Building teacher agency through translanguaging

This critical participatory action research examines how a translanguaging-infused project supports pre- and in-service teachers in California in their development of teacher agency to work with multilingual children effectively. Data sources include pre-service teachers’ final reflections from a course on multilingualism in early childhood and in-service teachers’ focus-group meetings following a workshop on translanguaging practices. Data are deductively analyzed, guided by the research questions: (1) How do participants conceptualise translanguaging after participating in the project? (2) What have participants learned from being engaged in the project? Our findings suggest that both pre- and in-service teachers developed agency through sensemaking and/or reflecting processes while conceptualising translanguaging as a language practice and/or a tool for equity. This study also finds that participants enacted teacher agency by engaging in the collaborative processes of creating bilingual teaching materials, building dispositions needed for transformative practices. Participants identified ways to advocate for linguistically and culturally diverse children, seeing themselves as agents for social change. The study has implications for policymakers, teacher educators, and families. Policymakers must prioritise language equity in educational policy, teacher educators should embed translanguaging practices throughout coursework, and families must work as partners in this work, sharing their linguistic and cultural knowledge.