It was very interesting to read Garcia's chapters and capture the whole picture on traditional assessments and systems set for Emergent Bilinguals. The fact that these assessments have been historically exclusive and designed to deny educational and employment opportunities for multilingual individuals makes sense why these systems are inherently producing disadvantages for multilingual students. I remember in high school when I still needed to retake the ELPA I could not understand what exactly they wanted from me to perform on this test and also questioned why US born students who were also bilingual could not pass their test even when they had way better fluency in English than me. Now I understand that when multilingual students are assessed standardized tests made from a monolingual perspective for a monolingual population, multilingual students cannot perform as a monolingual because the test in the first place cannot even measure bilingual proficiency. Another point that I really agreed on was the implementation of materials in these tests that reflect the students' linguistic and cultural realities (transadaption). For instance, in high school, some of my peers that also needed to take the ELPA performed lower because they expressed that these tests were boring and uninteresting for them which I really emphatized with because these tests only include a white monolingual lens culture and completely disregards the cultural and linguistic repertoire of the students. Students should be able to demonstrate what they know and what they can do and tools such as translanguaging and transadaptation can be really helpful to keep decolonizing standardized assessment even though the ideal situation would be to abolish these standardized systems completely.
When it comes to the TrUDL approach, I really loved how it incorporated translanguaging and culturally responsive pedagogy into the UDL principles. Especially when it comes to EMLADs this approach can help validate their identities by recognizing that their language practices, learning needs, and cultural experience shape how they make sense of the world and knowledge presented to them in the classroom. I also really appreciated the implementation of joy and authenticity in learning that is designed around what students are interested in and their lived experiences and how this can for them to thrive academically and emotionally. This model represents the pedagogical shift towards teaching the whole student and seeing the child as whole and worthy. It is by creating a safe space where belonging, identities, and the student's ideas can be truly affirmed and valued that truly decolonization and abolitionist teaching can occur.