Browsing by Author "Williams, Abigail"

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    In the space between languages, translanguaging practices and perceptions in the university Spanish classroom
    (2020-06-26) Williams, Abigail; George, Angela; Grantham O'Brien, Mary; Dressler, Roswita
    Translanguaging is a reconceptualized notion of pedagogy and practice that can provide strategies that enable users to incorporate and appropriate different language practices into their own linguistic repertoires. It is also an approach to the practices of bilinguals and multilinguals. It re-examines their process of learning new languages and supports their multiple and hybrid identities. This study examined the ways in which university students and teachers engaged with other languages in the Spanish classroom. The objective was to determine if and how university students and teachers ‘translanguaged’, and to explore how they perceived practices of translanguaging. Data collection involved a questionnaire for students and semi-structured interviews for both groups. Thematic content analysis was utilized to analyze the qualitative data generated. The data revealed a considerable degree of fluidity in participants’ language practice, as well as shifts in perceptions and practices that varied according to context. This study provides a clear argument for the authorization, or at least the value of introducing translanguaging to students and teachers in higher education so they can choose whether or not they want to leverage practices of translanguaging.
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    Navigating possibilities together: Exploring the wonder of relationality
    (2022-05-03) Hart, Stephen; Ofori-Atta, Eric; Patten, Francesca; Williams, Abigail
    Inspired by the notion of relationality within Indigenous ways of knowing, and writing as a method of inquiry, we explore the value of the collaborative process in all its wonder. Our presentation highlights the experiences of four students in a doctoral seminar, embracing the interconnectedness of human relationships to find a rich and rewarding pathway into inquiry and understanding. We contend that the process of engaging in group work, where all participants contribute to a continuum of learning moments, can add value to learning. Throughout the inquiry, we found our work to be situated within the ambiguity apparent in both the process and the literature. It was in navigating these complexities together that meaning emerged. In this presentation we describe the formation of a generative and productive space as we wrote together, listened, debated words and sentences, and built on each other's ideas. We tell of a shared experience where we found ourselves not just writing together but also thinking together. Accordingly, we collectively recognized our collaborative work as facilitating an opening of possibilities. Here, our collaborative efforts became a shared avenue for cultivating relational accountability and a conduit for moving our work forward in a good way. In this context, the presenters consider the potential utility of adopting a framework for collaboration that can attend to the multiple dimensions of relationality. Poster viewers are invited to consider how their engagement in postsecondary group work has contributed, and might contribute, to the shared building of meaning.
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    Transformational Encounters: An Online Dialogical Partnership
    (2023-04-28) Hart, Stephen; Williams, Abigail
    This presentation explores the shared transformational encounters of two doctoral peers as they engaged in an intentional online partnership to support their learning journeys. Originally conceived as a strategy for holding each other accountable to writing goals, weekly online meetings quickly evolved into a rich dialogic space for cultivating meaning between perspectives. The exchange of ideas in this space was more than informational; it was transformational. Consistent with understandings put forward by Sinha (2010), the presenters came to recognize the transformative possibility of speaking with and listening to each other. The interaction between their stories, questions and reflections served as a “catalyst for some change in understanding” (Breault, 2016, p. 14). Through dialogue, they found that they had generated a shared space that stimulated connections, fueled inquiry, nurtured belonging and fostered well-being. Given these realizations, and drawing on previous methodological coursework, they came to understand their encounters as sites for a duoethnography in “which the reconceptualization of the meaning that one gives is reexamined in dialogue with another” (Norris & Sawyer, 2020, p. 397). With an approach that “brings together two complex beings situated within their own complex social networks” (Breault, 2016, p. 4), the presenters were able to interrogate and reconceptualize meaning. They convey their story so that session participants might also consider the transformative possibilities of online peer-to-peer dialogues. References: Breault, R. A. (2016). Emerging issues in duoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(6), 777–794. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2016.1162866 Norris, J. J., & Sawyer, R. D. (2020). Duoethnography: A polytheoretical approach to (re)storing, (re)storying the meanings that one gives. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., pp. 397-423). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.1 Sinha, S. (2010). Dialogue as a site of transformative possibility. Studies in Philosophy and Education 29, 459–475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-010-9189-4