Translanguaging practices of Macau junior-one students in a remedial class

Abstract

This qualitative study analyzes the use of translanguaging in co-learning activities involving four junior-one students in an English remedial class. The school advocates a policy of English immersion in the regular English class, although students may have difficulty understanding the teachers and interacting with them during the classes. In the remedial class, however, the policy is not strictly enforced, and, hence, students can leverage semiotic resources from their linguistic repertoires without restriction. All four learners constantly engage in translanguaging in interactive, co-learning activities, drawing upon semiotic resources from not only different languages (i.e., English, Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin) but also non-academic registers (i.e., trendy expressions, internet slang) and non-verbal modes (e.g., body gestures, facial expression). In this particular context, the major purpose of translanguaging is to enable the subjects to take up multiple roles (i.e., as a peer and as a ‘little teacher’) and enact different relationships with classmates/groupmates (i.e., peer-peer and teacher-student) in the class (i.e., Excerpts 1 and 2). In the case of a low achiever, translanguaging allows him to actively seek help from the other ‘little teachers’; moreover, his use of Japanese, in which he takes pride, serves as a face-saving strategy. The preference for particular expressions (e.g., internet slang, trendy expressions, Japanese) reflects the students’ hobbies, personal experiences and cultural preferences, thus building their individual image and identity in relation to the teacher and other students.