Translanguaging in Hong Kong English Medium Instruction Classrooms: A Linguistic Ethnographic Study of Classroom Interaction and Teachers' Reflections

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The latest British Council report suggests that there are approximately 9000 English-Medium-Instruction(EMI) programmes in the world (Dearden, 2014). In EMI, English-as-a-Second-Language students willlearn all/some subjects through English. Recently, such a practice is challenged by applied linguists whoargue that the knowledge of other languages that the learners already have plays a crucial role inlearning and that translanguaging can facilitate content learning. Translanguaging refers to theexploitation of multiple languages and semiotic resources in the multilinguals' repertoires. Yet there islimited research on translanguaging as a pedagogy in content classrooms, nor on EMI teachers'reflections on their translanguaging practices. This study will conduct a 4-month linguistic ethnographicinvestigation in Hong Kong EMI secondary geography and history classrooms. Methodologically, thisstudy will integrate Multimodal Conversation Analysis (MCA) with Interpretative PhenomenologicalAnalysis. MCA is different from conventional Conversation Analysis since MCA focuses on the multimodaldimension of talk-in-interaction. This unique combination involves observing participant's pedagogicalpractices over time as well as understanding the teachers' reflections on classroom practices. This studywill explore how translanguaging adopts specific interactional features to achieve pedagogical goals atparticular moments in the lessons and how teachers' understandings of their translanguaging practicesare articulated through interviews. The findings can offer an empirical basis for developingtranslanguaging as an alternative approach to current EMI policy and practice and discovering theclassroom conditions required for the translanguaging practices to succeed. This allows teachers toemploy translanguaging to achieve their pedagogical goals, bridge communication gaps and empowerthe learners.