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43 - Translanguaging Pedagogy in the Canadian Context

Bilingual Departure for Multi/Plurilingual Evolution

from Part VII - A Critical Look at Multilingual Pedagogies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 December 2025

Piotr Romanowski
Affiliation:
University of Warsaw
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Summary

Originally conceptualised as a pedagogical practice of language alternation in the Welsh/English bilingual classroom, translanguaging has acquired new meanings over the past decades. In this chapter, I highlight the transformations of the term and show how translanguaging research in Canada has pushed it outside bilingual boundaries. Increasing multilingualism in the Canadian context, coupled with calls to decolonise education and empower speakers of minoritised languages, including in Indigenous and immigrant communities, make translanguaging within a bilingual framework no longer viable, nor inclusive. In Canada, translanguaging pedagogy is implemented within an overarching social justice plurilingual framework and has developed new tenets which must be considered in translaguaging research moving forward: disaffiliation of translanguaging from its bilingual origins, embracing multilingualism, and viewing language users as dynamic plurilinguals rather than emergent bilinguals.

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