This Perspectives article proposes a renewed vision of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) through a translanguaging (TL) stance, grounded in critical sociolinguistic inquiry and embodied practice. A TL theory of language asserts an activist agenda to dismantle mono/lingualism, inviting a more dynamic and expansive view of…

Knowing what, when and how to say something constitutes what sociolinguists call the "rules of speaking." Suggestions for using the three dimensions of language variation--setting, mode and participants--in teaching English to speakers of other languages are offered. Hopefully an awareness of systematic language variation will be fostered. (AMH)

A role-playing procedure for elicitation of speech acts was designed to study aspects of the communicative competence of second language learners, namely, their language variation with respect to deference when the age and sex of the addressee are systematically manipulated. Sixteen Spanish-speaking adult learners of English as a second language…