Translanguaging Pedagogy in the ESL Classroom: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The effects of technological advancements, globalization and social progress has enabled researchers and teachers to rediscover and innovate methods of English Language Teaching (ELT) to English as a Second Language (ESL) learners worldwide where more non-native speakers of English who identified as bilinguals or multilinguals enroll in English language classes to develop essential skills for international communication. Yet, teachers in ESL education stand by standardized and classic ELT methodology to teach all types of learners with strong emphasis on English-only use in the classroom in hopes of producing competent users of the English language. This long standing point of view has continually ignored bilingual and multilingual learners’ potentials of learning a target language (L2) more effectively by accessing all linguistic resources from their first language (L1) or other familiar languages as a unified system through the practice of translanguaging. Therefore, this systematic literature review paper intends to explore the extent of current researches on translanguaging as an ESL pedagogy or ELT then highlight the potentials, considerations and trends of teaching and learning ESL with translingualism. A total 14 empirical journal articles related to the teaching practice were analysed to find out patterns in relevant research aims or purposes, research settings, research participants’ education and multilingual backgrounds, research designs and data analysis used and considerations for ESL translanguaging pedagogy. This paper serves as a guide for ESL educators and researchers on the current use of translanguaging for developing ESL skills productively as well as recommendations for future research.