ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book argues that bilingual teachers themselves need to go beyond purist language ideologies and stops playing the role of polic;ía lingüística. Beyond the potential of translanguaging for emergent bilingual students, it presents with the tensions many bilingual teachers experience as they navigate strict language distribution policies of dual language bilingual programs. The book considers translanguaging beyond the strict focus on academic language that is so prevalent in all schools, even bilingual ones. It demonstrates how successful bilingual teachers take up the role of meaning-maker, rather than polic;ía lingüística, in effective bilingual classrooms. These bilingual pre-school teachers assume their agentive role as intelligent language users, offering their young bilingual students ways of making meaning and learning, and of engaging in literacy activities. Translanguaging is epistemologically different from how language scholars have viewed code-switching and other language contact phenomena in the past.
