A Case Study Of Teachers’ And Students’ Use Of And Attitudes Towards Translanguaging In Chinese Junior High School EFL Classrooms

The concept of translanguaging originated in Welsh bilingual classrooms where teachers and students strategically alternate between English and Welsh.With the development of the conception of language and language practices,the concept of translanguaging has been extended to include multilingual,multisemiotic,multisensory,and multimodal resources in language users’ entire linguistic repertoire for sense-and meaning-making.In recent years,research on translanguaging has emerged in foreign language education or second language education worldwide.And a large number of empirical studies show that translanguaging,as a teaching strategy,is beneficial to language and subject learning.However,despite the expanding interest in pedagogical translanguaging in Chinese foreign language learning contexts,little attention has been paid to translanguaging practices,students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards and functions of translanguaging practices in Chinese junior high school context.Therefore,this study can fufill the research gap to some extent,and provides some implications for Chinese junior high school EFL classrooms.This case study,situated in a Chinese junior high school situated in Ganzhou,Jiangxi,China.Aided by a questionnaire,classroom observations,student focus group discussion,and seme-structure interviews,this thesis explores the authentic translanguaging strategies employed in the foreign language classroom as well as students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards and functions of such strategies.Based on the translanguaging theory,this thesis attempts to answer three research questions: 1)What translanguaging practices are used by teachers and students in Chinese junior high school EFL classrooms? 2)What are the students’ attitudes towards translanguaging practices in Chinese junior high school EFL classrooms? 3)What are teachers’ attitudes towards translanguaging and the functions of translanguaging practices in Chinese junior high school EFL classrooms? Through a mixed method,the study reveals the following findings: 1)There are four main types of translanguaging practices,including language belending,translation,multimodality and embodied language.2)Almost all the students hold positive attitudes towards translanguaging.3)Teachers’ attitudes toward L1 vary.However,despite different attitudes towards L1,teachers generally hold positive attitudes towards other linguistic resources.Moreover,this thesis categorizes four primary functions of translanguaging in Chinese junior high school EFL classrooms: completing academic tasks,promoting expression,changing teacher identity,and raising students’ attention.Overall,through this empirical research,this thesis comfirms the universality and positive effects of translanguaging in Chinese junior high school EFL classrooms.And it provides some theoretical and practical implications for Chinese foreign language education stakeholders,including scholars,educational policy-makers,educators,EFL teachers and students.