Translanguaging in University-Level ESL: An Experimental Study

'Translanguaging' (e.g. Garcia & Wei, 2014), defined as use of "multiple discursive practices" in the education of emergent bilinguals, has recently gained considerable prominence. From this perspective, a goal of English as a second language (ESL) teaching/learning should be the development of bi/multilingualism, with flexible use of multiple languages (Creese & Blackledge, 2010). This study examined whether a translanguaging approach, where English-only polices were removed from educational treatment groups, facilitated acquisition of ESL at an intermediate level of proficiency in an academic context.

In a longitudinal, 15-week study, students in two university-level academic ESL courses (n = 17, 17), at low- and high-intermediate proficiency levels, were instructed with the standard monolingual, L2-only pedagogy. Students in two comparable courses (n = 15, 18) were taught in parallel using a translanguaging approach, where students were encouraged to use their full linguistic repertoire (L1 or other languages) for in-class discussion, project preparation, and pre-writing activities. Mixed between-within subjects analyses of the development of writing (paragraph and genre) and presentational speaking, revealed main effects of time, with all groups improving over the 15-week semester, but no effects of group nor time-group interactions. Qualitative analyses of student attitudes suggested a slight advantage for the translanguaging approach.

We argue that exclusive pedagogical use of the target language does not yield demonstrable advantages for learning in a university-level ESL setting. These results will be discussed in relation to commonly implemented "English-only" policies in contexts of higher education. Implications for foreign language teaching will also be drawn.