The aim of this study was to investigate how much and when newly-arrived students on the Language Introduction Program at a high school use their multilingualism in the classroom when learning English. I wanted to investigate this to see if the students were too dependent on their L1 during their English lessons that they forgot to use English, a core subject in Swedish schools that they need to be proficient in. One part of the study was about students’ own answers about how much and when they use their multilingualism in English class. The other part of the study was about how students of different immigrant backgrounds and different L1s collaborate with each other when learning English. To gain an understanding of this part of the study a classroom observation was carried out.
First, the answers to the questionnaire revealed that most students sometimes used their L1 as help in class mostly when they worked with vocabulary and writing. The students also used their L1 in class when they needed to translate Swedish words that were translated from English into Swedish. The results also showed that a large number of students said that their English teacher sometimes asked them to use their L1 when they needed to translate words and sentences. Even if the teacher sometimes asked the students to use their L1 in class this showed that the teacher tried and wanted the students to see that their multilingualism is something positive in the classroom and should be utilized.
Second, the classroom observation revealed that the groups with shared L1s, used their L1 when they worked with the text. The language that dominated in a group with mixed L1s, including two minority languages was Swedish. At the same time, the classroom observation even if it was carried out with only three groups showed that students who shared L1 used L1 to understand the target language, while the group with mixed L1s used Swedish, their L2, as help to understand the foreign language.
The results from the student questionnaire and the classroom observation revealed that there are advantages with translanguaging. When students used translanguaging in English class it helped them to understand different parts of the lesson. But, for every benefit, there is a corresponding challenge. Even though translanguaging is a resource in learning a target language it is also important to bear in mind the challenges with translanguaging. When students depend too much on their L1 in English class, their learning and understanding of the target language will develop slowly, and they would not have the ability or the confidence to learn the target language, particularly if students are studying English at the upper intermediate level or an advanced level.
Being multilingual is a wonderful asset, and it helps students to understand and learn a new language, but as soon as a student starts using the target language the better. It is also very important that the teacher controls the language in the classroom to remind the students they have an English lesson and they must practice using English. For the students to be proficient in English or any other language, they must use it in class.
In the future, a bigger classroom observation with more mixed-language groups working together with writing would be interesting to investigate. It would be interesting to find out whether using L1 can be shown to have positive results for acquisition of a target language, but also how teachers experience and use students’ multilingualism in English class.
2021.