This study investigates translanguaging practices of Russian-CG bilingual children at home, school and in the society. Classroom observations showed that their children, students in bilingual Russian-Cypriot Greek classes alternate languages. Russian-speaking teachers also code-switch and use society dominant language, Greek, in order to make meaning comprehensible for Russian heritage students.
According to Lewis et al. (2012), translanguaging is the use of one language in order to reinforce the other and to facilitate the learning of both languages of a bilingual. Translanguaging is beyond code-switching and translation, it is focused on flexible bilingualism and multiple discursive practices (Garcia, 2009; Blackledge and Creese, 2010). Translanguaging takes heteroglossic and dynamic perspective on bilingualism and suggests that a bilingual person has one integrated linguistic system (Bailey, 2007; Garcia, 2009; Garcia and Li Wei, 2014; Otheguy et al., 2015; Garcia and Lin, 2016). This study investigates translanguaging practices of Russian-CG bilingual children at home, at school and in the society. We observed teaching sessions (1.5 hour each) of the Russian language classes at Russian Saturday school in Larnaca, Cyprus (ethnic community complementary school). Observations took place throughout the year at 4 classes (15 students in each): 1st, 4th, 5thand 6th grades. Four teachers, Russian heritage speakers, were interviewed as well regarding their translanguaging practices/ instructional strategies in class in line with Palmer et al. (2014), Garcia and Li Wei (2014), Cenoz and Gorter (2015). Classroom observations showed that their children, students in bilingual Russian-Cypriot Greek classes alternate languages. Russian-speaking teachers also code-switch and use society dominant language, Greek, in order to make meaning comprehensible for Russian heritage students. Usage of Greek scaffolds teaching of the Russian language in Russian heritage classes. This is in line with previous findings of Lin and Martin (2005). Arthur and Martin (2006) call this practice ‘pedagogic validity of code-switching.’ The teachers consider translanguaging pedagogical practice (Williams, 1994) or translanguaging pedagogy (Blackledge and Creese, 2010) very effective in bilingual education. It allows to create translanguaging space, facilitates interaction of bilingual/multilingual individuals (Creese and Li Wei, 2011) and full use of their linguistic repertoire (Garcia and Lin, 2016).
