Pedagogical translanguaging and teachers’ perceptions of anxiety

Abstract

ABSTRACT The concept of translanguaging is widely used in studies on multilingualism and language learning nowadays and it is important to distinguish between spontaneous translanguaging and pedagogical translanguaging. Spontaneous translanguaging refers to the discursive practices of multilingual speakers that have not been planned by the teacher and which take place both at school and outside school. Pedagogical translanguaging refers to pedagogical strategies planned by the teacher inside the classroom. The aim of this article is to explore the possible relationship between pedagogical translanguaging and the perception of students’ and teachers’ levels of anxiety when teaching and learning through the medium of second and third languages. Participants in the study were 124 teachers who took an in-service course on pedagogical translanguaging. These teachers implemented pedagogical translanguaging activities in their classes. The participants completed a questionnaire and some open questions to report their views on their own level of anxiety and that of their students while implementing translanguaging. The results indicate that pedagogical translanguaging can be associated with a reduction in students’ anxiety and teachers’ guilt feeling about using more than one language in class. These results are discussed as related to monolingual and multilingual ideologies in language teaching.