Lessons learned in nepantla: Critical translanguaging literacy pedagogy in a dual language classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors

Keywords:

Biliteracy, Elementary, dual language

Abstract

While the challenges that educators faced during the COVID-19 pandemic are widely acknowledged, there is little scholarship that highlights the positive lessons. This manuscript documents the experiences of a dual language bilingual education elementary teacher that was a part of a longitudinal qualitative study of United States educators during the COVID-19 pandemic. She named the ways that her literacy pedagogy in the emergency virtual learning portion of Spring of 2020 changed to reflect translanguaging pedagogy due to the suspension of monolingual standardized testing expectations. The teacher’s experiences are a call to action to dismantle strict language barriers in dual language bilingual education in service of bi/multilingual children being able to draw on and develop their full linguistic repertoires. 

Author Biographies

  • Dr. Cori Salmerón, Georgia State University

    Dr. Cori Salmerón is an Assistant Professor of Language and (Bi) Literacy in the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Georgia State University. She is a former elementary school teacher in New York City and Beirut, Lebanon. Her teaching and personal experiences led to her research focused on multilingual students’ language and literacy practices, how teachers enact culturally sustaining pedagogy and preparing teachers to work with students from a wide range of cultural and linguistic communities. Her research has been published in the Journal of Literacy Research, Research in the Teaching of English, Bilingual Research Journal, Multicultural Perspectives, Journal of Teacher Education, English Education, Language Arts, Journal of Latinos and Education, ISTOR: Revista de Historia Internacional and Literacy Research: Theory, Methods, and Practice. Salmerón is a member of the 2020-2022 NCTE Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color (CNV) Cohort. She can be reached at [email protected].

  • Christian Valdez , Georgia State University

    Christian Valdez is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Georgia State University. He is a former dual language bilingual education teacher in Atlanta. Since 2019, Christian has been instructing and coaching pre-service teachers at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His journey as a dual language bilingual education teacher, Ph.D. student, and field coach has fueled his passion for addressing issues of access and equity in dual language bilingual education programs for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Driven by this passion, Christian began collaborating with a community-based educational space to provide bilingual education access to families during out-of-school hours. His research interests focus on how community-based educational spaces can serve as sanctuaries for culturally and linguistically diverse families, fostering educational equity and access. Christian can be reached at [email protected].

  • Loren Larraga Jauregui, Georgia State University

    Loren Larraga Jauregui is a Doctoral student in the Early Childhood and Elementary Education department at Georgia State University. She is currently a Spanish dual language bilingual education teacher in Metro-Atlanta, where she works closely with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Her research interests focus on transnational identity and experience, culturally and linguistically sustaining practices, and bilingual teacher development, particularly within the context of the New Latino South. Her experiences as both a lifelong learner and an educator mold her passion for promoting bilingual education as a liberatory and empowering path for students, communities, and educators alike. She can be reached at [email protected].

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Published

2024-12-24

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 2 (2024): Texas Journal of Literacy Education

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Articles

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