Translanguaging as a vehicle for L2 acquisition and L1 development : students’ perceptions

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Date

2016-07

Authors

Carstens, Adelia

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Routledge

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to report on a project aimed at exploring the use of translanguaging as a strategy to support bi-/multilingual students in acquiring academic literacy in English while promoting the terminologisation of African languages through exploratory scientific talk. The topic is contextualised by juxtaposing multilingualism as a problem with multilingualism as a resource. This is followed by a discussion of translanguaging as an alternative to monolingual education. An overview is given of a number of empirical studies on translanguaging conducted in South Africa during the past 15 years. Subsequently, I discuss a research project that elicited students’ opinions about translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy. Speakers of eight African languages, including Afrikaans, experienced cognitive and affective benefits. Despite some reservations, they also considered translanguaging to be a useful platform for creating technical terms in African languages, and were positive about future use

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Keywords

Academic literacy, L1 development, L2 acquisition, Multilingualism, Terminologisation, Translanguaging

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Adelia Carstens (2016) Translanguaging as a vehicle for L2 acquisition and L1 development: students’ perceptions, Language Matters, 47:2, 203-222, DOI: 10.1080/10228195.2016.1153135.