Translanguaging: theoretical and pedagogical implications in the Japanese university ESP classroom

Translanguaging: theoretical and pedagogical implications in the Japanese university ESP classroom

This research paper describes the findings of a project which explored the implementation of translanguaging approaches in a Japanese ESP-focused university classroom. First, a theoretical overview of translanguaging and the benefits of incorporating learners’ L1 ( Japanese) in the L2 (English) classroom will be provided from the perspectives of psycholinguistics, sociocultural linguistics, and educational praxis. Then, an overview of how translanguaging approaches were incorporated in the Japanese ESP-focused classroom will be explained to show how students’ L1 and L2 can be utilized to increase language retention, communicative output, and motivation. The project involved 90 native-speaking Japanese participants who undertook one of their compulsory English classes in a translanguaging approach and who were asked to write and present about topics related to their science and technology major. Results of this study showed that utilizing a student’s whole linguistic repertoire can increase their motivation, language production, content retention, and cognitive strategies

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