TESOL Teachers' Writing to Support Developing Understandings of Translanguaging Theory and Praxis in Neoliberal Times

This study highlights Masters-level TESOL students' meaning-making about translanguaging theory and pedagogy through writing in response to course readings and conversations. To gain deeper insight into shifting understandings of languaging that seek to move from monoglossic orientations to heteroglossic framing of language learning as connected to dynamic bilingualism, we drew on both translanguaging (Garcia & Li, 2014) and reflective writing as a mechanism for supporting teacher learning (Hoover, 1994; Kelley 2006; Zeichner, 1987). Our inductive and deductive approach to analyze 12 students' 132 journal entries during a TESOL methods class showed developing understandings of translanguaging theory and pedagogy influenced by (a) experience with theories of bilingualism grounded in language separation as historically understood in TESOL, (b) tensions regarding the application of translanguaging theory to praxis (Li, 2017), and (c) tensions between language and testing within the context of neoliberalism (Zeichner, 2014) guiding language teaching and learning in the K-16 context. We conclude by providing suggestions to help teacher educators who engage in teacher language education to better support teacher-learning about translanguaging.