‘The pumpkins are coming…vienen las calabazas…that sounds funny’: Translanguaging practices of young emergent bilinguals

Abstract

In this paper, we utilize the theory of translanguaging to make sense of the biliterate activities of young emergent bilinguals in a before-school program for Latinx students at an elementary school. Our findings show that even early writers are able to draw from their full linguistic repertoire, utilizing orthographic and syntactic resources consciously, and continue to do so with increasing complexity as they get older and gain greater competence. The children in our study show how emergent bilinguals exhibit exceptionally sophisticated considerations of audience as they write across linguistically and culturally-diverse communities, navigating these in their writing, as they do in their daily lives. Opportunities for students to demonstrate and develop these skills are critical, especially in monolingual settings.