Translanguaging in English language teaching classrooms : an exploratory study in Hong Kong

Abstract

Translanguaging is emerging as a practical theory in multilingual education for its emphasis on a unitary linguistic repertoire from which users deploy features of named languages to make meaning (Li, 2018). Transcending the artificial boundaries of languages, an translanguaging approach aims to leverage learners’ entire linguistic repertoires and conceptualizes the use of first language (L1) as a resource in language education. While extensive scholarship has been dedicated to studying translanguaging in content-based instructional settings, research on the pedagogical functions of translanguaging in an ESL context remains limited. The present study aims to explore the translanguaging practices performed by the teachers and students, as well as their beliefs of translanguaging in the Hong Kong ESL classrooms. Data were collected from ten video-recorded lessons observations, field-notes, and semi-structured interviews with the participating teachers and students. Discourse analysis was applied to the transcribed classroom interactions. The findings show that teachers habitually draw on multilingual and multimodal resources to achieve different pedagogical goals and maintain interactions in the classrooms. Participants in this study also express ambivalent attitudes towards translanguaging in ESL classrooms, with accounts drawn from the monlingualist traditions. The study contributes to research into English language teaching and the theorization of translanguaging pedagogies.