Enhancing multilingual young students’ pragmatic awareness through pedagogical translanguaging

Abstract

Given the limited number of studies investigating pragmatics and multilingualism in primary education, the present study analyses the influence of multilingual instruction, referring to pedagogical translanguaging, on multilingual young learners’ pragmatic awareness, paying particular attention to the sociopragmatic dimension of the speech act of requesting. The sample consisted of 28 primary school students from a multilingual school in the province of Castelló (Valencian Community), where three languages (Catalan, Spanish, and English) are used as languages of instruction. Participants were asked to complete a pre- and post-test on multilingual pragmatic awareness of requests before and after receiving multilingual pragmatic instruction. Using computer-animated scenarios created with Nawmal software, the treatment included three sessions focused on the sociopragmatic dimension of requests through pedagogical translanguaging. Data were coded and analysed using the SPSS programme. The results from the paired sample t-tests showed that students’ sociopragmatic awareness improved after the instructional treatment. Thus, in our small-scale study, pedagogical translanguaging was found to be beneficial for the development of young students’ pragmatic awareness. In conclusion, we believe that using learners’ whole language repertoire through a multilingual teaching approach, such as pedagogical translanguaging, may provide a rich environment for enhancing students’ understanding and awareness of pragmatic issues.