Translanguaging Classrooms in Tiszavasvári

Everyone involved needs to radically change track: parents, students and teachers. Up to very recently, Romani was banned from classrooms, was not promoted in everyday school life. Now, students are to be able to draw from their entire linguistic repertoire. Language steers perception; the societal value of one’s mother tongue is a determinant of one’s perception of oneself. Translanguaging Classrooms intervenes at both of these levels. In schools where the innovative pedagogic attitude is systematically implemented, first results were soon registered: students act with more social competence, their linguistic proficiency improves, they are more motivated and the weaker ones amongst them seem verbally “liberated”…

In a segregated school environment language teaching measures are taken to counter discrimination of Roma children. The resulting appreciation of their spoken language strengthens their self-determination and raises the approval of the mainstream society.