Building a Bilingual Identity in Students

The first step in enacting a translanguaging stance in our classroom is cultivating a bilingual identity in our students.

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Books I used to research:
The Translanguaging Classroom: Leveraging Student Bilingualism for Learning: https://amzn.to/3bAXgVG
Tongue Tied: https://amzn.to/3qBdiDx

The first thing I focus on when incorporating translanguaging in my classroom is cultivating and affirming a bilingual identity in my students. Three years ago I surveyed my 10th grade English learners. One of my questions was “Are you bilingual?” Not one student said yes--despite filling out the survey in English. The next day we had a 40-minute discussion--in English, I must add--about bilingualism. Most students agreed--they did not “feel” bilingual--not yet, anyways.

Students “not feeling bilingual” is a consequence of the standardized practices we thrust upon them. The message schools send is clear: you are not an English speaker until you reclassify. Until then, keep trying. This perspective creates a distorted binary that suggests either you know English or you don’t. The problem with this dichotomous viewpoint is that it “prevents bilingual identities from emerging (Garcia, Johnson, Seltzer, 2017, p. 24). The journey to become bilingual or biliterate--one of the great undertakings of these students’ academic lives--is systematically ignored.

It is, therefore, your responsibility as the teacher, to inform students about their strengths as bilinguals--at all phases of their linguistic journey. I begin every school year having students read about the cognitive benefits of bilingualism. Most students are aware of the need to learn English for job opportunities, or they see English as means of entering “white culture” as students tell me. However, most students are unaware of the cognitive benefits they are developing as emergent bilinguals. These include increased executive function in the brain, the ability to learn new languages easier, superior metalinguistic abilities, and more. I share with my emergent bilinguals academic articles, journals and teach them words such as translanguaging and monolingual. We approach bilingualism as if students are entering a special academic club. This change is about forging a more realistic and positive bilingual and bicultural identity, one that does not simply allow you to enter the culture of power, but asserts your own kind of cultural power and recognizes your own cultural assets--this is the step of students becoming an individual and making learning their own.

When students feel empowered by their bilingualism, their attitude changes. It takes some of my students a few weeks, and others a few months--but the result is almost always the same: students start to see their bilingualism as a tool for good--or to serve others. A common theme among my students by the end of the year is their desire to use their bilingualism to help their families. When students forge a bilingual identity and feel empowered by it, and grateful for it, they become more confident and self-directed in their learning. Thanks for watching and please subscribe to Tolentino Teaching.

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