Abstract
Abstract. Research into pedagogical translanguaging in second/foreign language education has largely been focused on the interplay between two languages, one of which is usually English. Little attention has been paid to the practice of trilingual translanguaging (translanguaging between three languages), and how this can be helpful in the acquisition of a third language. This study, conducted in two Spanish as a third language classrooms in a Chinese university, aims to explore teachers’ translanguaging practices as well as the teachers’ and students’ attitudes to these practices. Analysis of data collected through audio-assisted classroom observation, interviews, and questionnaires reveals that teachers proactively and flexibly mobilize their multilingual resources in classroom talk. Students in general express positive attitudes towards teachers’ translanguaging practices, and express a wish to experience a greater amount of bilingual translanguaging between English (L2) and Spanish (L3). Meanwhile, having access to the views of L3 learners on teachers’ classroom talk proves to be a crucial component in the understanding of how L3 teaching and learning can take place in the most effective way. This study calls for further research into translanguaging practice in multilingual classrooms and its impact on students’ learning.
Highlights
Since three languages are involved in classroom discourse in the present research, translanguaging practices take place in two broad forms: bilingual translanguaging where L1 Putonghua and L3 Spanish are used interchangeably; and trilingual translanguaging where L1 Putonghua, L2 English, and L3 Spanish are employed for interactional purposes
Looking at the total number of translanguaging instances recorded in all the observed sessions, trilingual translanguaging practice accounts for 33% of the total, whereas bilingual translanguaging practice consists of 67%
Switching between Spanish and Putonghua facilitates the flow of classroom teaching, incorporating English into Spanish classroom talk is more helpful in delivering new vocabulary and grammar knowledge, since “analogies can be drawn between these two languages and more accurate and effective understanding can be achieved”, whereas Putonghua, despite being their shared L1, “cannot help clarify syntactic confusion in Spanish when encountering long and complex sentences”
Summary
Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes to Translanguaging Practices. In second/additional language learning settings, translanguaging has frequently been employed as a pedagogy to probe into the dynamics of classroom interactions (Canagarajah, 2011; Charamba, 2019; Jones, 2017). It is mostly observed in contexts where the interplay between two languages, usually English and the learners’ L1, is accentuated, or in cases where students are bilinguals in English and another language (Lin & He, 2017; Makalela, 2015; Moore, 2014).
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