Translanguaging as a Transformative Act in a Reading Classroom: Perspectives from a Bangladeshi Private University

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the role of translanguaging pedagogy in reading comprehension of first-year students studying in an English medium classroom of a Bangladeshi private university. Data were collected through classroom observations, pedagogical intervention, focus group discussion with students and a semi-structured interview with the class teacher. The notions of ”translanguaging space” and ”critical instances” were used to analyse the data. The results show that the translanguaging space provided scope in each step of the intervention to maximise the use of the linguistic and semiotic resources of students, putting them at ease, and enhancing epistemic access to and comprehension of complicated English texts. The purposeful design of the lecture, including scaffolding with multilingual words and expressions, and guided reading with Bangla text and topics pertaining to students’ lives, engaged them deeply with the content, while also transforming knowledge and subjectivities about the given topic.

KEYWORDS:

• Bangladeshi university
• identity construction
• language ideologies
• language learning
• translanguaging pedagogies

Acknowledgment

Rafi sincerely thanks Dr Finex Ndhlovu, Dr Susan Feez and Dr Florence Boulard, the other three supervisors of the larger project, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the James Cook University [James Cook University Postgraduate Research Scholarship].

Notes on contributors

Abu Saleh Mohammad Rafi

Abu Saleh Mohammad Rafi is a sessional academic and PhD candidate in Linguistics at James Cook University, Australia. His PhD project explores the promises of translanguaging pedagogies in the context of Bangladeshi higher education. He authored articles in top-tier journals such as Teaching in Higher Education, International Journal of Multilingualism and Classroom Discourse, among others.

Anne-Marie Morgan

Anne-Marie Morgan is Professor and Dean of the College of Arts, Society and Education at James Cook University in Australia. She is the Chief Investigator of several languages education research projects and publishes in the area of languages pedagogy.