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Article published In:
Chinese as a Second Language (漢語教學研究—美國中文教師學會學報)
Vol. 56:2 (2021) ► pp.89–117

Translanguaging as a pedagogical practice in Chinese language and (inter)culture courses

| Loyola Marymount University
| Georgia Institute of Technology

As Chinese-as-an-additional-language (CAL) practitioners actively seek to bridge the language-culture divide in class instruction and curriculum, various strategies have been adopted to integrate cultural components into traditionally defined “language courses” or vice versa. However, many such strategies follow a “monolingual approach” that views L1 primarily as a source of interference in second language acquisition (SLA). Recognizing the importance of L1 use in additional-language classrooms, this paper proposes to apply the theory of translanguaging as the underlying pedagogy of CAL courses that holistically integrate language, culture, and intercultural learning. This approach fully recognizes students as multilingual and multicultural learners by judiciously and strategically combining L1 and L2 in order to maximize the growth of students’ overall linguacultural proficiency. The paper presents two course examples to discuss the implementation and benefits of this approach: a course on Chinese calligraphy for students with intermediate proficiency in the Chinese language and a course on Sino-US intercultural communication for students with advanced proficiency. These courses demonstrate that the translanguaging approach facilitates in-depth intellectual inquiries and critical thinking and encourages Chinese language learning in an interdisciplinary, intercultural, and interactive context. The paper concludes by extending the vision of translanguaging to the overall CAL curriculum and discussing its implication for the field.

Keywords: translanguaging, language and culture integration, course design, Chinese language pedagogy, Chinese as an additional language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translanguaging as a pedagogical practice
  • 3.Course examples
    • 3.1A Chinese calligraphy course for students with intermediate proficiency
      • 3.1.1Course overview and SLOs
      • 3.1.2Translanguaging to scaffold: Course components
        • Readings and discussions
        • Conversation practice
        • Research presentation
        • Final project
      • 3.1.3Translanguaging to transform: Pedagogical benefits
    • 3.2An intercultural seminar for students with advanced proficiency
      • 3.2.1Course overview and SLOs
      • 3.2.2Translanguaging to scaffold: Course components
        • Readings
        • Reading homework
        • In-class instruction and discussions
        • Topic presentation
        • Unit essays
        • Final research paper
      • 3.2.3Translanguaging to transform: Pedagogical benefits
        • On the translanguaging approach
        • On the effectiveness of improving Chinese language proficiency
        • On the effect of mixing native and non-native-speakers
  • 4.General principles of the translanguaging pedagogy
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 21 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/csl.20006.li
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