negotiation becomes apparent specifically in the way teachers respond to error in student writing. For instance, Khloe said, “instead of assessing students by using the red pen to mark up the text, teachers might instead suggest alternative grammars or suggest word choices. Also, in terms of grading and giving feedback, I think a translingual pedagogy is to ask students what they mean and why they made a choice as opposed to telling students that the choice is just wrong.” Such view of translingual pedagogy is reinforced in the previous literature focusing on the importance of negotiation practices to understand the nature of deviations in usage. The argument here is that what seems like errors can indeed be purposeful rhetorical choices happening in line of reasoning (Canagarajah, Multilingual Strategies, Codemeshing, Translanguaging, Negotiating; Chen; Flores and Aneja; Lu and Horner; Matsuda, Writing). As the logic of error lies in understanding the social, cultural, linguistic needs of students (Shaughnessy), it is necessary to take a critical stance toward writer error and shift focus from detecting instances of failure in conforming to norms to negotiating norms in specific writing contexts (Horner et al.). While participants recognized the pedagogical value of such practice, they were worried that negotiation requires lots of efforts from both teachers and students. For instance, Joey opined: “do you have the time as a teacher to sit down privately with each student and say ‘okay, for each time you codemeshed, please explain to me why you made this decision’? Think about it, that’s so much extra work for a teacher.” Joey’s viewpoint was shared by several other participants who found practicing negotiation an arduous task to perform while teaching. It seems from these results that in helping teachers with “I don’t have time” issues, much work is needed to provide more solid frameworks for what’s called “negotiation.” In what ways can teachers negotiate meaning with their students? What type of strategies can help teachers negotiate language differences? What are some practical tips for implementing negotiation? These questions can delineate a framework for future research agendas in outlining classroom negotiation models for responding to error in student writing.

Using Multi- lingual/cultural Sources

Reading in multiple language scholarships gives you a broader sense of, for instance, what is research not only in your country or in your culture, but you are looking really globally. Translingual practices and multiliteracies affect positively students’ becoming global learners. – Carmen

Three participants (25%) considered the use of multilingual and/or multicultural sources in the learning and teaching of writing as one instantiation of translingual pedagogy. In their views, teachers adopting a translingual approach would permit and encourage their students to draw on multiple sources, not only from English language and culture, but also from other languages and cultures. For instance, Amira noted: “I have worked last year on compiling a reading that we use in all of our academic writing classes. So, all these texts, even though they come from North American sources, some of them are Lebanese, some of them are Middle Eastern, some of them are European, but they are still relevant to our readers.” Participants found such practice valuable in facilitating students’ going beyond monolingual and/or monocultural perspectives in writing and helping them grow into globally aware citizens, which brings to mind the previous literature drawing the connection between translingualism and cosmopolitan citizenship. As You (Introduction) puts it, in the context of globalization, literacy educators need to prepare students for cross-border discourses and practices and one way to achieve this is to conduct writing education from a translingual, transcultural lens. It seems from the results of this study that inviting students to read publications from non-English-dominant contexts can exemplify a framework for fostering their cross- linguistic and cultural mobility.

Translingual Pedagogy: Yes/No? Why/Why Not?

When twelve graduate teacher-scholars were asked whether they would like to incorporate translingual pedagogy into their current/future writing instruction, nine indicated their willingness, one adopted an it-depends approach saying “I would choose this way of teaching if I can teach multilingual writers in composition classrooms. If I keep teaching only American students, translingual pedagogy will be less important in my teaching,” and two were unwilling to adopt a translingual approach in their teaching. Regardless of their stances, all participants presented challenges and concerns about translingual pedagogy.

Finding Institutional Support

What if I come to an institution that has white middle-aged man who is the head of the administration and I’m here with my translingual practices for students to use and then he’s coming to observe me and he’ll be like “What are you doing?” I feel that I’m a bit powerless in that case because I don’t think that I’m at the stage yet that I can advocate for my choices. – Yulia

The most common challenge graduate teacher scholars confronted in enacting translingualism in teaching writing was to find institutional support. Of 12 participants, eight (66%) raised concerns about overcoming institutional resistance to translingual approach. They discussed how “English only” epistemologies grounded in nativist paradigms dominated higher education institutions within and beyond the United States. For instance, Carmen, Indah, Bo, and Xiaobao all agreed that it is difficult for them to practice translingual pedagogy in the teaching context of their home countries; Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, and China respectively, because educational policies are based on the ideology of monolingualism. It seems that institutional constraints, when combined with teacher-scholars’ “graduate” identity in the academia, put them in a less powerful position in the making of pedagogical decisions. Joey commented on how “novice teachers, without a decision-making status in their contexts of teaching, might struggle finding institutional support for taking on an emergent pedagogy because it’s still very theoretical.” He further explained, “Canagarajah, because he is a very predominant figure within our field, I think he’s given a lot more leeway at Penn State and is allowed by his university to utilize this for his publications. But if you and me, as you know, first year teachers, told our mentors ‘I would like to use translingual pedagogy for an assignment in my class’, we probably wouldn’t have that opportunity.” There appears to be consensus among participants that they have the pressure of satisfying institutional demands in avoidance of putting their jobs at risk. Not unexpectedly, institutional stakeholders may not necessarily be informed about such challenges graduate instructors experience in making nonconformist pedagogical decisions due to a perceived lack of agency and power. Although a promising line of research demonstrates how TAs can negotiate their professional identities in college writing classrooms (Winzenried; Zheng), there remains much work to be done on the intricacies of power dynamics, scholarly status, institutional positioning, and the pedagogical decision-making of TAs. Such work is essential to understand and address graduate instructors’ concerns about institutional aspects of FYC and provide a better administrative support in teaching writing.

Writing across the Curriculum

Translingual pedagogy has only stayed within the English field. What if they decide to use this [codemeshing] in their history class? Or maybe in a class in their major? Or not only that, after they graduate, they try to utilize this at their work? Am I setting them up to fail? – Joey

Half of the participants had concerns about the acceptance of codemeshing in writing contexts other than the English class, which reflects a common critique on translingual approach in the literature on composition studies. For instance, Atkinson and Tardy argued that they would “understand challenging norms or codemeshing in personal writing, but how does this work in a biology paper?” (88). This is a fair question. The possibility of putting students in academic jeopardy by encouraging them to engage in a particular practice that would be considered illegitimate in certain writing situations intimidates prospective teachers, turning them away from engaging in translingual practices. However, as Khloe suggested, “we need to be mindful of the fact that people are going to resist these sorts of pedagogies and that our job isn’t to push pedagogies down people’s throats, but instead to really stay focused on the goal, which is to have students come out of the university as more competent, more capable global communicators.” Furthermore, we have to acknowledge that translingual pedagogy does not just benefit composition faculty, but also those teaching across the curriculum and in the disciplines (Wang). As Ray remarks, “flexible hermeneutic strategies, including an embrace of language difference, is a key outcome and one that all faculty need to consider” (206). Attention to the possibilities of teaching through a translingual perspective can enable and empower anyone intent to offer their students the space to write across differences.

Dealing with Student Resistance

To be honest, as a language learner, I do not really want to learn translingual writing. If you really ask me to draw on my resources, maybe draw on my native language to mix it with English, it’s a burden for me. I just want to write in English. – Jiao

Six participants raised concerns about students’ resistance to translingual pedagogy and discussed how student expectations from a writing course would influence their pedagogical decisions in the teaching of writing. In Rahima’s view, “students are coming to class expecting to receive instruction on how to write grammatically correct sentences to pass their exams.” This reminds us of the criticisms of translingual pedagogy based on the assumptions that students want to know the norms and therefore may neither wish to codemesh nor negotiate differences in their writing (Atkinson and Tardy; Gevers). While these criticisms are sound and valid, the question arises here as to whether translingual pedagogy enforces students to codemesh and infuse their linguistic resources, registers, or dialects into their texts, which leads us back to the connection between translingual pedagogy and codemeshing. As Schreiber and Watson observe, “teachers who adopt a translingual approach will be more open to code-meshing in student writing because they have oriented to language standards as socially constructed, fluid, and, at times, limiting and oppressive to students” (96). However, translingual pedagogy does not necessarily require students to bring their diverse language resources into their writing. Once and again, the decision is students’ to make: codemesh or not, challenge norms or not, negotiate language differences or not. Translingual pedagogy opens the door to these possibilities and invites students to think critically about their options in writing.

Assessing Translingual Writing

Are you going to have a percentage of how many times they [students] codemesh? If you and the student don’t share a common mother tongue or a common language outside of English, how are you going to grade that? – Joey

For two graduate teacher-scholars, the lack of clear guidelines for assessing students’ codemeshed texts adds complexity to the implementation of translingual pedagogy. Indeed, assessment related issues represent a common critique of translingual pedagogy in the relevant literature. Scholarship on translingualism has recently made progress toward developing a critical understanding of assessment in translingual classrooms (Lee; Inoue). Nevertheless, more work is needed as to what constitutes translingual assessment theories, methods, and practices. In what ways can translingual oriented assessment influence student writing? How can we direct our students to evaluate their own writing from a translingual lens (Lee)? To what extent does translingual writing assessment align with the composition learning objectives? We need answers to questions such as these to facilitate the development of effective assessment practices in translingual classrooms.

The Big Picture

To illustrate the patterns in participants’ idiosyncratic understanding of translingual pedagogy, I summarize the codes in my analysis in Table 2. The symbol ✓ indicates the observed code in the individual participant data. Y and N symbols stand for yes and no respectively.

Table 2. Participants’ Codes

Participant	Understanding				Concern				Approach
	Code-Meshing	Raising Students’ Language Awareness	Negotiating Meaning	Using Multilingual Sources in Writing	Inst. Support	WAC	Student Resistance	Assessment
Carmen	✓			✓	✓				Y
Amira	✓			✓					Y
Jiao	✓	✓	✓			✓	✓	✓	N
Angelina	✓					✓			Y
Xiaobao	✓	✓			✓		✓		Y
Bo	✓	✓			✓	✓	✓		Y-N
Khloe		✓	✓		✓	✓			Y
Joey	✓		✓		✓	✓		✓	N
Brooklyn	✓			✓		✓			Y
Yulia	✓				✓		✓		Y
Indah		✓	✓		✓		✓		Y
Rahima	✓	✓	✓		✓		✓		Y

As Table 2 indicates, participants demonstrated a wide variety of perspectives about what translingual pedagogy entailed. A closer look at the data depicts the interrelations between the codes, participants, and background characteristics.

1. The most interesting finding has to do with experience. Those who had no experience in teaching writing, Jiao and Joey, adopted a negative stance toward using translingual pedagogy, whereas others were more inclined to enact such a pedagogy. While experience may have some influence on the participants’ desire to engage in translingual pedagogical practices, the large discrepancy between participants with and without experience (10 vs. 2) makes it difficult to claim the impact.

2. Table 2 shows that the concerns raised by those who said “no” to translingual pedagogy were slightly higher in number compared to those who said “yes.” In other words, the more concerns participants had, the less desire they were likely to experience for teaching writing through a translingual perspective. With future studies that comprehensively address whether and how pedagogical concerns battle teachers’ desire to incorporate translingual pedagogy into their course design, we can make the reasoning behind teachers’ approaches to such pedagogy more explicit. This will allow us to better explore implications for facilitating teachers’ pedagogical decision making and instructional planning in college composition.

3. During my analysis, it seemed clear to me that Khloe and Indah had a more nuanced understanding of translingual pedagogy not only because they were knowledgeably aware of the connection between codemeshing and translingual pedagogy, but also because they described solid ways to teach writing through a translingual perspective. Despite their diverse identities and backgrounds, what they interestingly had in common was their self-identified linguistic identity as translingual. What this suggests is that internalizing a translingual identity may be associated with stronger conceptions of translingual approach. However, drawing this relationship is not possible with this limited data set. We need further research to provide a more focused insight into the role of identity in forming translinguistic understandings.

What Are the Implications?

Mentoring Programs: Incorporate “Translingual” into Graduate Teacher Training

Graduate teacher-scholars often need support from their mentoring programs to establish stronger teacher identities and practices. To address graduate teacher-scholars’ unique needs and support their growth as prospective college writing instructors, mentoring programs can facilitate opportunities for them to engage in reflective practices and professional development. Mentoring programs can offer resources and instructional assistance by which graduate teacher-scholars can explore the ways in which they can integrate the pedagogical stances that they hold into their college writing course design. Here are a few suggestions to empower graduate teacher-scholars and build their sense of confidence and competence as college writing instructors:

1. Translingual-Oriented Graduate Teacher Training Workshops: To cultivate graduate teacher-scholars’ translingual dispositions toward language and writing, mentoring programs can offer specialized workshops that demonstrate ways to get involved in teaching practices helping to address linguistic diversity in the classroom. To illustrate, in Fall 2019, the mentoring program of the English department at my institution offered “Identity as Pedagogy: Deconstructing Language Myths in the Classroom Workshop,” the goal of which was to help us think critically about the relationship between language (spoken and written) and teaching/learning in the college composition context. We started with discussions on the language myths dominating our classroom spaces and engaged in activities to analyze, discuss, and challenge the myths involved in sample excerpts and scenarios from scholarly publications and narratives. At the end, we left the room with ideas for how to help our students become more sensitive to language difference. This workshop was offered outside the required mentoring program workshops. It was optional and took one and a half hour. I would argue that such translingual-oriented workshops should be part of the required mentoring program workshops, added to the list of typical workshop topics such as classroom management and engagement, incorporating technology in LSE courses, encouraging students to use feedback, making the best of student conferences, etc.

2. Guest Speakers: Mentoring programs can invite guest speakers from the translingual composition community for mentoring meetings to reinforce graduate teacher-scholars’ understanding of translingual pedagogy and address questions and concerns about it. During the present study, I observed the possibilities and challenges confronted by graduate teacher-scholars in incorporating translingual pedagogy into teaching writing and I realized that a guest speaker with expertise in translingual scholarship could articulate the “is,” “isn’t,” and “why” of translingual pedagogy and address questions to which we may not find answers in the recent scholarship, e.g. whether “translingual pedagogy could create a hierarchy where students with more linguistic diversity are privileged over students who have less linguistic diversity.” (Khloe) In the first and last semesters of my doctoral coursework, we invited established scholars in the field to join us for sophisticated discussions about theories and approaches informing composition studies. For instance, joining one of our class meetings virtually via Zoom, Dr. Xiaoye You spoke about transcultural and transnational theories and answered our questions about the particulars of transnational approach to teaching writing. Mentoring programs can organize similar events and activities to provide graduate teacher-scholars with opportunities to engage in professional experiences that they would treasure throughout their teaching careers.

3. Translingual Pedagogy Resources and Materials: By collecting and providing access to practical instructional resources and materials related to translingual approach, mentoring programs can create possibilities for graduate teacher-scholars, and faculty as well, to explore effective teaching practices and expand their pedagogies. Scholarly publications including articles, books, edited collections, conference proceedings can provide a guide for understanding the essence of translingual approach. Sample course syllabi incorporating translingual pedagogy in ways that align with the LSE objectives can model how to design composition courses from a translingual lens. Lesson plans, readings, projects, assignments, and activities developed through translingual perspective can offer ideas for teachers to modify, adopt, and try out in their classrooms. Those who are interested in a translingual pedagogical framework for their courses will appreciate the resources and materials that would inform their teaching.

WPAs: Open up Translingual Conversations in Cross-Disciplinary and Department Meetings

Finding institutional support appears to be one of the biggest challenges confronted by graduate teacher-scholars in enacting translingual pedagogy in college writing instruction. Furthermore, the unmapped potential of translingual orientation in writing across the university keeps teachers from engaging in pedagogical ideas grounded in translingual approach and theory. In promoting translingual approach within and beyond our field, WPAs play a prominent role. By discussing possibilities of bringing a translingual approach into composition and writing in content courses across the disciplines in cross-disciplinary and department meetings, WPAs can contribute significantly to the ongoing efforts of scholars in extending the application of this knowledge to broader contexts. As highlighted by Ray, “WPAs do not necessarily need to be experts in second-language theories or language difference in order to elevate these issues to a level of importance similar to their other responsibilities” (187). Bringing the possibility of writing across languages to their attention, WPAs can deconstruct the monolingual minds of faculty and enrich dispositions toward linguistic openness.

Teaching Associates: Start Your Own Teaching Circles or “TA Support Groups”

Teaching circles offer a unique opportunity to create safe spaces for sharing ideas and insights related to teaching and learning (Hutchings). Graduate instructors can start their own teaching circles and meet informally to grow a sense of community outside the formal meetings they join regularly in their mentoring programs. In teaching circles, graduate instructors can engage in reflective practice by reflecting on and discussing their teaching processes and pedagogical practices. For instance, those who take on a translingual approach in their teaching can share their experiences and insights with others, providing opportunities for collaboration, conversation, and inspiration on translingual orientation. Another resourceful practice for graduate instructors is to create a TA support group. As prospective composition teacher-scholars, graduate instructors may feel intimidated to speak about their struggles with teaching in a large group of faculty and peers. Starting a support group with other TAs can facilitate a supportive environment for graduate teacher-scholars to share concerns about their teaching openly. The support group can reinforce graduate instructors’ powerful teaching practices and keep up their motivation to teach writing in the college context.

What Now?

Since the publication of the 2011 College English piece Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach (Horner et al.), the composition community has witnessed a growth of interest in studies of translingual practice from a pedagogical perspective (Lee). While translingualism has received, and continues to receive, criticisms from prominent scholars in the field (Atkinson and Tardy; Matsuda, The Wild West, The Lure), research has established the pedagogical value of translingual approach in cultivating openness to language difference in the college composition classroom (Lee and Jenks; Wang). Such research positions us to engage in work with pedagogical frameworks that help develop our students’ translingual dispositions toward language and writing. However, as Guerra observes, “we falter in our efforts to help our students understand what a translingual approach is” (231). To be able to enhance and refine our students’ understanding of translingualism and how it works, it is essential that first, we, the teachers, understand the philosophical and theoretical foundations that underpin the translingual framework. Only with a strong theoretical understanding can we foster our students’ knowledge about translingual literacies and build quality instructional materials. To close the gaps in our theoretical and pedagogical frameworks, we can look into the graduate teacher-scholars’ understanding of translingual pedagogy for an ideal starting point to generate productive discussions in the field. Particularly, the overemphasis on codemeshing in translingual pedagogy calls attention to the need for further clarification of the connection between two ideas. Once this connection is articulated, it seems that some of the problems and concerns related to the implementation of translingual pedagogy will be addressed, per se. To outline a more explanatory pedagogical framework and move forward with incorporating translingual approaches into teaching composition, more research is needed on how translingual pedagogy is currently enacted in the classrooms. Without such work, the issues that I discussed in this article will continue to generate controversy in the future.

Acknowledgements: I want to thank Drs. Cristina Sanchez-Martin and Brooke Ricker Schreiber for their feedback on the earlier drafts of this article. I am grateful to my fellow Ph.D. candidates for their willingness to share their insights on the translingual pedagogy, and I would like to extend my thanks to the attendees of my presentation at the Conference on Writing Education across Borders in 2019 as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article.

Appendix: Interview Questions

1. Could you tell me a little about yourself?

2. How would you describe your linguistic identity? What language(s) and/or language varieties do you know?

3. Are you currently teaching or have you ever taught composition? If yes,

   1. How long have you been teaching/taught composition?

   2. Could you tell me a little about the context of your teaching? Where? Which course? What was the student population like?

4. How did you learn about translingual pedagogy?

5. Could you please tell me about your understanding of translingual pedagogy? What do you think it means?

6. What does translingual pedagogy look like in syllabi/course design and/or classroom interactions, writing assignments, or feedback? Can you give me an example?

7. Would you like to incorporate translingual pedagogy in to your current/future writing instruction? Why/why not?

8. What are, if any, your concerns with implementing translingual pedagogy in your current/future writing classrooms?

Notes

1. I collected all data in accordance with and under the supervision of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s IRB board. (Return to text.)

2. I assigned pseudonyms to all participants to maintain their confidentiality. (Return to text.)

3. I hereby note that despite many years of experience some participants have in teaching writing, I refer to all participants in this study as prospective teacher-scholars or future generations of teacher-scholars because they are not only teachers, but also scholars-in-progress. (Return to text.)

4. After conducting the interviews, I transcribed audio recordings into word files and imported 56-page document to NVivo for qualitative data analysis. The coding process began with reading each file to make sense of its content. After familiarizing with the nature of the data, I coded the content at nodes which, in Nvivo, refer to containers for a collection of references about a specific theme. I coded segments with a shared focus in the same node. Afterwards, I organized the nodes in hierarchies from general themes (parent nodes) to more specific categories (child nodes). It was possible to code an excerpt at more than one node. Once coding all the data, I reviewed the nodes in order to ensure that they were categorized as they should be. At the end of the coding process, I selected key references from each node to present in this article. (Return to text.)

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