MLA in Chinese EFL classroom perspectives from minority students

Abstract

This paper reports on an investigation into the minority students’ perceptions and practices of using minority language and Chinese in English classroom in order to examine their multilingual language awareness (MLA) in an English teaching environment. This paper draws upon qualitative research with 6 minority students in Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous prefecture, Yunnan province, China. The students sample was aged from 12-14 years, and comprised 4 males and 2 females. The findings from the study suggest that minority students value their multilingual background, while languages with high crosslinguistic lexical similarity means more benefits are available if minority students have a high proficiency; they were glad to use their L1 with their teachers’ permission but they will not use their L1 if their teacher does not value their multilingualism or does not allow them to use their L1; Chinese is the foundation for learning English, but some uses of Chinese in the English classroom may be not efficient; using Chinese extensively in English learning results in minority students admitting the usefulness of Chinese but expressing a demand for more English exposure at the same time. This paper argues that Minority students demonstrated a certain level of MLA but they should be more aware of their right to rely on multiple languages in English classroom despite their teachers’ preference.