Tel.: +1-215-452-9407 E-mail address: ffnw@iup.edu Indonesia Focus © 2017. All rights reserved. Translingual Practice: Weaving Native Cultures to a Writing Classroom Inggrit O. Tanasale Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 441 North Walk, Indiana, PA 15705, US A B S T R A C T The growth of extensive discussions of translingualism has emerged in the area of writing and composition in recent years in response to view writing as a negotiation of cross -language form in the multilingual contact zone. Translingual approach problematizes the propagation of monolingual orientations: standardized native-speaker norms and the stigma of printed written language, and overlooks the diverse cultural and linguistic potentials brought by the students in the English writing classroom. Translingualism does not offer the generic model to bridge the linguistic gaps perpetuated between academic setting and students’ backgrounds. However, it endorses transformative perspectives of language teachers to embrace students’ differences in first language and second language meaning-making production and the creative use of semiotic resources in the classroom. With a clear understanding and knowledge of students’ cultures, Canagarajah (2015) argues that writing teachers can better apply translingual practice in the classroom due to their well-experience as multilingual writers and speakers. This paper aims to situate the concepts of translingualism concerning students’ native cultures and classroom settings in Indonesia, in particular in Moluccas (known as Maluku) context. The pedagogical practice of translingual practice is addressed based on the context- and cultural-specific manner and draws upon Canagarajah’s (2013) four macro-level strategies of Translingualism. As such, this paper can broaden the horizon of language teachers and scholars about the possible chance to adopt and adapt translingual practice in a local setting with the available knowledge and understanding. Keywords: translingualism, translingual practice, Indonesia 1. Introduction English has been growing as a world English (es) with the celebration of a diversity of linguistic and cultural repositories, and it breeds into many varieties of English. Kirckpatrick (2010) argued that some ‘non-standard Englishes’ in Asian countries be influenced by multicultural norms of the speakers and constituted as the result of English as a lingua franca. The Malay, for example, was substituted by English as a lingua franca in the Southeast Asia because the Malay users become fewer compared to the increasing numbers of English speakers (Kirkpatrick, 2010). Inevitably, there is interference by several major ethnic languages such as Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay in the use of English for the contact purposes. I experienced the complexity of language use in a different context when I traveled to Malaysia for the conference, and I interacted with some local people there. I did code-switching between Malay and English when I communicated with taxi-drivers and hoteliers who could not speak English well but Hindi and Malay. Trudgill (2000) stated that the language speakers could operate two languages or more based on the situation and their intention to cue the meaning. In particular, the multilingual speakers are capable of employing code- switching as they shuttle from place to place to maintain their interaction with their interlocutors. The fact that code switching is globally used through English and other languages are contradictory with the situation in the L2 classroom. Cook (1999) argued that most English classrooms in many expanding circle countries be centralized by the delusion of native speaker as the standpoint of standard English. The standard English and native speaker myth are challenged because English has been embraced as an international language for everyone as the owner of English. Later in his newest article, Cook (2016) contended that there is no much change with the preservation of monolingual ideology of native speaker which is inextricably intertwined with the English speaking curriculum and materials. Canagarajah (2013b) reminded that students’ language travels and make contact with another cultural and linguistic repertoire of different students in the classroom which always disrupt the monolingual pedagogy. To enhance mutual intelligibility