Marrying task‐based language teaching and translanguaging: A curriculum‐level case study of a Chinese Tier‐3 vocational university

Abstract

This qualitative case study examines the pedagogically sequenced, complementary deployment of task‐based language teaching (TBLT) and translanguaging within the ESP curriculum of a Chinese Tier‐3 vocational university. Rather than proposing a fully fused theoretical model, the study reframes translanguaging not as an alternative to TBLT but as a phase‐bound mediational resource embedded within a restructured three‐phase task cycle at ECVTU. Distinguished from ad hoc code‐switching, translanguaging functioned as conceptual scaffolding during pre‐task planning, covert affective regulation during performance, and metalinguistic reflection during debriefing. Drawing on 48 h of classroom recordings, stimulated‐recall interviews, and student artefacts, the findings suggest that strategically bounded translanguaging can enhance self‐efficacy and L2 complexity without displacing TBLT's core psycholinguistic demands, while accountability tools mitigated emergent ‘comfort traps’. By drawing on recent research, the study outlines a provisional Synergistic Task Cycle Template aligned with Tylerian sequencing and vocational workplace realities. The paper contributes not a unified theoretical integration but a context‐sensitive, practice‐oriented account of how two established frameworks can be pedagogically coordinated to address curricular misalignment in applied higher education.