Translanguaging in higher education: exploring interactional spaces for meaning-making in the multilingual universities of Pakistan

In the multilingual contexts such as Pakistan, English as the only medium of instruction poses challenges for adequate teaching and learning at the university level. Our study aimed to explore teachers' translanguaging practices at the university level. We attempted to understand why teachers translanguaged and how they perceived the impacts of translanguaging in their English medium classrooms. By employing a mixed-methods design, we firstly observed classes and then interviewed teachers. This qualitative phase was followed by a questionnaire survey. Class observations suggested that the practice of translanguaging provided an interactional space to both teachers and students for creating and understanding meaning of their interactions. The analysis of interviews and questionnaire survey confirmed that translanguaging promoted meaningful communication in classes. Teachers believed that they could easily communicate their ideas when they taught by employing translanguaging as a strategy. They held that practicing translanguaging in the class resulted in developing students' interest in lectures too. We discuss pertinent implications in the light of findings.