Teachers’ Translanguaging Ideologies and Practices at an International Branch Campus in Qatar

• Published in: English Teaching and Learning Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 41 - 63
• Main Authors: Hillman, Sara, Graham, Keith M., Eslami, Zohreh R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Springer Singapore 01.03.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Bilingual Students; Bilingualism; Classrooms; Cognitive Development; College campuses; Colleges & universities; Education; Foreign students; Higher education; Language policy; Language Teaching; Learning; Linguistics; Multilingualism; Original Paper; Pedagogy; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching and Teacher Education; United States > US; Qatar; Internationalized higher education in the Arab Gulf; 海外分校; 跨語際教育; 跨語際實踐; 卡塔尔; Translanguaging ideologies; Qatar; Translingual practices; 跨語際意識形態; 波斯灣阿拉伯國家卡達之國際化高等教育; International branch campuses; Translanguaging pedagogy
• ISSN: 1023-7267; 2522-8560
• DOI: 10.1007/s42321-018-0015-3

While there has been a lot of recent research on teachers’ translanguaging practices in K-12 educational contexts, research on teachers’ translanguaging practices in higher education is sparse, and even more so within the contexts of internationalized higher education, such as found in the Arab states of the Gulf. Over the last two decades, there has been a rapid growth of international branch campuses (IBCs) offering English-medium degree programs in the Gulf. As these programs include bi- and multi/plurilingual teachers and students, they are a ripe setting for exploring translanguaging practices. Therefore, this study examines teachers’ translanguaging ideologies and practices at an American IBC in Qatar. Twenty-two bi- and multi/plurilingual faculty members and lab instructors completed a survey about translanguaging practices and a purposeful sampling of these instructors were video-recorded teaching their courses and then interviewed using stimulated-recall techniques. The results show that while instructors may report minimal mixing of languages in classrooms at this IBC due to different ideological tensions, in practice instructors still engage in translanguaging for various pedagogical purposes, both inside and outside of the classroom space. The study additionally sheds light on the complexities of the linguistic ecology of internationalized universities when it comes to translanguaging practices.