Chinese Primary School Students’ Translanguaging in EFL Classrooms: What is It and Why is It Needed?

This paper reports on a qualitative study of 35 Chinese primary school students’ needs of translanguaging in English classrooms where speaking Chinese is officially not favored. The author collected data through classroom observation, audio recordings, field notes, and semi-structured interviews. The analysis revealed that driven by the unknown and known things, the young Chinese students naturally alternated between Chinese and English out of two types of needs: 1) to accomplish in class learning tasks such as comprehending new content and producing complete sentences in English; and 2) to freely express themselves including describing their ability, sharing stories and explaining how they comprehend new knowledge. The first type is the basis for the young learners to continue to engage in learning and follow their teachers while the second type shows a more dynamic and flexible translanguaging. Translanguaging as a means of mediation is a way of knowing and a way of expressing for the young language learners. The findings inspire language teachers, educators, and policymakers to reexamine the English-only instruction policy in English as a Foreign Language classrooms and to gain a better understanding of translingual practices from learners’ perspectives.