How Do EMI Lecturers’ Translanguaging Perceptions Translate into Their Practice? A Multi-Case Study of Three Chinese Tertiary EMI Classes
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- How do the three EMI engineering lecturers perceive translanguaging pedagogies in their classrooms?
- How do these lecturers use translanguaging practices in their classrooms?
- Is there a difference between their translanguaging perceptions as reported in the interviews with the lecturers and the observed translanguaging practices?
2. Literature Review
2.1. Teachers’ Perceptions of Translanguaging Pedagogy
2.2. Teachers’ Translanguaging Practices in Class
2.3. Interaction between Teachers’ Translanguaging Perceptions and Practices
3. Theoretical Framework
“richly diverse internalised mental grammars as well as the diverse vocabulary and systems of knowledge pertaining to discourse, pragmatics, and other social conventions that we recruit in verbal interactions with others” (p. 189).
4. Methodology
4.1. Context and Participants
4.2. Data Collection
4.2.1. Classroom Observations
4.2.2. Semi-Structured Interviews
4.3. Data Analysis
5. Findings
5.1. Mei: Two-Pronged Translanguaging Perceptions versus Predominant Use of Chinese in Practice
“I would encourage them to use English. But when they cannot express themselves, it is important for them to combine the Chinese to help explain.”
“After all, English is not our native language, so sometimes it feels like it will degrade after not speaking for a long time…This class was really the first class of my life. The preparation time is also very short…Then the other aspect is that my English needs some improvement.”
“Because some chemical terms are very professional and lengthy, like thermosensitive electrolytes. It’s better to say it in Chinese because it’s too long, and sometimes I can’t even understand the English version. So I think it’s better for me to say it in Chinese.”
“Although it is possible to switch between English and Chinese, it would make me look more professional if I could use English all the time. If follow-up classes need to be in this combination of English and Chinese, Chinese must be less.”
5.2. Liang: Negative Translanguaging Perceptions versus Predominant Use of English in Practice
“When they [the students] don’t have a basic understanding [of English], then Chinese is needed.”
5.3. Feng: Translanguaging Pedagogies for Effectively Transferring Content Knowledge versus the Flexible Use of All Language Resources
6. Discussions and Implications
7. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. Examples of Interview Questions from the Adapted Translanguaging Pedagogy Survey
- (a)
- I think this is important in my classroom;
- (b)
- I think this is generally important in my classroom;
- (c)
- I think this is slightly important in my classroom;
- (d)
- I think this is not important in my classroom;
- (e)
- Not applicable to my class.
- Students read materials in English, discuss the content and analyze the language of the text in the integration of Chinese and English.
- When students write in English, the teacher encourages students to discuss in the integration of Chinese and English.
- When encountering certain specialized concepts, the teacher asks students how they understand the concept in English.
- The teacher focuses on integrating multilingual elements in the classroom, for example, showing both Chinese and English explanations of subject-specific terms on the board and in the textbook.
- The teacher uses the integration of Chinese and English to explain concepts in this subject.
- When translated into Chinese, the teacher explains to the students the multiple meanings of certain professional concepts.
- The teacher explains formulas, experimental methods, and experimental procedures in the integration of Chinese and English.
- The teacher and student discuss the application of information/knowledge/methods in the integration of Chinese and English.
- When encountering difficult sentences in English, students and teachers analyze the sentence structure in the integration of Chinese and English.
- When a difficult English sentence is encountered, the teacher and students discuss how to translate the sentence into Chinese.
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Name (Pseudonym) | Gender | Subdiscipline Topic | Academic Title | EMI Teaching Experience (Semesters) | Overseas Study Experience (Years) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mei | Female | Flexible electronics manufacture | Assistant professor | 1 | 3 |
Liang | Male | Micro- and nano-optoelectronic devices | Lecturer | 2 | 2 |
Feng | Male | Precision machining | Associate professor | 3 | 5 |
Class No. | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Class 1 | Feng: precision machining | The lecturer did not participate in this study. | Mei: flexible electronics manufacture | Liang: micro- and nano-optoelectronic devices |
Class 2 | ||||
Class 3 | ||||
Class 4 | ||||
Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | |
Class 1 | Feng: precision machining | The lecturer did not participant in this study. | Mei: flexible electronics manufacture | Liang: micro- and nano-optoelectronic devices |
Class 2 | ||||
Class 3 | ||||
Class 4 |
EMI goals: 1. To improve students’ disciplinary-specific English ability; 2. To improve their awareness and urgency to learn disciplinary-specific English well, especially for those who plan to study abroad; 3. To support students’ content knowledge learning. | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Translanguaging Perception | Interview Examples | Classroom Episode | Classroom Practices | ||
+ | Using L1 for maximizing students’ content comprehension | ‘Some disciplinary stuff is easier to understand in Chinese.’ | M-1 (Class 1— 1′46″–3′47″) | The predominant use of Chinese for content introduction, concept explanation, and fabrication process. | ‘然后你需要加工一些模板, 然后也是需要制备一些活性材料的一个液…然后我接下来就是讲一下这个微型传感器的一个功能化 [Then you need to process some templates, and then prepare some active material for a liquid… And then I’m going to talk about the functionalization of this micro-sensor]… (All in Chinese)’ |
‘I would encourage them to use English. But they can use some Chinese when they cannot express themselves.’ | |||||
M-3 (Class 2— 5′52″–8′29″) | Switching to Chinese to continue the instruction when encountering difficulties in expressing in English. | ‘And compared with the uh battery, the supercapacitor pa uh poses some advantages such as uh high power and the first charging time and more uh operating safety 就是我这一页是做了一个电池和创意电容器的一个对比。作为就是这目前来说比较常用的两类储能器件… [It is… I made a comparison of batteries and creative capacitors on this page. As is the more commonly used two types of energy storage devices…] (All in Chinese).’ | |||
Employing multiple linguistic and semiotic resources (schematic diagrams, arrows, different colors, and tables) for meaning making. | ‘Pictures, videos, and supporting methods help students to understand better and they would like to look at them compared with word-dense slides.’ | M-2 (Class 1— 12′53″) | Employing multiple linguistic and semiotic resources (schematic diagrams, arrows, different colors, and tables) for meaning-making | ‘然后可所以就随之而来的, 对于超越接通器来说, 也给它制作了一种这样的一个热自我保护功能 thermal self protection 方式. [So it follows that for the override switchboard, a thermal self-protection method has been created.]’ | |
− | Attaching more importance to understanding content knowledge than discussing the language used to construct knowledge. | ‘It is more important to identify important message from a sentence, like a term used in research method, than discussing its sentence structure.’ | N/A |
EMI goals: 1. NOT to be able to understand difficult content knowledge; 2. To successfully participate in discipline-related social and academic communities where English is widely used for communication; 3. To actively ask questions and respond in English in class. | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Translanguaging Perception | Interview Examples | Classroom Episode | Classroom Practice | |
~ | Using students’ L1 reluctantly for their need to comprehend lecturers’ instructions | ‘When they [the students] don’t have a basic understanding [of English], then Chinese is needed.’ | L-1 (Class 1— 10′31″–10′49″) | ‘Take out, washed by the DI water, DI water in Chinese is 去离子水, 或者是叫超纯水, [deionized water, or ultrapure water] water. And we dry, dry the sample by natural, natural gas flow.’ |
− | Viewing students’ language knowledge as separate entities | ‘academic information is already presented in English, so there is no need to discuss the differences in Chinese and English academic language.’ | L-2 (Class 1— 51′44″–52′05″) | ‘…for the purposes of photo response properties. 行, 那本节课我们就先结束那个下一节, 我们就下面这几个问题, 我们那个进行一下讨论 [Okay, that’s the end of our discussion. Next class, we will discuss these following questions.]’ |
EMI goals: 1. To enhance students’ interests in the discipline; 2. To expand their content knowledge; 3. To improve their academic English communicative ability. | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Translanguaging Perceptions | Interview Examples | Classroom Episode | Translanguaging Practices (Linguistic Resources) | ||
+ | Using L1 for maximizing students’ content comprehension | Example 1. Students’ English proficiency varies a lot in the same program. We have explored EMI instruction for several years. We found that asking students to communicate with each other in English was quite challenging. In the full-EMI classroom, we tried to create in the beginning, but students could not understand our questions, which badly influenced communication. | F-1 (Class 2— 13′12″–13′39″) | Giving an overview in Chinese before English illustration | ‘下面我给大家讲一讲就是这个超精密磨削的磨削, 和我们是怎么实现磨削. [In the following, I will discuss ultra-precision grinding and how to implement grinding.] For the material of the operation (inaudible) we used a diamond, and saving this is cubic boron nitride.’ |
F-2 (Class 1— 03′57″–06′16″) | Explaining scientific concepts in Chinese when students did not have responses to previous English questions | Feng: ‘Laser optical parts, the ship pirate is 0.01 micrometre while the surface roughnesses is 0.012 micrometres. Under this other the other typical parts. We will also ask several students about what they are. 刚才那个黑衣服的同学能不能帮我们解释一下这一个是什么意思?可以查手机 [Can that student in black help we explain what it means. You can check it on the phone.]’ Students: (No Response) Feng: ‘这是什么? [What is that?] 这个是磁头, 这个是磁盘, 就是你在光区里面去读光盘的时候, 一个是读的工具, 一个是被读的. [This is the magnetic head, and this is the disk. When the disk is read in optical area, one is the tool to read, and one is to be read.]’ | |||
+ | Employing multiple languages together for meaning-making | Example 2. I did not deliberately ask students to understand concepts by using English. Our purpose is to let students what they are, whatever by using Chinese or English. Example 3. I think when learning new concepts in physics or chemistry, students definitely construct ideas in Chinese, because Chinese is always in their mind and it lets them figure out those concepts more quickly. And when students try to express ideas in different languages, like English and Chinese, they need to respect the ways different languages describe the concepts and say it differently. | F-3 (Class 1— 26′20″–28:01″) | Paraphrasing English instruction in Chinese by adding extra information and explaining in a less formal manner | Feng: ‘Here is this table is about the classicising of precision on outer precision machine. According to the mechanism, we can divide the precision and outer precision machining into remove, the combination, and deformation. 我们根据这个加工它的材料的去除方式, 我们可以把它分成不同的类型.。减材制造就是像传统的机械加工……增材制造, 就是像我们学院也有很多老师和同学在做这个 3D 打印的这种研究… [We classify manufacturing methods according to how materials are added or removed. One of the examples for subtractive manufacturing is traditional machining…When we talk about additive manufacturing, actually many of teachers and students in our department are doing research on 3D printing… One of the most typical examples for module.]’ |
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Jia, W.; Fu, X.; Pun, J. How Do EMI Lecturers’ Translanguaging Perceptions Translate into Their Practice? A Multi-Case Study of Three Chinese Tertiary EMI Classes. Sustainability 2023, 15, 4895. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15064895
Jia W, Fu X, Pun J. How Do EMI Lecturers’ Translanguaging Perceptions Translate into Their Practice? A Multi-Case Study of Three Chinese Tertiary EMI Classes. Sustainability. 2023; 15(6):4895. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15064895
Chicago/Turabian StyleJia, Wenyun, Xuehua Fu, and Jack Pun. 2023. "How Do EMI Lecturers’ Translanguaging Perceptions Translate into Their Practice? A Multi-Case Study of Three Chinese Tertiary EMI Classes" Sustainability 15, no. 6: 4895. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15064895