Language awareness and the online experiences of transnational Chinese dual language teachers during the global pandemic

Abstract

The experience of transnational teachers who serve in bilingual education programmes in the US remains, by and large, under-examined in the literature. To fill this gap, this study adopted a phenomenological methodology attuning, specifically, to the impact that the shift to online instruction had on the language awareness of five transnational Chinese teachers working at dual language immersion programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic. Using conversations with these professionals as the data source, and mobilising standard language ideology and translanguaging as interpretative frameworks, this study identified three aspects of teachers’ language awareness related to the transition online: (1) contradictions in the linguistic and curricular push towards achieving linguistic homogeneity within dual language immersion programmes, (2) the influence of monoglossic language policies in practical teaching decisions and (3) the surfacing of translingual pedagogies as a demand of the online space.