Destabilising English through Translingual Practice: A Case Study

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay arises out of critical reflections in which I have engaged through my teaching in an Indonesian University. All my students are learning English as a foreign language. They typically struggle with how they are positioned ideologically, especially in relation to the so-called ‘native speaker’. My goal as an English educator is to free them from the native speaker ideology. I promote the possibilities of translanguaging as Canagarajah envisions it. In this essay I focus on the writing one student produced, when she responded to my request for the class to write a critically reflective piece on their own experiences of interculturality. I encouraged the class to write in both English and Indonesian, exploring the possibilities opened up by translanguaging. This translingual practice, seen through a Bakhtinian lens, is multi-voiced, representing the unique life experiences of my students, and thereby challenging the ideology of standard English.