Multilingual Practices and Trans-Language Methods in Teaching English

Abstract

The study investigates trans-language methods in teaching English. The research examines multilingual practices in the Ukrainian context from sociocultural and multimodal perspectives. Also, it is a desire to know how trans-language techniques can effectively enhance language acquisition. The data came from the Program of English Language Profile conducted in two Ukrainian Universities, aimed at giving students in the bachelor’s programs the opportunity to reinforce their multilingual and intercultural competencies in a second foreign language (English) within the first semester of 2021. The study analyzes the audio recording of students’ and teachers’ multilingual practices, questionnaires on students’ attitudes toward trans-language, and qualitative interviews with teachers. Results show how multilingual resources may facilitate intercultural communication and language development. The findings emphasize the importance of building natural multilingualism and making it a resource, strategy, and goal of teaching English. This study provides practical suggestions and techniques on how universities can adapt to formal teaching environments. Implementations show that trans-language processes become a set of multilingual practices whereby language teachers build on and use their students’ linguistic resources and background knowledge to convey meaningful content. This research develops ‘trans-language’ as an educational and linguistic concept and gives educators the ground to think critically about the advantages and limitations of adopting a multilingual approach.