Starting with the teachers: Pursuing paradigmatic shift through the development of teachers' translanguaging repertoires

Translanguaging pedagogy calls for strategically and systematically leveraging all students’ language knowledge toward bilingualism and biliteracy; a commitment that demands critical consideration of normative practice, identifying and dismantling oppressive patterns, and angling teaching toward equity and social justice (Calabrese Barton, Tan, and Birmingham 2020; Zapata et al. 2019). Teacher education has a crucial role to play, since adopting translanguaging pedagogy requires a paradigmatic shift from common monolingually oriented approaches. Based on multi-year work with inservice teachers at a U.S. university, the chapter explores efforts to help inservice teachers develop their translanguaging repertoires and envision and implement translanguaging practices in their teaching. This involved supported, interconnected critical examinations of normalized practices in the teachers’ professional contexts built around the notion of reseeing: re-seeing bilingualism and “English Learners,” as well as one’s own teaching and instructional contexts. These examinations were identified as promising in elucidating patterns of injustice against linguistically minoritized students and in supporting the conception of more socially just alternatives. Also promising were guided curricular re-envisionments. However, shifts toward translanguaging-informed teaching can be frustrated by systemic resistance as well as by deeply rooted monolingual ideologies that may undercut teachers’ best intentions to adopt translanguaging practices.