ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how creative translation activities can be used as a way into valuing pupils’ linguistic skills, with a particular focus on superdiverse contexts. Two interlinked aims underpin this work: (1) inclusion – affirming pupils’ sense of legitimacy and belonging in the classroom, and (2) educational development – enlisting and enhancing pupils’ existing linguistic skills. In framing appropriate approaches to legitimizing and enlisting these skills, an informed understanding of the multi-layered linguistic repertoires which underpin them is crucial. The notion of ‘home language’, employed within the English education system, carries implicit understandings about pupils’ linguistic skills, which do not reflect the complexity of practices and affiliations amongst multilingual young people in superdiverse contexts. Home languages are assumed to be national, standard varieties, learned from and used with family members and engendering a strong sense of identification. However, this overlooks the complex linguistic practices of the young people concerned and the significance of locality and peer group. This chapter looks at two translation projects aimed at primary age pupils – Translation Nation and The Big Translate – which, to varying degrees, accommodate complex and hybrid linguistic practices amongst young people in superdiverse contexts, as well as embracing the importance of peer group and locality.
