Translanguaging: origins and development from school to street and beyond

The article traces the Welsh origins of “translanguaging” from the 1980s to the recent global use, analysing the development and extension of the term. It suggests that the growing popularity of the term relates to a change in the way bilingualism and multilingualism have ideologically developed not only among academics but also amid changing politics and public understandings about bilingualism. The original pedagogic advantages of a planned use of translanguaging in pedagogy and dual literacy are joined by an extended conceptualisation that perceives translanguaging as a spontaneous, everyday way of making meaning, shaping experiences, and communication by bilinguals. A new conceptualisation of translanguaging is in brain activity where learning is through 2 languages. A tripartite distinction is suggested between classroom translanguaging, universal translanguaging, and neurolinguistic translanguaging. The article concludes with a summary of recent research into translanguaging with suggestions for future research.     

IMTEC: The Networking of Research and Resources

This article briefly outlines the history of IMTEC, from its origins within the OECD in Paris to its present independent state as a Norwegian non‐profit‐making foundation. Three aspects of its work are identified: Research and Development, Networking Activity, and Consultancy (Technical Assistance). Detailed information about each of these is given. The authors who write on their own behalf, conclude by anticipating a period of interesting expansion for the organisation.     

Pre-K Music and the Emergent Reader: Promoting Literacy in a Music-Enhanced Environment

Emergent literacy may be nurtured in an early childhood environment that integrates literacy experiences with meaningful music activities in which young children develop skills necessary for success in both areas simultaneously. Early childhood educators can develop the knowledge and skills needed to bring music into the classroom as an engaging and stimulating element of literacy education.     

Teacher Education and Change: the first decade of IT

The article examines the rapid growth in the educational uses of information and communication technologies. Three phases in this use are identified, and the current phase is seen as especially problematic in the light of current technological developments.

The author sees the challenge to the classroom teacher as essentially a pedagogic and even cultural one, but this is not confined to microcomputers alone. The notion of technology convergence is a very powerful one, and the author describes a project for which he is currently responsible and which introduces into teacher education the element of collaborative distance learning via electronic networks.     

Translanguaging: developing its conceptualisation and contextualisation

Following from Lewis, Jones, and Baker (this issue), this article analyses the relationship between the new concept of “translanguaging” particularly in the classroom context and more historic terms such as code-switching and translation, indicating differences in (socio)linguistic and ideological understandings as well as in classroom processes. The article considers the pedagogic nature of translanguaging in terms of language proficiency of children, developmental use in emergent bilinguals, variations in input and output, relationship to the subject/discipline curriculum, deepening learning through language development, cognitive development, and content understanding, and the role of children, including Deaf children, and in the use of translanguaging in educational activity. The conceptualisation of translanguaging is also shown to be ideological.