1 Introduction

Teaching English as a second or foreign language has tackled many issues from different perspectives including but not limited to L2 learners, methodologies of teaching, L2 teachers, contexts of learning, and more. One of the areas worth investigation is translanguaging practices inside the foreign language classes from teachers’ perspective. This research study focuses mainly on how different factors correlate explicitly or implicitly to the practices of translanguaging inside the foreign language classes.

Translanguaging as a practice inside the classes of second/foreign languages is no exception to the many learning practices that received criticisms from scholars of languages learning/acquisition. One of the main criticisms addresses the idea that considers the way of learning second/foreign languages is close to the way we acquired our first language (Hu, 2022, Santacruz & Gollan, 2021; Vijayadasan & Tomy, 2020). Accordingly, the majority of research studies prefer the monolingual way of teaching second/foreign languages; i.e. target-language policy only allowed inside the class. Thus, their point of view relates mainly to the goal of exposing learners to as much exposure as possible to the target language. However, the flipped side of the coin considers this way of prohibiting learners from any access to their mother tongue to have negative consequences particularly on beginner learners. They also claim that imposing only target-language policy is not practical nor rational.

The use of translanguaging appears to serve the teaching methodology of second/foreign languages which promotes the multilingualism compared to the dominant school of target-language policy only. It is interesting that this kind of approach has received great amount of attention from language learning scholars particularly on bilingual countries. However, the research gap is obvious here since this approach has not been around that long; as well as not much work has been done on how such practices take place inside the classes of language learning either from learners or teachers’ perspectives (Hu, 2022; Zhou & Mann, 2021). Therefore, this study came to address this gap and contribute to the fields of language learning/acquisition on foreign language contexts. Also, the implementing of technology on data analysis could reflect how such findings may impact different fields including education-information technology.

The Significance of the study emphasize on the lack of work in the area of translanguaging practices from teachers’ perspectives; and more precisely on the contributions of multi-levels analysis including multivariate, structure equation modeling and correlation analysis can improve and fortify the study’s findings. The significance of such study is about its originality and novel as my review of literature below suggests that there is no study ever has attempted such a way of analysis of translanguaging practices from teachers’ perspectives. Therefore, this study main objective is to explore this issue from inside trying to answer the following research questions:

  • How do different factors corelate with translanguaging practices in foreign language contexts from teachers’ perspectives?

  • Sub-questions:

    1. A.

      how do teachers assess the use of translanguaging by students and how does it impact motivation, learning interests and circumstances?

    2. B.

      what are the advantages of using translanguaging from the teachers’ perspectives on foreign language contexts; what are the concerns?

2 Literature review

The practice of translanguaging can enhance mutual understanding not only with the linguistic repertories of different languages; rather, it does the exact role within dialects of the same language, slang or everyday communications (Bareiss, 2021, Otheguy et al., 2015; Paulsrud, Tian, & Toth, 2021). According to Meuter et al. (2015), there is a similarity between the communication accommodation theory and translanguaging on the purpose of both which is to facilitate delivering the meaning efficiently (Meuter et al., 2015, cited in Bareiss, 2021).

Language alternation practices particularly translanguaging in our context here received a variety of standpoints either advantages or disadvantages of the implementation. Although the majority of scholarship on language alteration had a level of agreement about the existence of the positive and negative sides of translanguaging practices in class; however, it is rare to find a moderate view that could present the theoretical argument of translanguaging thoughtfully. Those who support the opposition of translanguaging use in second/foreign language classes usually emphasize their viewpoints on the negative influence of translanguaging on learners’ L2 oral fluency. On the other hand, the other group usually focus on how allowing translanguaging use in class would impact learners’ confidence, motivation and build anxiety-free environment for better learning outcomes. I believe in both of the group’s viewpoints above, however, the more realistic and practical analysis is to consider learning circumstances separately and meet learners’ needs as much as possible. Thus, no single analysis or explanation could cover all second/foreign language learners equally regardless of their major differences in their goals, learning environments, background knowledge, personality, etc.

According to Peregoy and Boyle (2013), the use of translanguaging has positive role on leaners’ confidence, security, and motivation which aid the learning process for both students and teachers (Peregoy and Boyle, 2013, cited in Subon and Tarmim, 2021). I included this study here to give attention to the existence of such studies that support the use of translanguaging regardless of the mainstream position which goes against this view in the last decades. More studies that go in line with Peregoy and Boyle include: Arumugam et al. (2017), Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, (2005), Barbu et al. (2020), and Subon and Tarmim (2021). The findings of previous studies were generally positive toward utilizing alteration between L1/L2 during class time. As a matter of fact, Barbu et al. (2020) indicated that the language alteration frequency is directly linked to interlocutors’ cognitive flexibility skills; moreover, Subon and Tarmim (2021) found that students perceived positively the use of translanguaging or code-switching during oral presentations. On the other hand, there still are some studies that see translanguaging as a barrier of second/foreign language fluency, and the practices of translanguaging inside the classes would limit learners’ exposure to the target language as well as that could lead to limited vocabulary of the target language due to language alteration practices during class time (Fareed et al., (2016; Sardar et al., (2015).

On the recent publications about how education and virtual reality impact each other, Rojas-Sánchez et al. (2023) conducted their study implementing a bibliometric analysis. Their findings confirmed growth of virtual reality technology within education; they also concluded about how centers of various kinds of education need to consider virtual reality “to solve many challenges, such as learning by experiencing and interacting with an environment, instead of passively receiving the information to be assimilated Rojas-Sánchez et al (2023). On the translanguaging side, Singleton et al. (2022) discussed how the practices of translanguaging may not consider significant individual learners’ differences or competencies. They also questioned the utilizing of translanguaging within minority language contexts; their conclusion stated that in order to recall the consistency and intelligibility a constant assessment of the perspective on which translanguaging is applied Singleton et al. (2022).

According to recent studies about the how different factors correlate to the practices of translanguaging, Hu (2022) used a cross-sectional approach on 335 learners of English as a foreign language; the finding concluded that English proficiency was the highest factor then content and motivation, whereas gender was no significant factor. Other studies go in line with the previous study including: Papaja and Wysocka-Narewska (2020); Campillo-Ferrer et al. (2020); Salvadori (2019); Bieri (2018); Zanoni (2018) they support translanguaging when it is functional such as explaining grammar and content knowledge, asking for clarification, motivating learners, etc.

Final thought about the gender factor and what kind of role does it take on this issue of translanguaging practice inside foreign language classes. Several studies have looked at the role gender plays on second/foreign language learning, however not many studies showed any correlation significance between gender and translanguaging practice. In fact, more studies indicated that there is no correlation between gender and translanguaging practice (Burat & Çavuşoğlu, 2020; Joyce et al., 2021, Hu, 2022). This finding supports the need for more investigation to address this gap in the current study from teachers’ perspective. Thus, the selection to investigate this issue from teachers’ perception is due to the significant role teachers play on improving foreign language learning process as well as the abovementioned lack of research from this standpoint (Hu, 2022; Zhou & Mann, 2021).

3 Methods

3.1 Data collection

The study was conducted entirely using a quantitative approach to elicit study’s data through a questionnaire which was distributed and answered by teachers of English as a foreign language. The use of questionnaire as data collection tool is very common among research of exploring participants’ perceptions. In the area of L2 learning/acquisition, a questionnaire tool is also widely used by researchers in the field. The idea of using a questionnaire is highly practical from different perspectives; i.e. a questionnaire often can be approached and administered easily by both participants and researchers as well as it can also provide comparable information. The questionnaire was designed using Likert-Scale items and distributed to the teachers; it consists of 23 questions with a Likert scale of 1 (always), 2 (often), 3 (sometimes), 4 (rarely), and 5 and (never) for the first two variables and we used the same scale for other variables, 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree), and 5 and (disagree).

3.2 Participants

Before filling out the questionnaire, participants had to submit their consent form. After filling out the consent form, the participants were moved to the first section which contained some questions about their demographic and personal information. They were asked about their age, gender, etc. then they were moved to the second part of the questionnaire which was a Likert-type scale. The total number of participants in this study who completed the questionnaire were two hundred and sixty English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. The data analysis was done addressing variety of factors to answer research questions; namely they include: gender, teaching experience, and academic rank; more details on the data analysis part below.

3.3 Data analysis

The data were analyzed using SPSS. The internal consistency of the collected data was checked. The questionnaire contained 23 items on a five-point Likert scale; i.e., strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree) whose Cronbach’s alpha was 0.781. as show on table# 1. It has also given the Reliability Statistics Table which provides the value for Cronbach alpha which in this case is 0.774 and reflects the high reliability of the measuring instrument. Hence, with the fulfilment of all reliability and validity conditions, the confirmatory factor analysis model is effective for assessing the Teachers translanguaging practices correlation variables.

Table 1 Reliability Statistics
Full size table

The test was considered valid due to the compatibility between what was supposed to be measured with what it precisely measured. It also had acceptable inter-rater reliability, with Cohen’s kappa coefficient being 0.79.

Pearson’s correlation coefficient was measured to specify the direction and strength of the association between the dependent variable (DV) and independent variables (IVs). Correlation analysis, structural equation modeling, and multiple regression analysis were also run to identify if the DV could be predicted based on the IVs.

Table 2 Validity Test and reliability test
Full size table

Validity concerns:

Discriminant Validity: the square root of the AVE for Perspective is less than the absolute value of the correlations with another factor.

Convergent Validity: the AVE for Interest is less than 0.50 (Table 2).

3.4 Descriptive statistics

Table 3. shows that the frequency of each independent variable count, and the total count is 260.

Table 3 Descriptive Statistics Analysis
Full size table

The mean of gender is 1.47, It shows that male participants are more than female. The mean of academics’ ranks is 3.56, which shows that most of participants are lecturers. The mean of First Language use is 1.41 which shows that most participants use Arabic as their first language. The mean of teaching experiences period is 1.20 which shows that the most of participants have more than 5 years of experience.

It can be shown that whose Teaching experience has more than 5 years, whose 1st.

language is Arabic, and whose academic rank has assistant professor and lecture have significant correlation and more usage of translanguaging practice as shown on Table 4. below.

Table 4 Correlation between the Gender, Experience, Rank, and Usage of translanguaging
Full size table

We can see that there is positive correlation between the variables except teaching experience has negative relation.

3.4.1 Structural equation model using SPSS AMOS

Structural Equation modelling On Practice of Translanguaging.

Minimum was achieved in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Structure equation model

Full size image

Chi-square = 640.657.

Degrees of freedom = 215.

Probability level = 0.000.

Regression Weights: (Group number 1 - Default model)

   

Estimate

S.E.

C.R.

P

Label

Q8

<---

Interest

1.000

    

Q7

<---

Interest

1.022

0.146

6.987

***

par_1

Q6

<---

Interest

1.615

0.193

8.374

***

par_2

Q14

<---

Perspective

1.000

    

Q13

<---

Perspective

0.945

0.078

12.183

***

par_3

Q12

<---

Perspective

0.904

0.082

11.088

***

par_4

Q21

<---

Advantages

1.000

    

Q20

<---

Advantages

0.931

0.061

15.267

***

par_5

Q19

<---

Advantages

0.641

0.070

9.208

***

par_6

Q4

<---

Usage

1.000

    

Q3

<---

Usage

1.139

0.099

11.503

***

par_7

Q2

<---

Usage

1.007

0.090

11.142

***

par_8

Q1

<---

Usage

0.883

0.081

10.863

***

par_9

Q5

<---

Usage

0.993

0.085

11.752

***

par_10

Q17

<---

Concern

1.000

    

Q16

<---

Concern

0.824

0.053

15.528

***

par_17

Q15

<---

Concern

0.905

0.053

17.137

***

par_18

Q18

<---

Concern

0.903

0.064

14.180

***

par_19

Q11

<---

Outclass

1.000

    

Q10

<---

Outclass

0.967

0.068

14.303

***

par_24

Q9

<---

Outclass

0.970

0.064

15.049

***

par_25

Q22

<---

Advantages

0.857

0.060

14.275

***

par_31

Q23

<---

Advantages

0.977

0.059

16.484

***

par_32

Chi-Square Test of the overall Structural Equation Model.

According to chi test form the above table at is the significance of the Chi-Square test. This test gives p-value.

Regression Coefficients of the Structural Equation Model.

The latent variables Advantages, translanguaging use, teachers Perspectives, Concerns, have the highest coefficient (1.00). The P-values of the independent latent variables is > 0.05. each of the independent latent variables is shown to have an impact on Translanguaging practice.

4 Discussion and conclusion

This research studied the perceptions of English language teachers in a foreign language context about the use of translanguaging during class time and the pros and cons on both teachers and learners. The findings were in line with the research hypothesis that there was a positive correlation between independent variables namely gender and the same first language between teachers and learners with the use of translanguaging, whereas the teaching experience variable showed no correlation with the use of translanguaging in class of English as a foreign language. This result is interesting as it shows variance with the results of other studies such as Burat and Çavuşoğlu (2020); Joyce et al., (2021), Hu (2022) which showed no correlation between gender and translanguaging use.

One of the concluded remarks this research found was regarding the overall positive attitude of the participants towards the use of translanguaging in English classes. It was obvious that the majority of the study’s participants expressed their agreement with translanguaging use during classes of English as a foreign language. Accordingly, such finding was not surprising since several studies in the literature above reached similar conclusions. One of the possible explanations of this result could be due to the sampling of participants; i.e. most of the participants at this research came from one background and have similar first language. Moreover, this finding was in line with previous research studies such as (Hultgren et al., 2014; Kuteeva, 2014; Haidar & Fang, 2019; and Mustafawi et al., 2022). Some of these studies explained this finding as a result of poor knowledge and vocabulary of academic English among learners. Another group of the previous studies which supported translanguaging include Campillo-Ferrer et al. (2020); Salvadori (2019); Bieri (2018); Zanoni (2018) who found translanguaging practice is useful when it is functional such as explaining grammar and content knowledge, asking for clarification, motivating learners, etc.

Another note which worth more elaboration about the findings in the current research study was whether those perceptions towards translanguaging practices have any relation with the level of leaners’ English proficiency? It is true that the participants in this study were English teachers; therefore, their English proficiency is expected to be at high levels. However, since the classes they are teaching were below intermediate levels, then this point is worth more investigations. As a matter of fact, previous studies have indicated a significant correlation of the level of English proficiency (Bukve, 2018; cited in Mustafawi et al., 2022).