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This article explores university English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors’ attitudes toward translanguaging in the classroom and possible reasons for instructors’ resistance in moving translanguaging ideology into English language teaching pedagogy. Many researchers have forwarded translanguaging as a theoretical and pedagogical approach to language education because of its potential cognitive, social, and affective benefits. A translanguaging pedagogy calls for instructors to affirm the dynamic and diverse language practices that multilingual students utilize as part of their unitary language repertoire. However, because English-only pedagogies, policies, and practices still permeate the ESL classroom, it is critical to understand how ESL instructors’ language ideologies and orientations play a role in shaping their pedagogical practices and classroom language policies. Using Ruíz’s orientations in language planning and translanguaging theory, this study examined the language orientations of five ESL instructors at a major Canadian university based on qualitative data gathered through semistructured interviews. The findings provide insights into instructors’ attitudes toward translanguaging, the relationship between instructors’ language learning experiences and their classroom language policy, and institutional opportunities and constraints. Le présent article explore les attitudes des professeurs d’anglais langue seconde (ESL) au niveau universitaire face au translangagisme en salle de classe ainsi que les raisons possibles de leur résistance à l’introduction de l’idéologie translangagière dans la pédagogie de l’enseignement de l’anglais. De nombreux travaux de recherche renvoient au translangagisme comme démarche théorique et pédagogique d’enseignement des langues en raison de ses avantages cognitifs, sociaux et affectifs. La pédagogie translangagière invite les professeurs à soutenir le dynamisme et la diversité des pratiques langagières que les étudiantes et étudiants multilingues utilisent déjà dans le cadre de leur répertoire linguistique unitaire. Toutefois, puisque l’enseignement de l’anglais langue seconde en classe reste imprégné de pédagogies, de politiques, et de pratiques exclusivement anglophones, il est essentiel de comprendre le rôle que jouent les idéologies et les orientations des professeurs d’anglais langue seconde dans la formation de leurs pratiques pédagogiques et de leurs politiques d’enseignement en classe. S’inspirant des orientations de Ruíz en matière de planification langagière et de théorie translangagière, la présente étude examine les orientations linguistiques de cinq professeures et professeurs d’anglais langue seconde dans une grande université canadienne à l’aide de données qualitatives recueillies dans le cadre d’entrevues semi-structurées. Les conclusions de l’enquête aident à mieux comprendre les attitudes des professeurs face au translangagisme, la relation entre les expériences d’apprentissage langagier des professeurs, et leur politique langagière en classe ainsi que les possibilités et les contraintes institutionnelles.

The translanguaging turn in language education offers a new perspective on multilingualism by positing that multilingual learners have one linguistic repertoire rather than two or more autonomous language systems (García, O. & L. Wei. 2014. Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Palgrave MacMillan). When learners engage in translanguaging, they draw on all the features from their repertoire in a flexible and integrated way (Otheguy, R., O. García & W Reid. 2015. Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6(3). 281–307. DOI:10.1515/applirev-2015-0014). While much of the current literature on language teaching advocates teachers’ use of pedagogical translanguaging, less research has focused on the pedagogical affordances of student-led translanguaging, especially in contexts with dominant monolingual norms. This paper presents the results of a case study exploring the affordances of translanguaging in two multilingual Grade 5 English language classrooms in Malaysia where English-only policies and practices were enforced by the teachers, but where translanguaging was used agentively by learners during their peer-to-peer interactions. The primary data sources for this six-month-long study included 100 30–90 min-long video recordings of 55 learners working together in small groups on various collaborative language learning activities, and member-checking interviews with the learners. The study was grounded in sociocultural theory and translanguaging, and employed a methodology of sociocultural discourse analysis. The results of the analysis revealed that in both classrooms, learners resisted the English-only policies and practices by using translanguaging widely and strategically throughout their collaborative peer-to-peer interactions. The use of translanguaging fulfilled 100 important cognitive-conceptual, planning-organizational, affective-social and linguistic-discursive functions that supported their individual and collective learning. The results of this study provide us with a view of translanguaging as collaborative and agentive, socioculturally situated and culturally responsive, and a resource for learning as well as a process of learning. The study makes recommendations for a language learning pedagogy that creates opportunities for learners to move language policies from the ground up through their collaborative use of translanguaging.

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