In her first article for ISN, Anna Bejshovcova – EAL Specialist at Lanna International school Thailand – summarises her research findings where she focused on what international school teachers in Southeast Asia knew about translanguaging, what they perceived as its key benefits and challenges, and what they thought could encourage them to use translanguaging more in their classes.
According to Cenoz (2017) multilingualism, as a feature of our everyday existence, has been around since the time we first came into contact with people expressing their ideas using a different linguistic code. However, it got more visibility and appreciation relatively recently in historic terms due to the factors related to globalization. In language teaching, this has resulted in a more open use of students’ L1 to support the development of the target language. One of the techniques, representing this current trend, is called ‘translanguaging’ and can be defined as naturally occurring or pedagogically constructed acts performed by multilingual people of accessing and making use of different linguistic features available to them with the purpose of enhancing their communicative potential (Garcia, 2009:140). Proponents of translanguaging posit that, as individuals, we possess and operate a unitary linguistic system, as opposed to separate languages, so attempting to ban some of its features, e.g., one of the languages, would lead to a less efficient use of the whole system. Among the activities common for translanguaging, one can name exposing learners to subject materials in their home languages to enhance academic knowledge, letting students complete part of their work, e.g., brainstorming, in any language they choose, allowing peer translation, etc.
Although international school educators were aware of the concept in general terms, the majority admitted that they would struggle to explain what translanguaging is
International schools seem to be the ideal grounds to use multiple languages to support learning due to the diverse student body and strong intercultural awareness goals embedded in most curricula. To add to this, a noticeable surge in ESL admissions (up to 80% in 2020 according to Butler, 2021, para. 4) and the reliance on language development through processing content knowledge (CLIL), which may often be encoded in the students’ home languages, should potentially be strong enablers of translanguaging, and yet in my experience, the use of L1 is still heavily frowned upon, if not forbidden, in many international schools.
In order to understand better what may promote or hinder the application of translanguaging in international education, in 2021 I completed a Master’s research focusing on what international school teachers in Southeast Asia knew about translanguaging, what they perceived as its key benefits and challenges, and what they thought could encourage them to use translanguaging more in their classes.
Having used quantitative and qualitative tools to survey 86 teachers originating from 22 countries and currently working as international school educators in the region of Southeast Asia, I have established the following:
1. Although international school educators were aware of the concept in general terms, the majority admitted that they would struggle to explain what translanguaging is in more detail or dwell on the theory behind it or its practical application in class.
2. The analysis of the teachers’ attitudes towards translanguaging was in line with the previous similar studies, e.g., Cenoz and Gorter (2020), showing that despite having a generally positive attitude towards multilingualism, classroom practices remain ingrained in monolingual traditions. Translanguaging was perceived useful in theory, but less necessary in the international school context.
3. The survey respondents identified three key benefits related to translanguaging:
- Accessing the academic content which would otherwise be unprocessed if presented in English;
- The social and emotional benefits of being able to express their ideas and needs despite the lack of English;
- Increased cross-lingual awareness to support a more balanced development of all languages spoken by students
4. Among the challenges attributed to translanguaging, the following three were considered the most crucial ones:
- Objections from the school management, parents and the students themselves linked to the decrease in the use of English;
- Lack of quality resources in students’ L1s and the time needed to search for or create such resources.
- Social exclusion and separation which may result from students creating language cliques
In line with the findings presented above, the survey respondents felt that for them to be more willing to experiment with translanguaging, they would like it to be explicitly permitted by the school management. Many agreed that the existing L1 use policies were ambiguous in their schools and clarifying these would be the first logical step in introducing this concept. The majority of teachers also felt that they would benefit from a professional development course on translanguaging so that they could make an informed decision about whether it may be effective in their context. Just as with any other teaching tool, translanguaging has to first establish itself as a valid classroom technique. For it to happen, proponents of translanguaging will need to demonstrate that it is effective, relatively easy to implement, and that it brings about more benefits than challenges.
What is your experience with translanguaging? Would you identify the same benefits and challenges or are they region, country or even school dependent? And most importantly what can we all do to overcome the three obstacles described above? I would love to know what you think in the comments!
References:
Bejshovcova, A. (2021). Exploring teachers’ beliefs and uses of translanguaging in an international school context in Southeast Asia (master’s thesis). Nottingham: University of Nottingham.
Butler, M. (2021). Learning from International schools. EL Gazette, 457, 17. https://elgazette.com/elg_archive/ELG2104/mobile/index.html [accessed 30 June 2021]
Cenoz, J. (2017). Translanguaging pedagogies and English as a lingua franca. Language Teaching, 52(1), 1-15.
Cenoz, J. & Gorter, D. (2020). Pedagogical translanguaging: an introduction. In Cenoz, J.
& Gorter, D. (Eds.), Multilingual education: between language learning and translanguaging (pp. 1-7). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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