In the decades since the formal end of colonialism in Africa, classrooms have become a crucial space where students and teachers negotiate issues of identity, agency, and self-determination. One key area in which this struggle has been engaged is the role of language in education and whether it can be a tool for both academic discourses and anti-colonial resistance (Prah, 2018; Shizah, 2013).This study aimed to describe current classroom language practices alongside teachers' perceptions of language policy and its impact on their linguistic self-determination. It further explored how these practices and perceptions facilitated colonial or anti-colonial pedagogies within the classroom. To do so, I draw on colonialism (Cesaire, 1955,1972), decoloniality (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015), Southern epistemologies (Santos, 2012), and translanguaging (Vogel & Garcia, 2017).This study employed a qualitative case study approach to investigate the language practices in an urban elementary school in Accra. The data collection included observations of classroom talk in three classrooms, interviews with five teachers and the school principal, memos, and field notes.The study found that translanguaging, using multiple languages, was used for all classroom communication, both academic and non-academic. The teachers acknowledged the pedagogical benefits of this spontaneous practice, noting that effective communication would be impossible without the support of Twi, the dominant local language. However, teachers also perceived emergent bilinguals' high proficiency in Twi as a potential barrier to acquiring English, indicating the existence and impact of deficit language ideologies in this multilingual learning space. Another significant finding is that the frequent translanguaging for translation and comprehension did not automatically imply that learners meaningfully understood lessons. This suggests that more than the mere presence of an indigenous language is necessary for learners' participation in the classroom knowledge-production process in the classroom. However, the presence of Twi allowed the learners to have a voice and participate in a way that an English-only environment could not, underscoring translanguaging's affordance to foster learners' agency in the classroom. With genuine commitment from policymakers, anti-colonial pedagogies like translanguaging hold pedagogical and political promise for developing learners' academic and social identities in a manner relevant to Ghana's holistic development. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]