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Translanguaging in ESL Classrooms in Sweden: from the Students' Point

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Translanguaging in ESL Classrooms in Sweden: from the Students' Point Translanguaging in ESL classrooms in Sweden: from the students’ point of view Rojina Tabatabaei Department of English Individual Research Project (EN04GY) English Linguistics Fall 2019 Supervisor: Hanna Salmi Translanguaging in ESL classrooms in Sweden: from the students’ point of view Rojina Tabatabaei Abstract Translanguaging, with its connection to second language acquisition (Abrahamsson, 2009), is more useful now than ever, as multicultural classrooms are increasing drastically across the world (Hua, 2014). This is the case for Sweden, in particular, as one fifth of the students have foreign backgrounds (Torpsten, 2018). Bilingualism is, in other words, common in Swedish schools and many studies have investigated the benefits of translanguaging in the Swedish as a second language classrooms. However, few studies have focused on the role of translanguaging in the English classrooms in Swedish upper- secondary schools and none are from the students’ perspective. To fill this gap, this study investigates the students’ attitudes towards translanguaging in the ESL classrooms in Swedish upper-secondary schools. Data was gathered by means of a questionnaire, with 62 participants from separate schools, and a focus group interview, with 4 participants from the same school. The findings show that although research strongly supports the use of translanguaging in second language classrooms, the Swedish students tend to agree with the more traditional view on SLA; namely, only speaking English in the English classroom. Furthermore, this research paper indicates that the teachers, according to the students, share the traditional view, with some exceptions. This paper shows that the translanguaging strategy has not been used enough in the Swedish classrooms that participated in this study and, therefore, the young learners of English are not acquainted with its benefits in SLA. Keywords Translanguaging, L1, L2, SLA, English teaching, multicultural classrooms, Swedish upper-secondary school. 3 Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background .................................................................................... 2 1.1.1. Historical background ...................................................................... 2 1.1.2. Definitions of the central concepts ..................................................... 3 1.1.3. Previous research ........................................................................... 5 1.1.4. National Agency of Education: EFL curriculum ..................................... 7 1.2 Aim ............................................................................................... 8 1.3 Research Questions ......................................................................... 8 2. Methodology .................................................................................. 8 2.1 Mixed methods research .................................................................. 8 2.2 Questionnaire and interview ............................................................. 9 2.2.1 Questionnaire .................................................................................. 9 2.2.2. Interview ..................................................................................... 10 2.3 Validity, reliability and ethical aspects ............................................... 11 2.3.1. Validity ........................................................................................ 11 2.3.2. Reliability .................................................................................... 12 2.3.3. Ethical aspects ............................................................................. 12 2.4 Participants ................................................................................... 12 3. Results and analysis ...................................................................... 13 3.1 The use of translanguaging ............................................................. 13 3.2 The students’ attitudes toward using translanguaging ......................... 15 3.3 The teachers’ point of view .............................................................. 19 4. Discussion and conclusion .............................................................. 22 4.2 Conclusion .................................................................................... 24 4.3 Future research ............................................................................. 24 References ...................................................................................... 25 Appendix A ...................................................................................... 27 Appendix B ...................................................................................... 31 1. Introduction Up until the late 1960’s, using one’s mother tongue to learn a new language was seen as a hinder rather than a successful acquisition strategy (Abrahamsson, 2009). In today’s world, diversity is seen as an advantage and the traditional ways of perceiving language are being questioned (Garcia & Seltzer, 2016). Recently, many researchers have investigated the effects of using one’s full linguistic repertoire when learning a new language (Cummins, 2017; Garcia & Li, 2014; Mazak & Carroll, 2017; Karlsson et al, 2016). Using language learners’ full repertoires to develop their knowledge of the target language is what is known as translanguaging, which according to Garcia and Kleyn (2016) would “[…] not only improve the education of bilingual students, but, in so doing, we build a better and more just world” (p. 14). Although it is not a term that is easily defined, the practice of translanguaging comes with many benefits (Garcia & Li, 2014). Garcia & Li (2014) explain the concept of translanguaging as for example reading and discussing in one language and writing in another, which allows the learner to digest and get a deeper understanding of the target language, as well as develop the ‘weaker’ language by receiving help from the ‘dominant’ language. Moreover, it is claimed that as a pedagogical approach, translanguaging enhances the teaching by using the speaker’s multilingual and multicultural identities to improve the speaker’s knowledge of the target language (Mazak & Carroll, 2017). Despite the benefits, research has shown that state schools continuously use monolingual practices in the classrooms (Garcia & Li, 2014). Torpsten (2018) writes that many schools only use the target language in their teaching, even though translanguaging has been shown to develop a deeper and broader knowledge of the language. Garcia & Kleyn (2016) mean that many teachers avoid using the practice of translanguaging in their classrooms, since this goes against what the schools have traditionally used as methods in the language classrooms. This can be seen in the curriculum (developed by the National Agency of Education in Sweden), which states that only English is to be used in the English lessons (Lgy11, Skolverket, 2011). This can be connected to the language ideology of ‘one nation one language’, which, according to Mazak & Carroll (2017), leads to monolingual ideologies and is an obstacle when developing a multilingual society. The reason behind schools being discouraged from teaching translanguaging strategies in language classrooms is unclear, since the world has never been more multilingual than it currently is. More than 50 % of the world’s population speak more than one language and continuous migration has led to more multilingual societies around the world, especially in European countries (Berényi-Kiss, 2012). Moreover, Garcia & Li (2014) mean that migration has occurred faster than ever before in the 21st century which shows a clear picture of the greatness of the linguistic heterogeneity in the world. In the case of Sweden, one fifth of the students have foreign backgrounds (Torpsten, 2018). Hua (2014) claims that multicultural classrooms have increased across the world, where students from different backgrounds are learning to co- operate in the classrooms. More importantly, the National Agency of Education in Sweden has, in their annual statistics in 2003, shown that students with foreign backgrounds are a majority in the category of students who fail their subjects in school, 1 which Karlsson et al (2016) suggests can be explained by their incompetence in their second language, since they do not have tools to develop their L2 fast enough. Research clearly shows that languages are migrating with their speakers across the world. In Sweden, the schools are flooded with bilingual students, which begs the question of what the students’ views are on translanguaging strategies. Previous research has already investigated what schools’ and teachers’ views are, but none have focused on the Swedish students in English classrooms. Mazak & Carroll (2017) state that the only literature on translanguaging that exists is from the US and UK in primary and sometimes secondary classrooms. Cummins (2017) claims that the past decade has shown a major gap concerning typical monolingual instructional practices in SLA and optimal bilingual instructional practices – meaning that the latter practice has not been argued for enough. To fill these gaps, this paper investigates what Swedish upper- secondary school students’ attitudes are regarding translanguaging in the English classrooms. Although many students come from different language backgrounds, even the ones with Swedish as L1 have the opportunity
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