Teachers’ Perspectives on Translanguaging in a CLIL Language Course in a Japanese University

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been gaining popularity especially in Asia in recent years, and translanguaging has been incorporated in some CLIL classrooms (e.g., Nikula & Moore, 2019). In this presentation, I share findings from a case study that explores the experience and perspectives of students and teachers in a new CLIL course for both Japanese and English learners which incorporates the translanguaging pedagogy. Particularly, in this presentation, I focus on the teachers' perspectives on translanguaging. The study took place in a private university in Japan which offers a bilingual education. The university offers English and Japanese language programs, and this course was developed by a collaborative effort by English and Japanese language teachers. The course is unique in that it is the only dual-language based class in the language programs, draws upon translingual practices for all of the students across the class, and was developed and co-taught by both Japanese and English teachers. The presentation draws on interview data of 5 teachers who were involved in the development and implementation of the course. The findings of the study are generated through thematic analysis and suggest that while some teachers see the benefits of translanguaging and CLIL in students' learning, some doubt the usefulness of translanguaging and CLIL, and prefer a more traditional style of language education. I will discuss some challenges of developing a new type of language course as well as implications for researchers and teachers who advocate a new type of language course.