Translanguaging in higher education: exploring interactional spaces for meaning-making in the multilingual universities of Pakistan

ABSTRACT

In the multilingual contexts such as Pakistan, English as the only medium of instruction poses challenges for adequate teaching and learning at the university level. Our study aimed to explore teachers’ translanguaging practices at the university level. We attempted to understand why teachers translanguaged and how they perceived the impacts of translanguaging in their English medium classrooms. By employing a mixed-methods design, we firstly observed classes and then interviewed teachers. This qualitative phase was followed by a questionnaire survey. Class observations suggested that the practice of translanguaging provided an interactional space to both teachers and students for creating and understanding meaning of their interactions. The analysis of interviews and questionnaire survey confirmed that translanguaging promoted meaningful communication in classes. Teachers believed that they could easily communicate their ideas when they taught by employing translanguaging as a strategy. They held that practicing translanguaging in the class resulted in developing students’ interest in lectures too. We discuss pertinent implications in the light of findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Multilingual context
• university classes
• English medium instruction
• translanguaging
• meaning-making

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anila Panezai

Anila Panezai is an applied linguistics graduate from BUITEMS, Quetta. She has recently done her master’s in English language and literature. She currently serves as a lecturer in the Department of English at BUITEMS, Quetta. Her research interests are English as a medium of instruction and multilingual education. She can be reached at [email protected].

Liaquat Ali Channa

Liaquat Ali Channa currently serves as a professor in the Department of English at BUITEMS, Quetta. His research interests are English as a/the medium of instruction, Bilingual and multilingual Education, and Educational linguistics. He can be reached at [email protected].

Bakht Bibi

Bakht Bibi currently serves as a lecturer in the Department of English at BUITEMS, Quetta. She can be reached at [email protected].