KAZAKHSTANI SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ VIEWS ON USING TRANSLANGUAGING IN EFL CLASSROOMS

Abstract

Since the introduction of trilingual education, Kazakhstani secondary school students have been studying Kazakh, Russian, and English simultaneously. However, although EFL teachers sometimes use translanguaging, they prefer a monolingual approach which hinders multilingual students from using their L1. Most previous studies explored EFL teachers’ views on translanguaging but less is known about how students perceive translanguaging in English lessons, especially in mainstream schools. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore students’ views on translanguaging and the reasons they use it in Kazakhstani mainstream secondary school EFL classes. The study is based on two research questions: 1) What are the students’ attitudes towards translanguaging in Kazakhstani mainstream school EFL classes? 2)What are the students’ perceptions of reasons for using L1 (Kazakh or Russian) in EFL classes? A qualitative study was conducted to reach the aim. 11 students from Grades 7-9, recruited from a mixed mainstream secondary school through purposeful sampling, shared their attitudes and reasons in the individual semi-structured interviews. The findings were analysed with the help of Wang’s (2022) “translanguaging continuum” framework. The findings revealed that only two students fully supported translanguaging, while the majority of the students had ambivalent views. On the one hand, the students found translanguaging beneficial in enhancing their comprehension during the lesson. On the other hand, the students were concerned regarding the negative effect of translanguaging on their English, viewing languages in isolation and approving of L1 use only in the beginning levels. All students reported using spontaneous translanguaging in their English lesson for these reasons: 1) enhancing comprehension; 2) learning grammar and vocabulary; 3) expressing ideas; and 4) communicating informally with peers. Hence, it is important to further research students’ views, consider pedagogical translanguaging in the lessons to identify and meet students’ learning needs, and raise students’ metalinguistic awareness