Translanguaging strategies in multilingual newly arrived students’ writing

Abstract

Despite burgeoning research on translanguaging in education, research on translanguaging approaches to literacy education has lagged behind that of research on oral translanguaging in education. Hence, this article investigates what translanguaging strategies six multilingual newly arrived students used in the production of an academic text, and what prior experiences they had with learning and developing translanguaging strategies. These questions were investigated through a 60-minute writing session, in which six multilingual newly arrived students (age 16-19) wrote an academic text in Norwegian on a designated topic. The participants had lived in Norway between six months and 3.5 years. Next, the researcher conducted student interviews, exploring the students’ translanguaging strategies and their previous experiences related to learning and developing them. The analysis shows that all the students applied translanguaging strategies before and during writing. The students reported that they had developed the strategies on their own, without their teachers’ encouragement and support.