Descansamos-xiuxiamos: a case study of a teacher’s translanguaging practices and attitude in an L3 Spanish audio-oral classroom at a Chinese university

Abstract

Translanguaging is a concept that has been widely adopted to conceptualize the diverse multilingual and multimodal practices in foreign language classrooms. This study explored one teacher’s translanguaging practices and attitude in an L3 Spanish audio-oral classroom at a Chinese university. Based on data collected from classroom observation and interviews, the study identified a full range of translanguaging practices, including gestures, visual cues, touch, tone, pictures, and switching between languages, which the teacher used for five major purposes: concept/language point explanation, comprehension check, content knowledge localization, instruction reinforcement, and rapport building. The teacher acknowledged the value of translanguaging as a means to engage students’ full linguistic and cultural repertoires, assist content learning, and build rapport. The pedagogical implications of incorporating translanguaging practices in ELE (español como lengua extranjera) pedagogy is discussed, with insights into the teaching of languages other than English (LOTEs) in and beyond China. FUNDING INFOMATION. This work was funded by Shanghai Pujiang Program (22PJC014, A study on the developmental trajectory of multilingual acquisition and education from an ecological linguistic perspective) and by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (S20230080, A study on the translanguaging practices in L3 Spanish audio-oral classrooms).