Caught Between a Bilingual Policy and Monolingual English Practices in Chile: Opportunities and Challenges of Translanguaging

Abstract

The current language policy in Chile aims to develop bilingualism in English and Spanish. However, these aims are highly contested as policy and related curriculum directions are based on English-only monolingual ideologies with little room for translanguaging. To begin with, this chapter introduces language-ineducation policies and relevant Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher training provisions in Chile. Then, the results of an empirical study are discussed which explored TESOL stakeholders’ views about multilingual training experiences and expectations by drawing on interviews with teacher educators and teacher candidates in a regional university in Chile. The discursive data provide evidence that the current monolingual policy and curriculum directions are unsatisfactory, and there is an urgent need to incorporate translanguaging practices connecting with students’ full linguistic repertoires. Participants also felt that if bilingualism is officially promoted, then Mapudungun—the most widely spoken indigenous language in Chile—should be included, even at the expense of English. These findings call for replacing monolingual English ideologies and incorporating multilingual strategies in TESOL teacher training contexts as well as into the practices of teaching English as a global lingua franca.