Centre for Language Education Research
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work

Queen’s University Belfast  

Annual Lecture - ONLINE

Critical Translanguaging and its importance

Speaker: Professor Ofelia García

Professor Emerita in the PhD programmes of Urban Education and of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures (LAILAC) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York  

All welcome! Please register here for the link to join in.

In this presentation Professor Ofelia García will discuss two main questions: 

• What is translanguaging and how does it differ from traditional understandings of language and bilingualism? 
• Why is it that educational policies and practices based on translanguaging can lead to more equity in language education and justice for all? 

The presentation will be followed by a dialogue with the audience and a discussion of questions emerging from the presentation.

Ofelia García is Professor Emerita in the PhD programmes of Urban Education and of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures (LAILAC) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has been Professor of Bilingual Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Dean of the School of Education at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, and Professor of Education at The City College of New York. Among her best-known books are Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective; Translanguaging; Language, Bilingualism and Education (with Li Wei, 2015 British Association of Applied Linguistics Book Award recipient). Her recent books (2016-2017) include The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society (with N. Flores & M. Spotti); Encyclopedia of Bilingual and Multilingual Education (with A. Lin & S. May), The Translanguaging Classroom (with S. I. Johnson & K. Seltzer); Translanguaging with Multilingual Students (with T. Kleyn). Prior to 2016, García’s books include Educating Emergent Bilinguals (with J. Kleifgen), Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity (with J. Fishman), Negotiating Language Policies in Schools: Educators as Policymakers (with K. Menken), Imagining Multilingual Schools (with T. Skutnabb-Kangas and M. Torres-Guzmán), and A Reader in Bilingual Education (with C. Baker). She has been the General Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language and the co-editor of Language Policy (with H. Kelly-Holmes). García was co-principal investigator of CUNY-NYSIEB (www.cuny-nysieb.org) from its inception in 2011 until 2019. García’s extensive publication record on bilingualism and the education of bilinguals is grounded in her life experience living in New York City after leaving Cuba at the age of 11, teaching language minority students bilingually, educating bilingual and ESL teachers, and working with doctoral students researching these topics. In 2016 García received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bank Street Graduate School of Education, and in 2017 she received the Charles Ferguson Award in Applied Linguistics from the Center of Applied Linguistics, and the Lifetime Career Award from the Bilingual Education SIG of the American Education Research Association. In 2018 she was appointed to the National Academy of Education and received The Graduate Center Excellence in Mentoring Award. In 2019 she received AERA’s Division G, Distinguished Contributions to Social Contexts in Education Research Lifetime Excellence Award, and also received AERA Leadership through Research Award from the Second Language Acquisition SIG.

For autobiographical writing, see García, O. (2021). Unblocking tapones and finding pleasant places. Acquired Wisdom: Lessons Learned by Distinguished Researchers, ed. by Nieto, S., Erickson, F., and Winne, P.