2025 MABE Dual Language Bilingual Education Conference

Translanguaging (García, 2009) has emerged as a critical and socially just pedagogical and linguistic frame that affirms and leverages multilingual students’ full communicative repertoires in order to successfully access and transform academic spaces and challenges. However, there are many myths that discourage teachers and administrators from accessing its full potential. We would like to address some of the myths around translanguaging and share scholarship that dispels these myths. Specifically, this presentation will look at seven myths around translanguaging and then provide participants with resources and best practices to enact translanguaging - through policy, planning, assessment - with multilingual students.

Content teachers play a vital role in the education of older newcomer MLs. Too often, though, these teachers join our teams without a high level of metalinguistic awareness or much training in language acquisition. Translanguaging is a concept that is frequently misunderstood. How can targeted coaching conversations and ongoing job-embedded professional development guide content teachers? Is it possible to develop a shared understanding of translanguaging pedagogy across a team of 30+ educators? I will share our approach (ever a work in progress) at the International Academy, a newcomer program located at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut.