Parents' attitudes toward translanguaging practice at home: a case of Chinese-English bilingual families

This study aims to investigate the attitudes of Chinese-English bilingual parents toward their children's translanguaging practice at home and capture the general picture of children's home literacy environment. Adopting a sociocultural perspective, the study seeks to explore parents' attitudes toward children’s flexible and dynamic language use as well as the general picture of children’s home literacy environment. Using a descriptive approach, data were collected through surveys and semi-structured interviews from Chinese-English bilingual families across the United States. Sixteen (n=16) participants, whose children were enrolled in English monolingual elementary schools, agreed to participate in an online survey. After the preliminary analysis of the survey data, partial participants who demonstrated a negative attitude were invited to the semi-structured interview session. The analysis of the survey and interview data revealed two key findings. First, parents' attitudes toward children's translanguaging practice at home vary individually based on different reasons. Secondly, although attempt to provide a home literacy environment involving Chinese, most parents still expose their children to English-dominated home literacy environments. These findings highlight the importance of helping parents understand children’s language development processes and the ideal home literacy environment for building children’s bilingual competence. The study thus has implications for both educators and parents aiming to foster bilingualism among children from Chinese-English bilingual backgrounds.