This chapter explores how translanguaging can become an integral part of our assessment practices, even in monolingual ELT contexts. Key terminology in assessment is explained simply and clearly. Assessment for learning (formative assessment) activities explored include assessing conceptual understanding, assessing through translation, assessing prior knowledge, assessing reading and listening comprehension, assessing learner performance and assessing literacy development. The current and potential role of translanguaging in assessment of learning (summative assessment) are also discussed, including ways that community and home languages can help improve the assessment validity and accuracy, the potential role of mediation and translation and ways that stress can be better managed through multilingual practices. Preparation for, administration of, and pastoral support around high-stakes summative assessment are also explored, as are continuous assessment activities, including project work and journalling. The chapter concludes with discussion of more ambitious visions of multilingual language assessment currently being explored around the world.

This chapter concludes the book by exploring options and opportunities for readers to implement, investigate and evaluate the ideas and suggestions for translanguaging in ELT presented in this book. It identifies an important difference between research-in-practice and research-on-practice and discusses how, predominantly through a research-in-practice approach, teachers can conduct both informal and formal inquiry into the appropriacy and effectiveness of approaches, methods and activities in their own classroom. It explores a number of feasible ideas for busy teachers, including journalling, self-observation, learner focus groups, buddy observations, learner reflective writing, exploratory practice, action research and matched pairs research. The chapter concludes with recommendations for possible first steps for teachers who are new to translanguaging pedagogy.

This chapter explores the nature and role of texts in translanguaging classrooms, both written and audiovisual texts. It acknowledges current norms of monolingual texts in ELT, exploring how we can make our interaction with and understanding of such texts more multilingual. Translanguaging with written texts is explored in detail, including through how a translanguaging teacher in China uses a mainly monolingual textbook for translingual learning in receptive skills lessons. This leads to exemplified analysis of different stages in such lessons, including preparing learners for reading, building lexis with written text, strengthening comprehension of texts and consolidating learning as we move from receptive to productive skills. Genre-based translanguaging, as an example of integrated skills work, is discussed, as is translanguaging in extensive reading for pleasure. Translanguaging with audio and video texts and the use of multimodal skills, particularly when watching, are both explored, compared and contrasted with written text usage. The chapter also investigates how both phonological awareness and initial literacy can be developed with the support of translanguaging.

This chapter focuses on the different contexts of English teachers around the world. It begins with an important paradox that we face as teachers of English – the question of how we balance between the need to accommodate our learners’ multilingualism in our classes and the need to focus primarily on developing a limited part of this multilingualism: their English repertoire. It provides a critical historical background to the English-only and English-mainly approaches that dominated language teaching in the twentieth century. The chapter then looks at key aspects of education that are likely to influence translanguaging pedagogy. These include the different stages of education, from primary to secondary, tertiary and adult learning, as well as distinctions between commonly identified types of English teaching, including EFL and ESL, BANA and TESEP contexts, CLIL and EMI approaches. The chapter also explores the influence of language and education policy on the language classroom and closes with an opportunity for us to explore the influence of our own beliefs and values on what we do in our classrooms.

In this chapter we visit the classrooms of four different teachers of English from around the world. These include a primary school teacher in rural India, a tertiary EMI teacher in Kenya, a secondary teacher in Bangladesh and a private sector teacher of adults in Ukraine. We learn about who they teach and why, and the role and status of English and other languages in their current pedagogy. For each of these teachers we then explore the influences on what happens in their classroom. We notice the translanguaging that is already happening in all of these classrooms, often unnoticed and unsanctioned, before we go on to explore the potential opportunities for translanguaging for the four teachers and the many constraints that may make it difficult, at times, for them to use multilingual approaches. We then identify the key factors that determine the nature of translanguaging classrooms in English language teaching. These include factors relating to the learners, the teacher and the context in which learning happens. Readers are encouraged to reflect on how the twelve factors identified influence translanguaging opportunities.

This chapter introduces the reader to the book, describing the aims of the book and the key questions it intends to answer. The book seeks to help English language teachers to understand translanguaging; to raise their awareness of how it may benefit their classrooms; to introduce them to appropriate strategies and practices; and to empower them to explore the ideas presented in their own classrooms to improve the efficacy of their teaching. It provides a brief, initial answer to the question ‘What is translanguaging?’ exploring this question, first, from the point of view of translanguaging theory, and then, from the perspective of translanguaging pedagogy. Initial notes on terminology are provided here. The chapter also describes who the book is for and why, providing introductions to us as the authors. Readers are encouraged to engage critically with the text, and reminded that no two classrooms are alike, hence, different teachers may take away different ideas and implications for their own practice. Readers are also introduced to the first of many reflection tasks, which are present throughout the book to encourage careful thinking and criticality towards the ideas presented.

This chapter explores multilingual communication, both in wider society and in educational contexts. It discusses the term ‘translanguaging’ in detail, providing and explaining useful definitions of the term. The chapter also identifies and unpacks key terminology that is often used within translanguaging theory and pedagogy. It then goes on to examine real examples from research on translanguaging, including in wider society, in the family and in the classroom. The chapter reveals that translanguaging is a natural part of who we are and what we do in our lives as bi/multilingual citizens. There is also time to explore the difference between translanguaging and terms such as ‘codeswitching’ and ‘using the L1’, explaining why we prefer to write and think about translanguaging. Finally, the chapter concludes with a historical discussion of how and why countries and education systems have tended to promote monolingual practices, particularly in classrooms, and the challenges that this presents for us as teachers interested in adopting more multilingual practices in our teaching.

The chapter presents an updated overview of translanguaging studies in Chinese university classrooms. It starts with a briefing of development of translanguaging research in China. Followed are systematic reviews of translanguaging studies on Chinese foreign language classrooms, English medium instruction classrooms and international students classrooms respectively. Based on review of these studies, the chapter ends by outlining the future directions of translanguaging research in Chinaand beyond.

Originally conceptualised as a pedagogical practice of language alternation in the Welsh/English bilingual classroom, translanguaging has acquired new meanings over the past decades. In this chapter, I highlight the transformations of the term and show how translanguaging research in Canada has pushed it outside bilingual boundaries. Increasing multilingualism in the Canadian context, coupled with calls to decolonise education and empower speakers of minoritised languages, including in Indigenous and immigrant communities, make translanguaging within a bilingual framework no longer viable, nor inclusive. In Canada, translanguaging pedagogy is implemented within an overarching social justice plurilingual framework and has developed new tenets which must be considered in translaguaging research moving forward: disaffiliation of translanguaging from its bilingual origins, embracing multilingualism, and viewing language users as dynamic plurilinguals rather than emergent bilinguals.

Within the timespan of one decade, there have been numerous publications on the viability and educational benefits of translanguaging. In this chapter, I will focus on two publications (Block, 2018 and Jaspers, 2018) that appear to offer conflicting arguments about the shortcomings and perils of pursuing the agenda proposed by translanguaging. That is, whereas Jaspers argues that its ‘transformative’ claim ‘is becoming a dominating rather than a liberating force’, Block argues that the ‘transformative’ agenda advanced by researchers and practitioners of translanguaging does not go far enough to address the systematic and damaging effects of social injustice.

This chapter advocates the translanguaging approach to language education where all languages are valued, and all knowledge that has been acquired through different languages and in different cultural conditions is valued. Translanguaging sees language learning as cultural translation. Learning a new language is about learning a different way of making meaning as well as achieving an understanding of the world around us with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This requires co-learners’ willingness to to adapt and unlearn, to trust and respect each other, and to support each other on a journey of transpositioning.

This chapter focuses on the development of trilingual education in the Basque Country where Basque, a minority language, is used along with other languages. Nowadays, Basque is the main language of instruction in pre-primary, primary, and secondary school. Education through the medium of Basque has had an enormous effect on increasing the number of Basque speakers among young people. The increasing importance of English and the diversity of home languages in a multilingual society create the need for changes in language policy and teaching approaches. In this chapter, recent trends to integrate language subjects in the curriculum, the integration of language and content and pedagogical translanguaging are alsodiscussed.

Grammatical theories about bilingual codeswitching aim to define cognitively represented mechanisms which regulate language mixing for bilingual speakers, illuminating grammatical theory as it relates specifically to bilinguals. A related term, translanguaging, similarly denotes language mixing, or dynamic language use, but is often understood to include the deconstructivist supposition that bilingualism itself is a fiction. This chapter reviews the contributions of codeswitching research to the theory of bilingual grammar, supporting the Integrated Multilingual Model (IMM) of bilingualism. The IMM is consistent with a multilingual approach to translanguaging, which rejects deconstructivism and affirms individual multilingualism as socially significant and psychologically real.

This chapter reviews the different approaches to multilingual education that are prevalent today and the ideologies about people and nations upon which they rest. We first review the ideologies surrounding language as monoglossic or heteroglossic and the resulting manifestations in language education. We then review each of what are usually seen as separate fields – foreign language, heritage language, second language, and bilingual education. We discuss their histories and approaches, and describe how their monoglossic conception has worked against their aims of developing multilingual people. We end by discussing two newer paradigms, plurilingualism and translanguaging, focusing more directly on translanguaging approaches in multilingual education.