Exploring translanguaging practices in synchronous and asynchronous online-instructed first-year academic literacy interventions

Abstract

While studies in translanguaging pedagogy – intermixing languages fluidly for meaning-making to learn and teach – have focused on understanding its efficacy and viability in promoting learning success in multilingual contexts worldwide, learning through online platforms is becoming increasingly popular. However, little information exists on creating translanguaging spaces for multilingual students in digitally mediated literacy learning in English-monolingual-oriented African university settings. The current study investigates how online resources can be harnessed for first-year translanguaging literacy pedagogy interventions using linguistically fluid, online methods to develop academic reading-for-writing in a university in South Africa, where multilingualism is a norm, but English dominates. The study investigated the productive use and efficacy of translanguaging practices online by adopting a mixed-methods approach with a test design to explore digital-based translingual literacy pedagogy. The quasi-experimental research draws on sociocultural, connectivism and translanguaging fluidity frameworks. Results show that translanguaging in digitalised literacy education, which involves the added flexibility of connectivism in online learning, is effective and improves academic literacy performance. Findings affirm that online translanguaging can enhance the understanding, summarising and paraphrasing of complex theoretical concepts from academic English texts, and is a valuable asset that can help students in online multilingual classrooms develop academic literacy.