Understanding Teacher Awareness of Translanguaging Pedagogy: A Study on Indian ESL Teachers

Chelsy Selvan presented on 'Understanding Teacher Awareness of Translanguaging Pedagogy: A Study on Indian ESL Teachers' at the 7th online Future of English Language Teaching Conference.

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Abstract

It is said that multilingual learners in a classroom with advanced linguistic repertoire can engage in critical-thinking and problem-solving at a higher level. This enables them to negotiate for meaning in multiple languages which would make the classroom experience more creative (Peal & Lambert, 1962). Therefore developing a translanguaging pedagogy by acknowledging the multilingual repertoire of learners can enhance their academic learning (Garcia, 2011). Although Indian classrooms are multilingual by default (Mohanty, 2015), teachers often have to conduct classroom transactions only in English adhering to the institutional decrees for a standard academic language. But teachers resort to language mixing in the classroom, even though they do not get any training for the systematic use of multilingual resources to scaffold ESL learning. So, cognitive-linguistic advantages of using L1 as an input for language and content learning remain untapped which result in poor academic performance of learners especially who are from lower socio-economic backgrounds (Tsimpli et al., 2020).

Raising teacher awareness of translanguaging strategies in the classroom can help for developing effective pedagogical practices (Lawrie et al., 2019). Therefore, a study was conducted to explore the aforementioned awareness and pedagogical practices of 4 Indian ESL teachers of eighth grade. The study observed that the teachers are aware of the purpose and benefits of translingual practices but they are less able to strategize L1 resources to frame an effective translanguaging pedagogy. This paper will present conversational excerpts from the study to address this gap in teacher awareness and expects larger implications for ESL teachers' training programmes.

About the presenter

Chelsy Selvan is a Ph.D scholar from the school of English Language Education at The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. The author is currently working on translanguaging pedagogy for teaching reading in the Indian ESL classrooms. The main areas of her are multilingual education, translanguaging pedagogies for the global South and its impact on teacher training and education.