Translanguaging space and classroom climate created by teacher’s emotional scaffolding and students’ emotional curves about EFL learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT Translanguaging goes between linguistic and/or modal boundaries and beyond them (Li, W. (2011a). Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1222–1235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.07.035). The appearance of this new concept marks a significant development of multilingualism studies. This paper is based on an empirical study of creating a translanguaging space and positive ‘classroom climate’ (Gabryś-Barker, D. (2014). Success: From failure to failure with enthusiasm. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 4(2), 301–325. https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2014.4.2.7) by allowing for students’ emotional expression and supporting their emotions to benefit EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learning in the Chinese context. The visual data are multilingual and multimodal student-made artefacts called emotional curves completed by newly registered university students as descriptive homework of their emotions about English learning in the classroom. These emotional curves create a translanguaging space where students adopt multiple linguistic and semiotic resources to express emotions and identities freely and creatively. The multimodal discourse analysis of emotional curves is combined with (auto)ethnographic observations and interviews, which shed light upon the emotional motivation for translanguaging and manifest effective teacher-student communication owing to the teacher’s ‘emotional scaffolding’ (Park, M. H. (2014). Increasing English language learners’ engagement in instruction through emotional scaffolding. Multicultural Education, 22(1), 20–29.) strategies. Theoretically, this paper highlights the transformative power of translanguaging space and clarifies emotional representations of translanguaging theory. Pedagogically, this study advocates acknowledging and scaffolding students’ emotions to establish better teacher-student relationships and create a flexible translanguaging space and harmonious classroom climate.