Students’ Perceptions of the Impacts of Lecturer Translanguaging on EMI Lecture Comprehension
Authors
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine students’ perceptions of the impacts of lecturers’ translanguaging practices on students’ lecture comprehension in English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) classes. This mixed-methods study collected questionnaire data from 70 students at a university in Hanoi, Vietnam, followed by semi-structured interviews with five participants. The findings indicated that translanguaging generally supports lecture comprehension micro-skills at the intermediate proficiency level, including lexical and conceptual understanding, inferential comprehension, functional language comprehension, and adaptation to speech rate. However, the spontaneous use of translanguaging was perceived to compromise lexical and conceptual understanding as it decreased exposure to English and diverted learners’ attention from lecture content. The current study highlights the benefits of pedagogical translanguaging practices in EMI classrooms as well as the need for its strategic use to maximize the comprehension support.
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