Abstract
The concept of translanguaging offers a novel perspective on language and education. It has stimulated heated discussion and accelerated empirical studies exploring translanguaging as a pedagogical approach across the world. Interestingly, in the context of Singapore, one of the most multilingual countries in the world and with bilingual education as a fundamental element of its education system, there have been very few studies looking into the topic of translanguaging. Viniti Vaish's book Translanguaging in Multilingual English Classrooms: An Asian Perspective and Contexts provides fresh insights into translanguaging pedagogy in Singapore and adds to the global landscape of translanguaging research.
The book starts with an introduction to translanguaging by Professor Angel Lin (Chapter 1). Lin addresses the most fundamental theoretical underpinning of translanguaging, which distinguishes it from the more traditional concept of “code-switching”: the fluid, dynamic view of human communication. After reviewing recent studies on both spontaneous and planned translanguaging, Lin emphasizes that translanguaging pedagogy is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach and needs to be carefully designed to suit the needs of different educational settings. This is bridged to Chapter 2, where Vaish introduces the linguistic ecology of Singapore, presenting both language in society and language in education. Vaish argues that, despite being a highly multilingual society, language separation seems to be quite normal in some respects, such as the use of Standard English in academic and professional contexts and Singlish (Singapore colloquial English) in everyday, informal communication. She further points out that although the bilingual language in education policy in Singapore has achieved stellar results, a monolingual approach is usually taken in classrooms and translanguaging pedagogy is still something unfamiliar to teachers.
Against this backdrop, Vaish introduces her research study of implementing translanguaging pedagogy in the Learning Support Program (LSP) – classes provided to support primary school students in low progress in reading English (Chapter 3). Different from most studies of translanguaging which adopt qualitative analysis methods, this study analyzed both the quantity and quality of classroom discourse (Chapter 4). Vaish argues that quantitative analysis of student talk is also an important measure of the outcomes of translanguaging pedagogy, as an increase in the amount of talk may indicate students have more opportunities to experience the vocabulary and grammar they learnt.
Chapters 5–8 report findings of the study. Chapter 5 provides a bird's-eye view of questioning patterns and the nature of interaction in the classes adopting monolingual pedagogy versus translanguaging pedagogy. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the classroom interactional patterns in the Malay-English and Chinese-English groups, respectively. Although no increase in the quantity of student talk was found when translanguaging pedagogy was adopted, in-depth qualitative analysis did show that translanguaging triggered cross-linguistic transfer and metalinguistic awareness in the students. Vaish highlights two points. Firstly, in contexts where bilinguals are weak in both of their languages and developing the languages simultaneously, it is hard to decide the direction of language transfer – from the stronger language to the weaker language (as the concept of code-switching may suggest). Thus, it is more reasonable and effective to adopt the concept of translanguaging, which views the different language resources of an individual as inhabiting one cognitive and cultural space that can be fluidly drawn on for meaning making. Secondly, the findings of some teachers’ unintentional and unnecessary use of translanguaging reveal teachers’ lack of awareness of and strategies for designed translanguaging. As translanguaging was considered as negative in traditional language classrooms, previous teacher education programs have not prepared teachers for the knowledge and skills of effectively mobilizing multiple linguistic resources in language and content teaching. This stresses the importance of professional development in translanguaging pedagogy. Chapter 8 presents varying results of the translanguaging pedagogy intervention in students’ learning outcomes in different schools, which, as Vaish suggests, may be attributed to the differences in the curriculum materials used and the students’ diverse language backgrounds.
In Chapter 9, Vaish concludes the book by bringing together the mixed findings of the study and discussing these findings holistically in light of current literature on translanguaging pedagogy. Resonating with Lin, Vaish emphasizes the cruciality of customizing translanguaging pedagogy to suit different students’ abilities and needs.
Through presenting and discussing a pioneer study of translanguaging pedagogy in the complex classroom contexts in Singapore, this book adds to the global discussion of translanguaging in education from an Asian perspective. The issues addressed in the book, such as the discrepancies between highly multilingual social practices and mainly monolingual pedagogical approach in the classroom, the differences in adopting translanguaging rather than code-switching theories in pedagogical practices, the compatibility of translanguaging pedagogy and the teacher-fronted classroom culture, and the complexities in utilizing translanguaging pedagogy to suit the needs of students from diverse language backgrounds (not only multilingual but also at different stages of developing different languages), are critical and challenging issues in bridging translanguaging theories and practices (Cenoz and Gorter, 2020; Li and Lin, 2019). The book confronts these challenging issues with keen interpretation and sharp discussion of both quantitative and qualitative findings of classroom discourse. It provides valuable pedagogical and methodological implications for translanguaging research in and beyond Asia. However, the book could be strengthened if more specific strategies could be suggested for planning, implementing, and assessing translanguaging pedagogy in such multilingual contexts. This will further benefit future teacher education and curriculum development in adopting a translanguaging approach.
Overall, this book sheds light on the advantages and challenges of implementing translanguaging pedagogy in multilingual Asian contexts. It offers a special perspective based on Singapore's linguistic ecology while contributing to the global discussion of some fundamental issues in bridging translanguaging theories and practices. The book is thought-provoking for researchers and practitioners to understand, reflect on, and investigate translanguaging in diverse and complex educational contexts.
