Translanguaging as a theory of language underscores individuals’ agentive use of multiple linguistic and non-linguistic resources to construct and communicate meaning (Li Wei, 2018; Tai and Li Wei, 2020; 2021a; 2021b; 2021c), highlighting language as one among many semiotic resources in one integrated communicative repertoire. Translanguaging seeks to break the boundaries between different named languages and also between different modalities and across language scripts and writing systems. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research to date that examines the details of how translanguaging is practised in English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) classrooms where English-as-a-Second-Language students are expected to learn all/some subjects through English only. This seminar aims to present the sequential organisation of translanguaging practices in content classrooms in order to reveal how translanguaging practices is enacted in EMI classrooms. A quick overview of translanguaging as a theoretical framework and the unique combination of Multimodal Conversation Analysis and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a methodological framework will be explained. Examples drawn from a 2-week linguistic ethnographic investigation in a Hong Kong EMI secondary mathematics classroom will be explored. 

Ruanni Tupas, UCL Institute of Education

I would like to take up this space given me by sharing it with everyone who has things to say about ‘doing research’ – and that is mostly anyone attending this session. I will first briefly reflect on what I have written and said about doing research, especially in relation to how we mobilize methods as ways of constructing knowledge. I will explain here that how we conduct and evaluate research goes beyond the formal conduct of ‘academic’ work but, in fact, is implicated in the politics of everyday life. In as much as I hope you will get to listen to and read about my life stories as a scholar and language educator navigating the highly intricate terrain of knowledge production and practice of the profession, I hope too that we will all be able to listen to everyone’s own deeply personal ways of navigating this system of knowledge policing. No PowerPoint slides will be used in this session so I too would not know how the session would shape up and end.

Before the session, please listen to this podcast where I talk about my life as a scholar and language educator, but especially in how working ‘from the ground’ has helped shape my own research.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2021/may/overcoming-inequalities-multilingualism-through-education-and-experience-rftrw-s09e03

The following chapter of mine on research methods – or specifically, on ‘methodolatry’ – would also be a very useful read before the session:

Tupas, R. (2017). (Il)Legitimate Knowledge in English Language Education Research. In Mirhosseini, S. A. (ed.), Reflections on Qualitative Research in Language and Literacy Education (PP. 17-28). Cham: Springer