Students’ perceptions and experiences of translanguaging pedagogy in teaching English for academic purposes in China

ABSTRACT

Despite translanguaging pedagogy gaining increasing popularity among researchers, studies on students’ perceptions and experiences of translanguaging pedagogy in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) settings in China remain limited. This mixed methods research bridges this gap by shareing the findings of both questionnaires (1008) and follow-up interviews (34) from students enrolled on an EAP course at a Chinese university. Drawing on the concepts of translanguaging and co-learning, the paper reveals that the different translanguaging practices used by the teachers and students (as reported by students) in the EAP classroom helped to enhance student understanding and learning, classroom communication and motivation for learning. However, potential drawbacks are also noted, e.g. in how translanguaging is not conducive for creating a pure English learning environment and can reinforce some students’ over-reliance on Chinese. The findings yield important implications for more careful and intentional pedagogical translanguaging design in EAP curriculum planning in China and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• co-learning
• English for academic purposes (EAP)
• teaching and learning
• China

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Hilary Nesi at Coventry University for her valuable comments that helped to improve the quality of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 To avoid repetition, the concept of translanguaging pedagogy is explained in the literature review below.

2 The specific implications for teachers beyond China are discussed in the Conclusion.

3 A national first-class major denotes a First Class Chinese university and a First Class Academic programme.

4 Second language here means the foreign language which students choose for study in the university.

5 The presentation of the key findings from Table 3 to Table 5 were based on the mean value of each item in the tables, with reference to Sözen and Güven (2019).