Shaping student responses into academic expressions: analysing an English medium instruction history classroom from a translanguaging perspective

ABSTRACT

Prior research on classroom interaction has investigated how the teacher’s feedback turn following students’ responses can be used to transform students’ turns into academic expressions during whole class discussions. Nevertheless, more empirical studies are needed to explore how teachers’ translanguaging practices can play a role in shaping students’ contributions into pedagogical opportunities for introducing academic terminologies in English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) classrooms. Adopting translanguaging as an analytical perspective, this study explores how an EMI history teacher deploys available linguistic and multimodal resources to connect students’ responses with academic concepts and terminologies. The study draws its data from a larger linguistic ethnographic project that took place in an EMI secondary history classroom in Hong Kong. The classroom interaction data is examined using Multimodal Conversation Analysis, and this analysis is further triangulated with video-stimulated-recall-interviews that are analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This paper argues that the EMI teacher’s translanguaging practices facilitate the process of transforming student contributions into academic terminology and concepts. The process of deploying translanguaging for transforming student contributions highlights translanguaging as an important component of the teacher’s classroom interactional competence for constructing new configurations of language practices and achieving specific pedagogical purposes.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• classroom interactional competence (CIC)
• English medium instruction
• history

1. Introduction

The majority of research on classroom interaction has focused on analysing the teacher's feedback turn in combination with investigating the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) sequence, which is a common type of teacher-student interaction pattern in classroom discourse. Previous studies by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), Tsui (2004), and Lo and Macaro (2012) have specifically examined this aspect of classroom interaction and Seedhouse (2004, 63) argues that IRF sequences ‘perform different interactional and pedagogical work according to the context in which they are operating’. Particularly, teacher’s feedback in IRF exchanges has been recognised as an important topic in the field of EMI classroom discourse (Lo and Macaro 2012, 2015), since teachers ‘use their judgements of [students’] knowledge or understanding to feedback into the teaching process and to determine […] whether to re-explain the task/concept, to give further practice on it, or to move on to the next stage’ (Tunstall and Gipps 1996, 389). Although teachers often repeat students’ utterances in the third turn in order to allow other students in the class to be aware of the content of the student’s responses, teachers can also transform the student’s responses by building on students’ contributions in their feedback slot in order to assist students to express what they mean (Cullen 2002; Tsui 2004; Walsh 2011).

In the context of English-Medium-Instruction (EMI), English is employed as the target L2 to learn academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the majority of the student population is not English (Macaro 2018). In other words, the learning of English as an L2 is a by-product of content learning. Scholars (e.g. Pica 2002) argue that content subject teachers may not pay attention to L2 teaching in meaning-oriented lessons as they tend to focus more on teaching the content subject rather than providing interactional feedback to students’ language use since they are not trained as L2 teachers. Nevertheless, in order to facilitate students’ learning of content knowledge and the ways of producing specific academic knowledge, EMI teachers, who are not English language teachers, will need to take up the responsibility of developing students’ awareness of academic language. A considerable amount of research on EMI classroom interaction has investigated how a teacher uses the third turn follow-up to transfer students’ contributions into discipline-specific contributions to the class discussions (e.g. Jacknick and Duran 2021; Skovholt 2016). Nevertheless, there remains limited research that focuses on how EMI teachers can draw on translanguaging practices to shape students’ contributions through translating them into academic and pedagogically relevant contributions (e.g. Jacknick and Duran 2021). Developing a better understanding of how EMI teachers transform students’ contributions into academic expressions through the use of multiple modes of communication will provide new insights into the ways for EMI teachers and teacher educators to develop their pedagogical competences that they need to assist and mediate students’ content and language learning.

Based on the data collected from a larger linguistic ethnographic study in a Hong Kong (HK) EMI secondary history classroom, this paper builds on Jacknick and Duran’s (2021) study and adopts translanguaging as an analytical perspective in order to investigate how the EMI teacher uses different linguistic and multimodal resources to connect students’ contributions with subject-specific concepts and academic terminologies in order to enhance students’ understanding of the subject-specific ways of constructing subject knowledge. The study uses Multimodal Conversation Analysis (MCA) to analyse the classroom interactional data. This analysis is combined with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of video-stimulated-recall-interview data to gain further understanding of the teacher's thoughts on his instructional practices. This triangulation of data sources provides a more comprehensive perspective on the classroom discourse.

2. Academic language use in classroom interactions

In this study, academic language refers to ‘an expertise-focused pattern where a display of both disciplinary language and content knowledge is provided’ (Hüttner 2019, 20). Prior research studies have examined how the employment of subject-specific language can shape students’ ways of thinking in a particular discipline. Adopting a systemic functional linguistic perspective, Morton (2010) conducts an analysis of the secondary level history CLIL classroom interaction illustrates that when students use everyday life language to produce their response to the teacher’s question, the teacher will reformulate the students’ contributions to a more appropriate academic register of history. Nikula (2012) adopts a discourse-pragmatic framework in order to investigate how junior secondary students move from everyday life language use into a more academic register when they are engaging in peer interactions. It is argued that junior secondary students are able to negotiate historical events and knowledge through using the register of history.

Several studies employ conversation analysis (CA) as a methodological approach to explore the teacher’s scaffolding strategies in shaping students’ contributions in classroom interactions. Skovcholt (2016) explores the interactional practices deployed by the student teachers in Norwegian language and literature classrooms for managing transitions between mundane talk and scientific talk. The findings illustrate that students’ orientations to scientific talk are made visible by interactional actions, such as embedded correction, formulation, and recontextualization. Jacknick and Duran (2021) investigate how the EMI counselling teacher’s use of paralinguistic resources, including prosodic features, and multimodal resources, drawing on gestural resources and gaze, enable her to transform students’ contributions in the language of the academic discipline. To date, there is a lack of research studies that conduct a detailed analysis of how translanguaging can be mobilised as a pedagogical resource to shape students’ responses in classroom interactions. This study builds on existing CA classroom literature by examining how subject-specific ways of thinking and using academic registers are introduced by the EMI teacher through translanguaging during whole-class interaction for facilitating content learning.

3. Classroom interactional competence

Classroom Interactional Competence (CIC) is defined as the capacity of both teachers and learners to use interaction as a means of facilitating and supporting learning, as stated by Walsh (2011, 130). Walsh suggests that CIC can be enhanced by (1) prompting language use, (2) shaping learner contributions through techniques such as scaffolding and requesting clarification, and (3) creating opportunities for interaction by allowing for extended wait times and less disruptive error correction. In essence, CIC involves the skill of using appropriate language to facilitate learning and promote learning opportunities.

Regarding the first feature of CIC, teachers can exhibit CIC by using language that aligns with the current pedagogical objective and is suitable for the learners’ language proficiency level. This requires an awareness of interactional strategies that are appropriate for achieving teaching goals and can be adjusted in regards to the co-construction of meaning and the progression of the lesson. The second aspect of CIC involves establishing an interactional environment that encourages student participation, enables them to contribute to class discussions and receive constructive feedback on their contributions. Thirdly, CIC entails teachers shaping learner contributions. The process of sharing requires teachers to take a student’s response and doing something with it instead of merely accepting it.

Based on the notion of CIC, teachers’ follow-ups to student contributions are important components of teachers’ CIC. Specifically, it can be argued that how a teacher can skilfully incorporate subject-specific terminologies into the follow-up turn in classroom interaction reflects the teacher’s skill of CIC. Although a considerable body of research has been done to investigate teachers’ CIC in L2 classroom contexts (e.g. Sert 2015; Zuo and Walsh 2021), research on EMI teachers’ CIC is rarely found. As I am going to argue in the next section, the potential exploration of translanguaging, which is part of the teacher’s language use, can be linked to the notion of CIC.

4. Translanguaging in EMI classrooms

The term ‘translanguaging’ was created based on the Welsh model to describe the practice of switching between different languages in bilingual classrooms for pedagogical purposes, according to Williams (1994). Studies have illustrated that translanguaging is not only a multilingual and multimodal practice, but it can offer pedagogical and interpersonal functions in the classrooms, including deepening students’ understanding of the curricular content, establishing students’ identity positions, promoting inclusion and students’ participation in the classrooms, preventing communication breakdown and maintaining fluency and meaning-based interactions (Allard 2017; Creese and Blackledge 2010). Li (2018) expands on this concept by defining translanguaging as a process of constructing knowledge that involves utilising diverse multilingual resources, such as various languages, dialects, styles, registers, and other forms of language use, as well as multimodal resources, including speech, writing, gestures, body movements, facial expressions, and visual images. Li (2011) has also developed a notion called ‘translanguaging space’ which refers to an interactional space created by and created for translanguaging practices. It is a space where multilingual, multimodal and multi-sensory repertoires interact and co-produce new meanings. As translanguaging foregrounds the creative and strategic deployment of the speakers’ full repertoire of resources (Tai, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d), it is sensible to bridge the connection between the notions of CIC and translanguaging, since recent researchers have argued that managing language alternation and using gestures effectively are features of CIC (e.g. Can Daskın 2015; Sert 2015).

According to Li (2020), translanguaging is not just a structural analysis of linguistic patterns, but rather an analytical framework that examines how speakers use their diverse repertoires to construct meaning in social interactions. This approach emphasises the dynamic and spontaneous nature of social interaction and encourages researchers to explore the creative use of available social and linguistic resources. Thus, the framework enables researchers to understand how individuals utilise various resources to transcend the linguistic and sociocultural norms and standards, highlighting the flexibility and adaptability of language use in communication. (Tai 2022, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d).

In essence, translanguaging involves the strategic and spontaneous use of a participant's linguistic and semiotic repertoire in a unified manner during the meaning-making process, without distinguishing between different languages as separate codes. This perspective prompts researchers to examine the various linguistic and semiotic resources that teachers can utilise to demonstrate their CIC and accomplish their teaching objectives, instead of solely focusing on separate languages. Prior studies in multilingual classrooms have exemplified the role of translanguaging practices in facilitating students’ content and language learning. Stohler (2006) studied the use of L2 in teaching non-linguistic topics like geography and history. The study compared L1 and L2 teaching methods and found that using L2 did not hinder content learning. The findings of the study highlight the potential of translanguaging in classrooms, allowing teachers and students to use available linguistic resources for knowledge construction instead of relying solely on a monolingual L2 policy. Cross (2016) contends that CLIL teachers in his study view CLIL as the ‘separation of language and content’ (402), despite its aim to integrate the two. He suggests rethinking the concept of ‘integration’ and highlighting the need to use multiple languages in the classroom to enhance students’ content knowledge and conceptual development. Alternatively, a recent ethnographic study by Phyak et al. (2022) examines how Nepalese EMI teachers resist the monolingual EMI policy in order to promote students’ participation in classroom interactions. The findings illustrate that the teachers use translanguaging to resist against the monolingual EMI ideology in teaching both English and content subjects and the teachers acknowledge students’ home languages as resources for effective pedagogy in EMI classrooms. The authors argue that the teachers’ agency in creating a translanguaging space in EMI classrooms largely depends on their critical awareness of linguistic diversities and their effects on students’ learning processes. In the context of HK EMI classroom, Tai and Li (2021) demonstrate the EMI classroom can become a technology-mediated translanguaging space in which a technological device can expand the teacher's range of semiotic and spatial resources to facilitate content instruction and encourage student engagement in the classroom. Therefore, these studies illustrate that establishing a translanguaging environment in the classroom enables EMI teachers to utilise their available resources to aid students’ comprehension of disciplinary knowledge, thereby showcasing the teachers’ CIC in fostering classroom interaction.

5. Data and methodology

5.1. Data collection

The secondary school is a prestigious EMI secondary school in the New Territories. The majority of lessons at the school are conducted in English, with the exception of Chinese language and Chinese history classes. The school's mission statement emphasises the development of students as bilingual or multilingual individuals, but the school's language policy prioritises the use of English on campus to create an immersive English learning environment for all students. This policy requires all teachers and students to use English during content lessons.

The history teacher has over twenty-one years of teaching experience and currently he serves as the Head of History at the participating school. A native Cantonese speaker, he is also proficient in English and received his secondary and university education at EMI schools.

I carried out classroom observation in the year 7 history class for two months from October to November 2020. The teacher's Year 7 class had 30 students who, according to the teacher, had below-average English proficiency levels compared to their peers, as indicated by their internal English examination results. As the teacher taught all Year 7 history classes, he observed that the academic performance of these students in his class was also below average. These students had received six years of primary education, during which Cantonese was used as the medium of instruction, and English was taught as a second language.

Before observing the classroom, the teacher participated in a one-hour semi-structured interview to discuss their attitudes toward using multiple languages in EMI history classrooms. Eleven 30-minute lessons were then observed and recorded on video. Throughout the observational period, informal interviews were conducted with the teacher and students to gain further insight into the lessons. Since the goal of the study was to analyse naturally-occurring interaction, the researcher did not prompt the teacher to strategically use translanguaging or employ particular resources in his teaching. Afterward, a one-hour post-video-stimulated-recall-interview was conducted with the teacher to understand the impact of their own translanguaging practices in the EMI history classroom.

5.2. Combining multimodal conversation analysis (MCA) with interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)

MCA takes an emic/participant-relevant approach by examining how social order is co-constructed within a social group through detailed analysis of social interactions. This analytical perspective requires researchers to avoid preconceived notions about the relevance and importance of language use and instead consider multiple semiotic resources, including gestures and eye gaze. The focus of analysis should be on sequences of actions, rather than individual turns or utterances. MCA expands on CA by incorporating multimodal actions, such as gestures and gaze, which are seen as essential components of social interaction alongside linguistic utterances according to the translanguaging perspective (Tai, 2023c). To transcribe the data, Jefferson's (2004) and Mondada's (2018) transcription conventions were used.

MCA findings are triangulated with the video-stimulated-recall-interview, which is analysed using IPA. IPA enables researchers to comprehend how the teacher perceives their translanguaging practices during specific moments of interaction. The IPA approach involves a dual interpretation process known as ‘double hermeneutic’, in which researchers attempt to understand how participants make sense of their own experiences (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2013). Following the IPA analysis, a table is created with four columns to aid readers in comprehending how the analyst interprets the EMI teacher's teaching practices (Tai, 2023c). The first column displays transcripts of classroom interactions, and the second column presents transcripts of video-stimulated-recall interviews. The third column shows the teacher's perspectives on their instructional practices, and the fourth column records the analyst's interpretations of the teacher's perspectives, in line with IPA's interpretation process.

6. Analysis

To present the results, I chose representative extracts instead of including all of the transcribed interactional sequences. According to ten Have (1990), representative extracts should be interconnected to reveal how a particular interactional phenomenon occurred repeatedly through similar instances, or how it is demonstrated in different ways through deviant instances. In this section, I will analyse three representative classroom extracts that demonstrate how the EMI teacher deploys diverse linguistic and multimodal resources to transform student turns by rewording students’ responses in academic terms to the whole class. The analysed extracts are inter-rated to demonstrate typical extracts of how the teacher uses translanguaging practices to shape students’ contributions.

6.1. Extract 1

Prior to the extract, the teacher (T) invited students to write down examples on the blackboard regarding the reasons for ancient people living near the river valley. Afterwards, T went through the responses on the blackboard and offered feedback to the students. Students provided several answers, including fishing, farming, hunting, drinking water and growing crops in fertile land. In lines 84–88, T asks students to think about the ways in which the ancient people farmed the land (Figures #1–#4).

Figure #1. T raises up his thumb.

Figure #2. T moves his RH upward and downward continuously and moves his RH towards his RHS.

Figure #3. T steps backwards and gazes at student 9.

Figure #4. T cups his RH around his right ear.

In lines 89–91, T rephrases his question in lines 84–88 and invites students to think about the item that is ‘suitable for farming’ (line 89). Student 9 (S9) and 10 (S10) offer the response ‘water’ in lines 93 and 97 and this is eventually well-received by T in lines 99 and 102. T then initiates a follow-up question by inviting students to build up on S9’s response (i.e. what is the purpose of using water for farming) (lines 102 and 105). T repeatedly points at the students (lines 105–106, Figures #5 and #6) as an eliciting technique for getting the students to come up with an answer.

Figure #5. T points at the students on his LHS, extending all fingers of his RH.

Figure #6. T moves his RH to his RHS, pointing the students on his RHS.

During the lesson, T receives various responses from students guessing the answer, including ‘grow crops’ (lines 109, 111, 113), ‘nutrient’ (line 116) and ‘cooking’ (line 118). T provides positive feedback on ‘cooking’ and acknowledges the responses about ‘grow crops’ by visually demonstrating the process of plant growth (line 122, Figure#7 and Figure #8). T then introduces the academic term ‘irrigation’ to the class and provides a definition while highlighting its importance through deliberate writing (line 123, Figure #9). The definition helps connect the students’ prior responses about growing crops with the new term (lines 125–127, Figure #10).

Figure #7. T points downward, extending all fingers of his RH.

Figure #8. T moves his RH upwards, extending all fingers, palm facing T’s head.

Figure #9. T enacts the action of writing.

In this extract, T adopts English as the main medium-of-instruction to guide students to achieve an understanding of the meaning of ‘irrigation’. Throughout the interaction, it is noticeable that T employs diverse multimodal resources (e.g. eye gaze, enactment of natural phenomenon and pointing gestures), alongside his English utterances, in order to clarify and build on students’ responses from a simplistic description of ancient people’s ways of making a living into a more academic way of constructing historical knowledge. It is also evident that the teacher provides opportunities for students to engage in extended talk which enables them to exhibit their evolving conceptual understanding of the meaning of ‘irrigation’.

In the next extract which occurs 3 min after Extract 1, it reveals how T uses available multimodal resources and interactional resources, particularly designedly-incomplete utterances (DIU), to build on students’ contributions into more academic ways of describing ancient people’s living conditions.

6.2. Extract 2

Prior to the extract, T presented a PowerPoint slide which entailed the answers to the question of ‘why early people lived in river valleys’. In particular, T presented the factors which were related to the supply of water and food (see Image 1). In the following extract, T guides students to reach an understanding of the economic activities which motivated the ancient people to live in river valleys.

In lines 4–6, T summarises the answers on the PowerPoint and prompts students to provide ‘one more point’ (line 7) related to the motivation of ancient people to live in the river valley, providing a hint by referring to a previous image (line 9, Image 2). Students examine the image in their textbook and suggest ‘carrying goods from one place to another’ (lines 11–12) which receives positive feedback from T (line 14). In order to build on students’ contributions, T then asks a follow-up question, ‘by what’ (line 14), leading to student responses such as ‘boat’ and ‘ship’ (lines 17 and 19). T then acknowledges students' responses, as evidenced in line 21 (Figures #11 and #12).

Figure #10. T moves his RH from downward to upward, palm facing upward, extending all fingers.

Image 1. The history question for students to answer. T presented the factors which were related to the supply of water and food.

Figure #11. T rotates his RH continuously, moving it from his LHS to RHS.

Figure #12. T rotates his RH continuously, moving it from his LHS to RHS.

Figure #13. T moves his RH to the left and to the right repeatedly.

Figure #14. T moves his RH to the left and to the right repeatedly.

Figure #15. T pushes his RH out in a curved shape, palm facing upwards.

In line 23, T continues to extend students’ ways of thinking by initiating a DIU, ‘then people can:’. Simultaneously, T raises his right-hand to head level and moves his right-hand to the left and to the right repeatedly (Figures #13 and #14) to enact the movement of a boat moving to and fro, which gives hints for students to complete the DIU for T. Such a movement also highlights the mobility of travelling. T initiates another DIU, ‘people could?’ (line 26) which eventually prompts S1 and S12 to offer their responses ‘transport’ in lines 28 and 31. It is evidenced that T transforms students’ contributions from the verb ‘transport’ to the noun ‘transportation’ (line 32). The process of nominalization enables T to provide a more abstract and formal vocabulary for students so that they can convey the idea in a more objective tone.

Image 2. Image of ancient people living in the river valley.

Note that when T provides an explanation of the noun to students (line 37), T introduces a new term related to ‘transportation’ which is ‘travel’. T also enacts a gesture similar to one produced earlier in line 23. It is indicated that T pushes his right-hand out in a curved shape (Figure #15) which shares some similarities with his prior hand movement of a boat moving from one point to another in line 26. From lines 39–57, T summarises the activities that the early people would do to provide water and food for making a living as well as contributing to their economy. Particularly, T repeats the academic terms with stress ‘transportation’ and ‘travel’ in line 61 to reinforce the idea of how ancient people made use of the river for the purpose of travel.

This extract reveals how T makes use of particular interactional features (e.g. initiating DIU and follow-up questions and employing nominalization), and multimodal resources (e.g. PowerPoint slides, photos, hand movements enacting the movement of a boat moving) in order to reformulate the students’ prior contributions. During the video-stimulated-recall-interview, T is invited to reflect on his pedagogical practice for transforming students’ responses in academic ways (Table 1):

In the interview that was conducted after the students’ internal examination, T was disappointed with the students due to their inability in applying the academic terms that were taught in class to their internal history examination. It is apparent that one of the examination questions required students to write about the activities that ancient people did for making a living. It can be argued that T’s teaching of more abstract vocabulary items is influenced by his goal to prepare students for the internal school examination. T believes that students should make use of academic terms (e.g. ‘fertile soil’, ‘irrigation’ and ‘transportation’) for describing the ancient people’s lifestyle in the pre-historical period.

It is noticeable that the researcher appropriates T’s pedagogical style of initiating follow-up questions (e.g. ‘like how fertile the soil is?’ in line 7 and ‘what you can do? You could have irrigated the crops’ in line 9) in order to illustrate his own understanding of T’s pedagogical goal of transforming the students’ contributions into academic terms and encouraging students to use these terms to describe the historical phenomenon. Despite having clear pedagogical goals, T believes that his pedagogical approach in teaching academic terms does not lead to a positive outcome on students’ content learning since students failed to apply their learnt knowledge in an examination situation. This may be understood as students’ inability to handle the linguistic demand of the academic vocabulary and they may turn to the simple vocabulary items, including ‘fishing’, ‘farming’, for expressing their understanding of the content knowledge. Hence, I argue that although T’s translanguaging practices engage students in learning academic terminologies and content knowledge, students struggle with retaining the learnt academic terms which prevent them from producing quality answers in an examination situation.

6.3. Extract 3

Prior to the extract, T invited students to draw pictures that were related to ancient Egypt on the blackboard. This was a lead-in activity for activating students’ prior knowledge about Egypt and introducing a new unit specifically on the history of ancient Egypt. T nominated several students to come out and draw on the blackboard. T then tried to make sense of several students’ drawings on the blackboard, including an example of a ‘pyramid’. In this extract, T initiates a new sequence and explores the other drawing from another student.

Figure #16. T uses the chalk and points at the drawing of the great sphinx on the blackboard.

Figure #17. T writes down “the great sphinx” on the backboard.

In line 111, T directs students’ attention to the other student’s drawing as he asks, ‘so how about this one’, and points at the drawing of the great sphinx on the blackboard (Figure #16). Although T invites students to provide the subject-specific answer ‘the great sphinx’, no student responds during the 2.1-second pause (line 112). This is possibly because the students do not know the subject-specific term in English. In line 115, T provides some hints to students by offering a short explanation of the drawing, ‘this another very famous landmark in Egypt’. While T is speaking, S7 utters ‘lion’ which demonstrates his partial knowledge of the drawing and potentially reveals his inability to provide the accurate subject-specific term in English (Sert 2015). Similar to Extract 1, T uses the pronoun ‘we’ as he says, ‘do you know how we call it?’ (line 117), to prompt students to think about the question as a member of the expert community (Jacknick and Duran 2021). This leads to an immediate Cantonese response from S1 in line 118 (獅身人面像, Great Sphinx of Giza). With this student-initiated translanguaging, S1 reveals her understanding of T’s question but she resorts to L1 Cantonese for indicating the subject-specific term that she is searching for in the current sequence. Similarly, S12 attempts to repeat S7’s answer (line 120) and the student’s contributions are treated as laughable by T (line 122), potentially because the students attempt to display their understanding through offering alternative responses.

In line 124, T introduces the subject-specific term (it’s called the <great ah sphinx>), thereby transforming the students’ responses into subject-specific terminology and validating the relevance of this term to the current discussion. Concurrently, T writes down the subject-specific term next to the student’s drawing on the blackboard (Figure #17) in order to allow all students to notice the term on the blackboard.

Extract 3 has showcased how T builds on students’ use of L1 and simple English utterances through the use of follow-up questions and diverse multimodal resources (the student’s drawing, gestures including deictic pointing with the chalk) in order to connect the students’ contribution to a subject-specific term. The mobilisation of resources used by T and students creates a translanguaging space for students to learn the subject-specific term in a humorous way. During the video-stimulated-recall-interview, T reflects on the students’ utterances in demonstrating their understanding of the subject-specific term (Table 2):

In the MCA analysis, it is noticeable that S1 uses Cantonese (獅身人面像, Great Sphinx of Giza) to respond to T’s question. In the video-stimulated-recall-interview, T believes that S1 has often tried her best to use English to respond to T’s question. Although S1’s use of Cantonese goes against the EMI policy at that moment of the interaction, S1’s self-initiated translanguaging enables her to reveal her understanding of the meaning of the student’s drawing on the blackboard. In line 4, T believes that teachers need to be aware of the students’ English language proficiency levels in order to ensure that all students can learn the subject-specific terminologies successfully. Hence, this may explain why T allows students with low English proficiency to translanguage in class so that they will not prevent them from mastering the academic knowledge (Creese and Blackledge 2010; Paulsrud, Tian, & Toth 2021). Such a belief reflects an important issue encountered by EMI teachers in other educational contexts since it is commonly reported that there is the wide gap between students’ English proficiency and cognitive levels in EMI classrooms (Lo and Lin 2019). Translanguaging can be a pedagogical approach to bridge the gap between the students’ low English proficiency levels and the learning of abstract subject-specific terminologies. This, in turn, enables the teacher to enact inclusive practices which ensures all students have the opportunity to display their conceptual understanding of the content knowledge through mobilising available linguistic and multimodal resources.

7. Discussion

The aim of the study is to explore how an EMI history teacher mobilises diverse linguistic and multimodal resources to construct academic ways of representing content knowledge through shaping students’ contributions and transforming students’ contributions. All of the examples demonstrate that the teacher is orienting to English as the language of instruction, but it is also apparent that the teacher is using translanguaging techniques. The teacher is aligning their English verbal communication with the use of various modes of communication, like gestures, images, and body language, to make up for the restricted use of L1 and shape students’ contributions in the classroom. In Extract 1, the teacher heavily relies on multimodal resources to complement his follow-up questions. This enables the teacher to build on students’ simple responses about the life of the ancient people and transform the response into more academic ways of representing the ways ancient people made a living during the pre-historic period. In Extract 2, the teacher employs different multimodal resources and interactional resources, specifically the use of gestures in combination with a DIU, to shape the students’ contribution into more academic ways of describing ancient people’s living conditions in the river valley. Finally, Extract 3 has revealed how the teacher transforms students’ contributions that are uttered in L1 Cantonese and simple English utterances into a subject-specific term through the employment of follow-up questions and different multimodal and semiotic resources.

The EMI history teacher’s ability in mobilising different available resources to incorporate academic terminologies into the teacher’s feedback turns reveals his CIC (Walsh 2011, 2013). We see this in the findings of the study where the teacher shapes the students’ contributions (an element of CIC) through translating them into the language of the content subject, which helps students to express what they mean. The translation into academic terminologies is delivered by using diverse multimodal and multi-semiotic resources which complement the teacher’s English verbal utterances. Additionally, the teacher has demonstrated his awareness of the student’s academic levels and English proficiency levels which enables him to modify his questioning techniques, verbal and non-verbal actions accordingly in order to shape students’ contribution and make the content knowledge and the learning of L2 academic terms accessible to all students (Tables 1 and 2). It can be suggested that the EMI teacher in this study reduces translanguaging to a multimodal form of pedagogical practice without involving students’ L1 (Jiang, Gu, and Fang 2022). This is evidenced in the classroom interaction data extracts that are mediated in English monolingually (Extracts 1–3, Table 2). This may be the case since the teacher is not conscious of the notion of translanguaging and he has received no prior training in strategically implementing translanguaging in his EMI teaching. Although it is evidenced that the students are engaged, the teacher’s translanguaging practice does not necessarily create a translanguaging space where his students can leverage their full multilingual and multimodal repertoire in constructing curriculum knowledge (Haneda 2009). However, it can be argued that a seemingly slight change in gestures or ways of speaking can alter the meaning of a message, which is just as significant as a change in the choice of named languages. As Li (2018, 2020) argues, translanguaging challenges the privileging of specific modes of meaning-making over others. Such a view invites language users to attend to a wider range of multi-semiotic resources for knowledge construction in interactions.

Table 1. Video-stimulated-recall-interview (Extracts 1 and 2).

Classroom interaction transcript	Video stimulated recall interview excerpt	Teacher’s perspectives	Researchers’ interpretations of the teacher’s perspectives
	01 T: 咦我考番呢度，佢哋都係寫啲，唉，都係寫得啲好 naive, 即係又係 fishing，bathing 又係嗰啲, 因為我就係諗住佢哋寫 transportation，即係我已經特登教佢哋嗰啲travel嗰啲嘢 (tr. During the internal examination, their responses were really naïve. Again there were answers like ‘fishing’, ‘bathing’ etc. I thought they might be able to provide answers such as ‘transportation’. I deliberately taught them about the subject specific terms like ‘transportation’.) 02 K: 係 (tr. yes) 03 T: 但係佢哋寫唔到，所以咪話其實你教咗，你當時係好想佢哋，佢哋會 get 到啲 points，即係如果佢哋應該有抄低嘅，佢呢一條，呢一條我記得係 4 分，好多都係攞一兩分，唉真係 (tr. But they fail to mention those vocabulary items. I have taught those terms to them before. I really wish them to use these terms in examination so that they can get extra marks. I am not sure whether they have copied down the terms on their notebooks. I think there’s a question in the examination which carries 4 marks. Most of them only got around 1 or 2 marks. Goodness me.) 04 T: 佢哋都唔記得啦，即係佢哋呢啲 hunting 應該都講到，應該都寫到，但係寫來寫去都係 fishing 同埋farming，就係咁啦佢哋 (tr. I think they have forgotten. So they were able to write something about ‘hunting’ and most of them only wrote things like ‘fishing’ and ‘farming’.) 05 K: hahahaha 即係呢一度都睇到你喺度教緊 Farming，然之後你就不斷咁喺度 push 啲學生 farming 有啲乜嘢 involve 呀 (tr. hahahaha so here you were teaching terms like ‘farming’ and then you kept pushing students to think of what farming involves.) 06 T: 係呀，即係想佢有啲 elaboration，即係其實，啲字佢可能，咪就係結果佢哋咪寫, 答題嘅時候都就咁寫 farming， fishing 嗰啲，我就想佢哋有多啲 elaborate，講到啲 fertile, 即係啲 soil fertile 啲呀，即係呢啲 (tr. Exactly. I want them to elaborate on their responses. In the examination, it is so evidenced that they only wrote things like ‘farming’ and ‘fishing’. I want them to elaborate more. They could have talked about the fertility of the soil. Something like that.) 07 K: 係呀，即係啲 soil 點 fertile 發啊 (tr. Yes, like how fertile the soil is?) 08 T: 係囉 (tr. yes) 09 K: 要點樣做啊，就係要淋水啦，咁樣囉 (tr. what you can do? You could have irrigated the crops). 10 T: 係囉，諗住係推一推佢哋，做多啲 elaboration，但係通常佢哋啲答案，我就係唔想佢哋成日就係，果啲答案真係好鬼簡單，即係，少少 elaboration 都冇， 好慘呀，都唔知點搞佢哋，hahaha， 我咪話囉，佢哋寫出嚟嘅答案，全部都淨係 farming fishing, 我咪話 irrigation 啊 transportation 啊嗰啲佢全部都上堂講咗 hahaha […] 但係佢哋有時咪答來答去都淨係識得答 water bathing fishing 嗰啲 (tr. Yes. I thought I could motivate them to elaborate further. But their typical responses were really simplistic and lack of elaboration. That’s why a lot of their answers in exam were all about farming, fishing. I mentioned about ‘irrigation’ and ‘transportation’ during the lesson. But they didn’t use these terms and kept mentioning ‘water’, ‘bathing’, ‘fishing’ etc.)	The teacher believes that the students were not able to recall the subject specific terms that were taught in class. Some of their responses were basic and simple English vocabulary. The teacher is disappointed with the students since they are not able to apply technical terms that were taught in class into their internal school examination on history. T believes that the students forget those technical terms which are more complex and abstract. The teacher believes that students are expected to recall the abstract and technical terms (e.g. fertile soil) for describing the ancient people’s lifestyle. T believes that his approach in teaching technical terms to students is not useful since students did not apply their learnt knowledge in examination situation.	It seems that the teaching of more advanced and abstract vocabulary items is mostly driven by the teacher’s goal to prepare them for internal school examination. The researcher shifts the frame to the teacher’s voice and imagines himself as the teacher teaching students to further elaborate on how farming can be done. In the MCA analysis of Extracts 1 and 2, it is evidenced that the teacher transforms the students’ contributions into technical terms (i.e. ‘irrigation’ and ‘transportation’) in order to encourage students to use these terms to describe the lifestyle of ancient people. It is possible that the students cannot handle the linguistic demand of the technical vocabulary.

Table 2. Video-stimulated-recall-interview (Extract 3).

Classroom interaction transcript	Video stimulated recall interview excerpt	Teacher’s perspectives	Researchers’ interpretations of the teacher’s perspectives
	01 K: 同埋就係，你會留意到 NAME-S1 佢都係用中文去答 (tr. And you will notice that S1 uses Cantonese to respond to your question) 02 T: 有時你又好難，盡量都係，有時 NAME-S1 盡量都有嘗試用英文，但係譬如 NAME-S9 嗰啲，都唔知係佢能力問題定係乜嘢，你叫佢用英文佢乜都講唔到，基本上，我覺得都係啲，譬如好似NAME-S9 都係差啲，即係佢啲水平 (tr. Sometimes it’s difficult. I try to get a balance. S1 often try to use English to respond to my questions in class. But students like S9 …  I am not sure what’s the problem with him but he just struggled to use English to respond to any of my questions. Students like S9 have a lower English proficiency levels.) 03 K: 你見啦 NAME-S1 佢係講左英文先㗎，佢真係講唔到啦佢先至用返中文講 (tr. Yeah I noticed that S1 often used English in class. When she really struggled, she then switched to Cantonese to express her ideas.) 04 T: 係呀，其實如果時間許可我都可以慢慢 guide 佢哋嘅,但係而家真係得個半個鐘一堂,都係，又要又要教啲內容,係呀，所以都冇辦法，我都話譬如 J L 班嗰啲同學佢哋又講到嘅，即係佢哋嗰啲就好快就講到，所以就就住嗰班嘅 ability 嗰個情況囉，係囉 (tr. Exactly. Actually if l had more time, I could guide them slowly. But now I only had 30 min per lesson. I had to cover all the content within the limited time schedule. So I didn’t have any choices. Students from the J and L classes were able to respond my questions accurately and quickly. So that really depends on the students’ ability in the class. Yeah.)	T believes that S1 has often tried her best to use English to respond to T’s question, which aligns with the EMI school policy. Nevertheless, some students struggle to use English to express their ideas in class. T believes that teachers need to be aware of the students’ language proficiency levels. Therefore, allowing students with low English proficiency to translanguage will not prevent them from mastering the academic knowledge.	This is reflected in the MCA analysis as S1 uses Cantonese (獅身人面像, Great Sphinx of Giza). Her use of Cantonese goes against the EMI policy at the school and fails to provide the subject-specific term in English. Nevertheless, S1’s self-initiated translanguaging enables her to reveal her understanding of T’s question. It seems that there is a wide discrepancies in relation to the students’ academic English proficiency levels. This is reflected in the researcher’s fieldnotes. S1 often uses English to actively respond to T’s questions. An important issue encountered by EMI teachers is the wide gap between students’ English proficiency and cognitive levels. Translanguaging can be an approach to bridge the gap between the students’ low English proficiency levels and the learning of subject-specific terminologies which are abstract and cognitively more difficult. This, in turn, enables the teacher to enact inclusive practices, ensuring all students have the opportunity to display their conceptual understanding of the content knowledge.

This paper argues that the EMI teacher’s translanguaging practices facilitate the process of transforming student contributions into academic terminology and concepts. This process emphasises the teacher’s deployment of translanguaging as an important component of his CIC for constructing new configurations of language practices and achieving pedagogical purposes. This argument extends the construct of CIC, which not only emphasises the co-construction of classroom interaction purposefully and meaningfully for mediating learning (Walsh 2013). I argue that CIC incorporates translanguaging as a significant element, which involves the utilisation of various resources by speakers to facilitate the meaning-making process of teachers and students during interactions. This creates a translanguaging space for teachers and students to translanguage fluidly in order to develop student’s awareness of the language of the specific discipline (Tai 2022; Tai and Li 2021).

8. Conclusion

The findings add to the existing body of knowledge on EMI education and translanguaging in several aspects. Regarding theoretical contribution, this study highlights translanguaging as a significant element of CIC, since good EMI teaching depends on the teachers developing their CIC and their ability in making the most of the available linguistic and multimodal practices for transforming students’ responses and enriching students’ language awareness of academic expressions. In terms of methodological approach, this study showcases how the combination of MCA and IPA affords the researcher in uncovering the complexities of translanguaging practices and the sociocultural factors that affect the teacher’s meaning-making resources. In particular, the use of the IPA analytical framework enables researchers to provide a broader interpretation of the teacher’s translanguaging practices in EMI lessons, including the ideological and institutional complexities in carrying out translanguaging pedagogies in EMI setting (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2013).

Although the teacher’s translanguaging practices in this study do not involve students’ L1, the teacher’s multimodal translanguaging are constructed for creating a translanguaging space in the EMI history classroom which adopts a rigid institutional English-only policy (Tai and Li 2021). More research studies can be carried out to investigate how translanguaging spaces are carved out through the use of diverse multilingual and multimodal resources in contexts with rigid language policies in order to enable multilingual teachers to deploy multiple linguistic, multimodal and semiotic resources to transform students’ contributions and enhance students’ awareness of L2 academic registers. One limitation of the study is that the analysis only illuminates how the teacher shapes students’ contributions through the mobilisation of diverse resources. It does not illustrate whether the students have transformed their language use and developed their conceptual understanding of specific academic expressions after interacting with the teacher. Future research can also explore whether the teacher’s shaping of students’ contributions will subsequently lead to students’ learning and internationalisation of academic pressions. In terms of pedagogical implications, the findings provide illustrative examples of EMI teacher’s strategies for orchestrating translanguaging and classroom interaction. Although the EMI teacher in this study was not conscious of translanguaging, his pedagogical practices illustrate his attempt in creating a translanguaging space to shape students’ contributions in order to mediate students’ content and language learning. The findings, therefore, highlight the need for enhancing EMI teachers’ understanding of the philosophy of translanguaging and developing teachers’ CIC in teacher education programmes. This will enable EMI teachers to engage in critical reflection through reviewing his/her knowledge of translanguaging pedagogy and the principles of CIC which may encourage teachers to create new pedagogical practices in their own teaching contexts.

Acknowledgement

The author would also like to thank the English Medium Instruction history teacher and students who participated in this study. Thanks must also be given to the anonymous reviewers who took time to give feedback on our work. The work described in this article was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (Grant Reference: ES/P000592/1).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/P000592/1].

Notes on contributors

Kevin W. H. Tai

Kevin W. H. Tai is Assistant Professor of English Language Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Advancement in Inclusive and Special Education (CAISE) at the Faculty of Education in The University of Hong Kong. Additionally, he is Honorary Research Fellow at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society in University College London (UCL). He was recently awarded the Early Career Award in 2023/24 from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong for recognising his excellent achievements in research. In relation to his editorial positions, Kevin Tai is Associate Editor of The Language Learning Journal (ESCI-listed Journal; Routledge), Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (SSCI-listed Journal; Routledge) and Managing Guest Editor of Learning and Instruction (SSCI-listed Journal; Elsevier) . His research interests include: language education policy, classroom discourse, translanguaging in multilingual contexts and qualitative research methods (particularly Multimodal Conversation Analysis, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and Linguistic Ethnography). Kevin Tai is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA).