As our learning about language acquisition continues to evolve, new frameworks like translanguaging help us understand how children employ different skills to communicate and demonstrate what they know in the classroom.

Translanguaging allows multilingual children to leverage their entire linguistic repertoire, contrasting with code switching, which involves shifting between languages. This approach highlights children’s social awareness as they adapt their language use to different contexts.

We invited Dr. Cecilia Perez from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles to expand our knowledge on multilingualism and want to share some excerpts from the interview. Spend 5 1/2 minutes here and then come join her talk!

How is language sampling important to evaluating a student’s language skills?

What are some of the features of translanguaging, and what do SLPs need to be aware of when analyzing language samples?

What are some of the most common patterns you see in typically developing bilingual children that we do not see in monolingual children?

Want to hear the full story and earn CEUs?

Check out this course: Using a Translanguaging Approach to Assess Language Skills in Multilingual Youth

Translanguaging refers to how multilinguals access different linguistic features to maximize communicative potential. Explore how clinicians are pairing a translanguaging framework and cultural narratives to assess how bilingual adolescents use critical thinking, language complexity, and productivity.

Join Dr. Cecilia Perez from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles as she expands our idea of multilingualism so that we can properly represent the dynamic languaging skills that diverse students use to create meaning.