When English-only fell silent: learning to teach literacy through translanguaging

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to narratively present how an English-dominant teacher in a metropolitan Australian secondary school rethought English literacy instruction after English-only practices elicited thin student output in a multilingual classroom. Design/methodology/approach Using a practitioner-inquiry approach, the article offers a situated, reflective account of everyday classroom practice, reinterpreted through translanguaging theory and contemporary literacy perspectives to examine what becomes visible and what remains partial in English-dominant teaching within multilingual classrooms. Findings The narrative traces a shift from treating English literacy as performance in Standard English to understanding it as a multilingual process that culminates in English texts but is built through translanguaging. Redesigned routines (e.g. multilingual planning for English essays, multilingual annotation with brief English distillations and peer feedback in first/additional languages followed by English comments) enhanced students’ engagement and the depth of their English output without requiring the teacher to speak their languages. Originality/value This paper offers a practice-near account of translanguaging pedagogy in English as a school subject, written from the perspective of a largely monolingual teacher. It shows how teachers can design for translanguaging in mainstream literacy classrooms and challenges the assumption that rigour in English necessarily entails English-only instruction.