Chinese Master’s Students' Translanguaging Practices in the UK Classroom: A Linguistic Ethnographic Study

Abstract

Over the last ten years, UK universities have been increasingly interested in becoming more internationalised, and a central approach is international student recruitment. While this has been an undoubted success, these institutions seem to have given little thought to how to integrate such students and, importantly, how they should teach them, especially when most international students are learning through a second language. By far the most significant proportion of international students in the UK comes from China (over 100,000 in 2017–18 according to UKCISA (2020)). Still, there has been little research on how they learn and use their linguistic resources during their study abroad. To address this gap, this project examines: 1) Chinese master’s students’ translanguaging practices inside the classroom, 2) their reasons for these practices, and 3) the contributions that this linguistic ethnographic study of a specific UK HE context brings to the current understanding of translanguaging. The research was conducted in a UK master’s TESOL programme. A linguistic ethnography approach was adopted, and the methods are participant observation, audio recordings and interviews. The key participants were six Chinese students, and the data from three of them are presented. The data were analysed through the lenses of capital and agency. The results indicate the intricate nature of classroom translanguaging practices, which were guided by three reasons. A revised, empirically driven definition of translanguaging is proposed, along with a new conceptual model. The findings show a tension between policy and practice regarding HE internationalisation and appropriate pedagogy. They assert that HE institutions should create more opportunities for international students to speak English outside the classroom and encourage translanguaging to become part of international higher education. This research will benefit future students, lecturers, and other stakeholders by increasing mutual understanding among them. Implications for further study and suggestions for practices are provided.