Abstract
The multilingual turn has established new multilingual pedagogies in education that go against language isolation. One example is pedagogical translanguaging, a teaching approach by which two or more languages of the students’ language repertoire are systematically used in instruction. However, the theoretical framework on pedagogical translanguaging is much more extensive than the number of studies that applied translanguaging pedagogies in the classroom context. Therefore, this study has implemented pedagogical translanguaging in a public university of Castelló (Valencian Community, Spain) where three languages (Catalan, Spanish and English) are offered as teaching languages, although actual classrooms still follow monolingual perspectives on language learning. In particular, 65 content teachers-to-be took part in the study, who have a crucial role in the future of the education system. Pedagogical translanguaging was applied during 8 sessions of 1 hour each within the English language subject from the first year of the preschool education degree. Through this multilingual approach, students’ language repertoire (Catalan and Spanish) was employed systematically to reinforce target language learning (English). After the pedagogical intervention, students participated in group discussions to reflect upon the effectiveness of the approach, and express their views towards it. Results showed that although some students conveyed positive beliefs about the multilingual approach and perceived its usefulness for English learning, some other students based their attitudes on traditional monolingual views. Several challenges were also found in the multilingual classroom, such as students’ initial reluctance in participating in multilingual activities and the lack of suitable multilingual materials and digital resources.
Presenters
Gema GayetePhD Student, English Studies Department, Universitat Jaume I , Castellón, Spain
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION, PEDAGOGICAL TRANSLANGUAGING, HIGHER EDUCATION, STUDENTS’ VIEWS, TEACHERS’ CHALLENGES
