How Do EMI Lecturers’ Translanguaging Perceptions Translate into Their Practice? A Multi-Case Study of Three Chinese Tertiary EMI Classes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have read your paper with interest and benefit. The paper is concise in style and informative on the theoretical and methodological stances and choices taken. It is also well organized, easy to follow and presents new and insightful data, providing, therefore, to a welcome contribution to our understanding of translanguaging practices in the classroom. The inductive method of explaining individual cases by paying attention to sociocultural, interactional, and personal reasons is an important addition to the methodological toolbox. While reading the paper, I have asked myself whether the sociocultural reasons where not constructed as an effect of individual practices, e.g., are the sociocultural reasons given a way to make one’s own practices meaningful? Readers of the article might appreciate to know what you think about this possibility and whether it is worthy to be studied henceforth.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Please see the attachment.

Many thanks.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Title of manuscript: How Do EMI Lecturers’ Translanguaging Perceptions Translate Into Their Practice? A Multi-case Study of Three Chinese Tertiary EMI Classes

Date of review submission: 27 February 2023

 

Reviewer Report

1.      Introduction, p.2, para 2. The argument on the gap of knowledge for the study is not strong. The author(s) should cite existing findings on the use of translanguaging in the teaching of science courses. Some information on this are found in the literature review but the author(s) have not recognized the purpose of the Introduction to present an argument on the niche for the study. If there is a shortage of findings on translanguaging in the teaching of science, then findings of studies on translation and code-switching should be cited to show a gap of knowledge.

2.      Literature review – studies are reviewed and written in three sub-sections but the current state of knowledge is not clearly presented. The focus is more towards reporting what each study has found. Please rewrite.

3.      The aim and three research questions should be placed at the end of the Introduction section, not at the end of the Literature Review section.

4.      P.6, “Moreover, by virtue of the debate between unitary and multilingual perspectives of translanguaging pedagogies [56], this study was guided by the multilingual perspective and used L1 and L2 to represent the students’ and lecturers’ language resources, respectively.” The unitary and multilingual perspectives of translanguaging is mentioned at the end of the Theoretical framework section, but there is no elaboration before this. This section should focus on doing this instead of focusing on the notion of translanguaging, which is already a known concept in teaching and learning at the present time. In this section, there should be a justification for the selection of the multilingual perspective of translanguaging, substantiated by citations.

5.      “survey questions”. The appropriate term should be “questionnaire items” because the study is a case study of three teachers. It did not involve a sampling of the larger population in a survey research design. Please also correct the use of the term “survey-like translanguaging inventory”.

6.      Results – the narratives are clearly written to show the interactional, personal and socio-cultural influences on the translanguaging practices. The ambivalence towards the effectiveness of translanguaging pedagogies for transferring content knowledge is handled well in the narratives.

7.      Figure 1. The three-factor mediation model of EMI lecturers’ translanguaging perception and practice. The figure does not clearly represent the relationship among the reasons. Generally a Venn diagram is used when there are some overlaps in the three categories of reasons. I do not see this. Please rework the graphical representation of the results. The same comment applies to the other three figures.

8.       In the final analysis, are the three cases so different? Is it possible for a single figure to be drawn to conceptualise the relationships between perceptions and practices on translanguaging? The latter is important for the findings to have external applicability in this field of research.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Please see the attachment.

Many thanks.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx