Unpacking the Oral Translanguaging Practices of Korean-American First Graders

This qualitative study utilized sociocultural and heteroglossic perspectives to examine the oral translanguaging practices of four Korean-American first-graders in a Korean heritage language (HL) classroom. The research method was discourse analysis. The students attended all-English American schools during the school week and a Korean HL school on Saturdays. All four students drew from their integrated linguistic resources to translanguage for sociolinguistic, metalinguistic, metacognitive, and sociocultural purposes. The three students who preferred English and who had older siblings translanguaged more and for a wider range of translanguaging practices than the student who preferred Korean and who had a younger sibling.