Multilingual African Learning Spaces: Translanguaging Practices in the Kenyan Classroom

Abstract

Abstract

Africa’s linguistic and cultural diversity constitutes both a challenge and a resource for the creation of learning spaces. Recent research has focused on the translanguaging of multilingual speakers who use their full linguistic repertoires, including features from multiple languages to meet communicative and academic needs in their languages (cf. Garcia 2009, Garcia & Li 2014, Hamman 2018). However, the precise processes and motivations to employ translanguaging strategies (e.g., codeswitching, code meshing, use of localised discourse markers and translation) in the classroom as ‘the very heart of the formal educational process’ (Jo Arthur 2013: 374), as well as outside the classroom, and the consequences for learning effects are yet to be empirically investigated. Our focus country, Kenya, has a highly diverse linguistic repertoire using English, Kiswahili, 43 local languages, and Sheng, an urban mixed variety. We want to find out how these languages coexist in formal educational spaces, especially because English is the stipulated language of instruction in Kenya from grade four to higher education. In this research, we explore the extent of communicative competence by learners in rural schools, including their teachers, in the ex-colonial European language of instruction. Thus, this project aims to provide a more detailed understanding of how teachers and learners relationally use translanguaging strategies in multilingual in and out-of-class interactions in Kenyan schools. This study seeks to bridge the gap between the theoretically under-specified relational function of languages and empirical evidence for the effects of multilingual practices in the classroom and within the school premise. The school environment is intriguing to investigate because it offers a learning ecology that shows: (a) the relationship of speakers with other people and texts, (b) the relationship between the languages used in a postcolonial context, as well as (c) an individual’s relationship with the learning environment. We base our discussions on strategic translanguaging and interliteracy in learning processes as well as social interactions, which are interwoven in the relational work approach and the discursive construction of identity, power, and face work in multilingual spaces. The results are expected to blur the dichotomy between the prescribed language of instruction (English) versus the practised language(s) (ethnic Kenyan language(s) and Kiswahili) in both content and language classrooms and outside the classroom. This research is relevant for the ongoing debate on Kenya’s language-in-education policy regarding new possibilities and approaches in multilingual education (cf. Ogutu & Kanana 2003, Mwaniki 2016, Mukewa-Lisanza 2020) which is highly important for communicative competence and dissemination of knowledge. Empirical evidence is crucial here because policies are ‘socially constructed and dynamically negotiated on a moment-by-moment basis’ (Garcia & Menken 2010: 257). While using multiple languages is an excellent resource for Kenyan speakers, it also challenges institutional settings like education, where language choice is highly regulated. In this diverse and multilingual environment, learners face challenges in expressing ideas, negotiating meaning, presenting arguments, and explaining their imaginations, among others, particularly in rural parts of Kenya, where learners are not effectively prepared in language activities to cope with instruction of English language in lower primary schools.