#translanguaging

Espinosa & Ascenzi-Moreno, 2021

Following up on my previous post, a big way in which I’m radically imagining my future classroom is through the vast implementation of translanguaging. Although we talked about translanguaging several times throughout the semester with different resources, I wanted to share this video I found as a more simple, quick reference to the concept.

Because I did my “We’ll Take The Lead” project over Black Language and critical language pedagogy, I felt a deep resonance to the idea explored in the “’Make Sure You See This’” article about how translanguaging “frames multilingual Black girls as language architects,” (Presiado & Frieson 2021). This technically also goes back to anti-banking education and the concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy, both things that I subscribe to and hope to implement in my classroom/lesson design. 

Not only will I encourage my students to share their authentic voice in their writing (as I explained in my previous post) but I will also encourage students to provide recommendations for class readings. Although I’ll do my part to research and provide a vast and diverse text set for my class, I want my students to feel like the classroom is just as much theirs as it is mine — and asking them for suggestions is just one way I can make that happen! 

Here is a list of book recommendations that was included in my “We’ll Take The Lead” project earlier this semester, just to get the suggestions started! https://www.bu-ceed.org/uploads/1/3/3/0/133043669/ceed__aave_book_list_2021__2_.pdf

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Like, I can mostly understand Norweigan even though I have never studied it, spoken it nor know anyone personally that does. But I know another North Germanic Language, and it's close enough for me to deschiffer most of the Norweigan research article I have to read.

And somehow, the three other languages I know also helps with the dechiffering. Not because they are similar to Norweigan (I have no help for decoding words from there), but because it feels so natural to switch and compare languages and sentence structures that it helps me recognise patterns.

Vogel, S., Hoadley, C., Ascenzi-Moreno, L., & Menken, K.

His broader philosophy helps us view programming not as the mere construction of code for a computer to execute, but as texts humans will read, write, and discuss, just as people interact around other texts.

reflection: As Chris said in other class, programming is not for computer or machine, it's for people to read, understand and interact.

Conclusions: 1) that students’ translanguaging practices in CS learning contexts blur linguistic, disciplinary, and modal boundaries, 2) computational literacies are intertwined with the many other literacies students bring with them, 3) students’ language attitudes and activity contexts around them play a role in their translanguaging, and 4) students translanguage in order to engage in specific CT practices (like remixing and abstraction).

By“computational literacies” we mean ways of creating and communicating about, with, and through computational artifacts (like code, datasets, and models) for particular purposes, and in and for communities.

Reflection: Last semester, Ryan wrote an article about culturally sustaining programming.He argues that the linguistic hegemony of English as the sole source language for all popular programming languages has historically and sociolinguistically excluded those whose native languages are not English from software engineering. Thus we should use culturally sustaining programming to empower native language software engineers to derive programming languages from their own native languages.

To better understand this program, I asked a lot of computer-professional friends, do they want a Chinese programming language. They told me that the language is not most important thing to learn programing, the important thing is to learn computational thinking. Chinese programming may help you get started more easily, but it will not help you communicate with the world and develop computational thinking.

I’ve got a mildly amusing and off-color tale for you tonight.

‘Bout a week ago, I was making lunch. The younger preschool aged child, we’ll call him Utah, asks me the name of the type of pasta I’m boiling.

Me: It’s called penne.

Utah: No! What it called?

Me (confused): Penne!

Utah: No! That not what it called!

Me: Penne pasta?

Utah: It not a pene!

Me: Oh snap.

He’s right. “Penne” does sound like the other thing. Now he absolutely refuses to eat rotini. “Wotini” just isn’t a funny enough word to eat.

Grab a bilingual dictionary if you don’t get it.