Translanguaging in the multilingual classroom of a National-type (Chinese) Primary School in Malaysia / Tracy Lee Yi Ning

Tracy Lee , Yi Ning (2020) Translanguaging in the multilingual classroom of a National-type (Chinese) Primary School in Malaysia / Tracy Lee Yi Ning. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

In the multiracial and multilingual classroom of a Malaysian National-Type (Chinese) Primary School (SJKC), students as well as the teacher often make use of their wide linguistic repertoire to interact with each other more effectively. Although the Ministry of Education Malaysia has stressed that English should be used as the sole medium of instruction (EMI) and communication during English lessons in school, the use of translation and switching between languages undeniably still occur to help students make sense of what they are learning. This paper aims to explore how translanguaging is used among students during English lessons and how a teacher who does not speak the students’ first language (Mandarin) employs strategies to carry out translanguaging during English lessons. A qualitative case study was carried out to explore how the students and teacher translanguage using English, Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia and Manglish during English lessons through field notes of classroom observations and a semi-structured interview with selected students and the teacher. The data collected was analysed to develop themes and to answer the research questions posed in this study. The findings of this study revealed that students used translanguaging among themselves using several strategies, such as using their common L1 (Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia), making language choices to accommodate to the other person’s L1, code-switching between Mandarin and English to keep English terms accurate, translating English grammatical terms to their L1 (Mandarin) equivalent and translating Mandarin to English for the non-Mandarin speaking teacher. Meanwhile, the English teacher used strategies to carry out translanguaging during her English lessons such as using non-verbal communication to recognise her students’ needs, using translanguaging cues to encourage students’ language use and using instances of translation for English language input. It is hoped that the findings of the study will help teachers, school administrators and policy makers understand the concept of translanguaging better and further research translanguaging as a teachable strategy to boost second language learning in multilingual classrooms.

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