Effects of Teachers’ Language Ideologies on Language Learners’ Translanguaging Practices in an Intensive English Program

Abstract

This chapter presents the results of a qualitative case study conducted in a university-level Intensive English Program (IEP) in the U.S. The study focused on documenting the ESL teachers’ language ideologies and the ways in which they encouraged or restricted translanguaging in their classes. The participants were three English as a second language (ESL) teachers working with beginner and intermediate levels in an IEP with L1 Arabic-speaking students. At a program level, there was no explicit language policy for teachers to follow (e.g. only English or allowing language mixing) at the IEP. Classroom observations and interviews with teachers indicated that participants had three different orientations that framed their understanding of what the role of the students’ native language should be, and to what extent translanguaging would help or hinder their learning of English: translanguaging-as-a-problem, translanguaging-as-a-natural-process, and translanguaging-as-a-resource. The findings provide evidence that the teachers’ orientations were influenced by their language ideologies and their beliefs about what was the appropriate role of certain translanguaging strategies.