'You Are Not Alone’. What My PhD Study Revealed About Teachers and Translanguaging

This phrase surfaced repeatedly, in different ways, during my PhD research as teachers and leaders spoke about their everyday work with multilingual learners. It was not always stated explicitly, but it was present in how educators described their decision-making, their professional judgement, and the quiet negotiations involved in supporting multilingual learners learning through English as an Additional Language.

The study drew on interviews and survey responses from International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP) homeroom teachers, English as an Additional Language (EAL) teachers, and IB PYP coordinators and school leaders.

There are competing perspectives on how best to support multilingual learners. However, research increasingly suggests that asset-based pedagogy, inquiry-driven teaching, and translanguaging offer more inclusive alternatives to traditional monolingual approaches (García & Kleyn, 2016; López, 2017). Yet we know far less about how these approaches are understood and enacted within IB PYP classrooms, and what structural or cultural factors shape their implementation.

Listening carefully to educators in this study revealed not abstract endorsement of theory, but lived interpretation.

Underlying many of these practices was an asset-oriented stance. Asset-based pedagogy challenges deficit narratives that position multilingual learners in terms of what they lack. Instead, it asks how linguistic and cultural knowledge can serve as bridges to learning (MacSwan, 2020).

Even when unfamiliar with the terminology, IB PYP educators expressed this orientation clearly. One teacher reflected:

“For me, it means that we find strengths and build on what is there already, celebrating every little success.”

Another emphasised the importance of identity and belonging within units of inquiry:

“It works when students are comfortable and are allowed to share about their traditions, culture and language.”

These perspectives align closely with the IB PYP’s emphasis on intercultural understanding and learner agency. Conceptual learning, in these classrooms, was not separated from identity affirmation.

In my own practice within an international school, translanguaging has become one way of operationalising this asset-based stance. For example, I have used tic-tac-toe choice boards during units of inquiry, where each square offers a multilingual pathway for demonstrating understanding. Multilingual learners might first explain a concept in their home language, identify key vocabulary in English, compare cognates across languages, or collaborate with peers to draft ideas in multiple languages before producing an English response.

The structure provides clarity and agency, while translanguaging allows learners to process ideas in the language where meaning is most accessible before shaping them for an English-dominant curriculum. In this way, translanguaging becomes not merely translation, but a means of deepening conceptual engagement — aligning with García and Kleyn’s (2016) framing of strategic multilingual practice in subject learning.

Across both teacher accounts and classroom practice, asset-based pedagogy was enacted not through slogans, but through deliberate everyday decisions: pairing multilingual learners strategically, co-creating multilingual vocabulary walls, integrating technology thoughtfully, and legitimising home language use during inquiry tasks.

While IB PYP teachers demonstrated strong pedagogical commitment, they also acknowledged structural realities. Translanguaging often relied on collaboration — with families, EAL specialists, and school leaders. Vocabulary lists were translated with parental support. Multilingual learners were strategically placed to facilitate peer scaffolding. Technology was leveraged to bridge linguistic gaps.

Yet implementation varied. As one PYP coordinator noted, practice could differ depending on the teacher, the unit of inquiry, and the level of family involvement. Survey responses also revealed mixed familiarity with formal terminology such as “asset-based pedagogy” and “translanguaging,” even when multilingual practices were present.

This suggests that while translanguaging is often happening in IB PYP classrooms, professional dialogue and shared frameworks could strengthen coherence across schools. Multilingual education cannot depend solely on individual teacher initiative; it requires structural alignment, professional development, and policy support.

What this study ultimately reveals is not resistance to translanguaging, but contextual interpretation. IB PYP educators are already engaging in multilingual, inquiry-driven work grounded in care and professional judgement. Their voices complicate simplified narratives that frame translanguaging as either universally embraced or poorly understood.

Instead, what emerges is a picture of educators translating theory into practice — adapting research-informed ideas to the realities of diverse classrooms.

“You are not alone,” thus becomes more than reassurance. It signals recognition: recognition that teachers are already doing thoughtful multilingual work, often navigating tensions between curriculum expectations and learner needs.

Translanguaging is frequently presented as innovative. What this research suggests is something quieter but equally significant: within IB PYP contexts, multilingual practices are not new additions but evolving expressions of inquiry, agency, and intercultural understanding.

If multilingual education is to move forward meaningfully, teachers’ lived interpretations must inform policy and professional dialogue. Supporting translanguaging in IB PYP schools is not simply about adopting terminology. It is about sustaining structures that legitimise linguistic diversity as a shared educational asset.

Saying “you are not alone” to teachers is therefore both affirmation and responsibility — an invitation to listen, to align research and practice more closely, and to ensure that multilingualism is supported not only by individual commitment, but by collective vision.

García, O., & Kleyn, T. (2016). Translanguaging with multilingual students: Learning from classroom moments. Routledge.

López, F. A. (2017). Altering the trajectory of the self-fulfilling prophecy: Asset-based pedagogy and classroom dynamics. Journal of Teacher Education, 68(2), 193–212.

MacSwan, J. (2020). Multilingual perspectives on translanguaging. American Educational Research Journal, 57(1), 6–40.

Otheguy, R., García, O., & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review, 6(3), 281–307.

Wei, L. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30.