Technology and Translanguaging: Examining the Roles of iPads in Collaborative Translation Activities with Young Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

With the rise in translanguaging pedagogies scholarship, researchers have explored how educators can employ translation strategies to support emergent bilinguals’ identities and literacy learning (e.g., Jiménez et al., 2015 Res Teach Engl 49:248–271: 2015). Increasingly, technological devices such as iPads and laptops are used in classrooms to facilitate translation because websites like Google Translate provide efficient access to numerous languages and can afford many emergent bilingual students the opportunity to participate creatively and fully in the classroom. However, there is a dearth of research that considers the material affordances of such pedagogies, and furthermore takes a critical look at how (or whether) technology-based pedagogies actually meet the empowering aims of translanguaging scholarship in practice, particularly in primary grade classrooms (Grades K-2). As such, this chapter explores how three second-grade children use an iPad during a collaborative translation activity. Drawing on critical multimodal analysis (Wohlwend, An introduction to critical discourse analysis in education. Routledge: 2011), findings revealed that physical access to the iPad and modes such as proximity, touch, and grabbing reinforced unequal power relations and monolingual norms in this activity. We conclude by sharing implications for research and practice with regard to the role of iPads in translation activities with young children.