Translanguaging : a step towards social justice pedagogy in the English classroom

Abstract: According to the South African Constitution, “Everyone has the right to education in an official language, or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable” (Constitution 1996, Chapter 2 Bill of Rights, section 29, subsection 2). This remains significant in the South African context where English is the preferred Medium of Instruction and is given preference over African languages. Since multilingual learners are often situated in monolingual schools, discrepancies arise in the implementation of linguistic social justice, and multilingual youth are disempowered. The purpose of this research is to explore translanguaging as a means of advancing linguistic social justice through frameworks of social justice and humanizing pedagogy. This study examines whether translanguaging has the potential to promote social justice in the classroom by humanising experiences for teachers and learners. As such, the study advances social justice as a humanizing pedagogy and translanguaging as a social justice endeavor. This study adopts an interpretivist case study methodology, using semi-structured interviews with English Home Language teachers, and focus group interviews with multilingual learners, from a secondary school in grades 8-11 in Johannesburg, South Africa to investigate relations between translanguaging and linguistic social justice in a real-world context. Findings include a contradiction of the social realities of learners, as active users of translanguaging both inside and out of the school. This study affirms the value of translanguaging as a tool for enabling teachers to providing linguistic equality and epistemic access to knowledge and understanding. With home languages as an existing linguistic resource, learners report increased understanding of the subject matter, contextualization of learning and aid in vocabulary building. Further findings suggest learners as engaging in Ubuntu translanguaging (Makalela 2015) in clarifying ways in which one juxtaposes ways of knowing and meaning to move beyond a current state of understanding. Recommendations to redress linguistic injustices include inservice teacher training of African languages, enabling teachers to interpret policy documents beyond their prescriptions, promoting conscientisation and equitable dialogue, inclusive of linguistic diversity in the classroom.M.Ed. (Educational Linguistics