Exploring language teacher agency in translanguaging within content and third language integrated learning classrooms

Abstract

Research on translanguaging in content and language integrated learning(CLIL) and English-medium instruction (EMI) has increasingly examined teachers’ beliefs and practices, yet these dimensions are generally studied separately despite evidence of belief–practice incongruence. Less is known about teacher translanguaging agency in higher-education CLIL classrooms taught through languages other than English (LOTEs), where students learn content through a later-developed third language (L3). This study conceptualizes LOTE teachers’ translanguaging agency as a belief–action configuration that encompasses lesson preparation, classroom teaching, and post-class support. Based on interviews with and classroom observations of 12 LOTE teachers in Chinese higher education, the study identifies three patterns of agency: proactive, constrained, and passive. Ecological analysis shows that these patterns are mediated by individual resources, including prior experiences, present competences and identities, future aspiration, as well as by social conditions, such as collegial communication, student characteristics, institutional policies, and technological affordances. The study offers a non-binary, ecologically grounded account of teacher translanguaging agency and extends translanguaging-oriented pedagogy to underexplored LOTE/L3 CLIL contexts.