Translanguaging practices in the teaching of French as a foreign language in Malta

Abstract

This study reviews beliefs related to translanguaging activities in the French as a Foreign Language (FFL) classroom and suggests cultural reasons why some condemn the concomitant use of previously learnt languages with the target language in FFL learning contexts. A corpus analysis of two Maltese FFL teachers’ recorded lessons attempts a structural categorisation of translanguaging instances according to the classification of classroom translanguaging in Causa (1998). It sheds light on the functions that translanguaging is made to fulfil in the Maltese FFL classroom, in comparison to those proposed mainly in Maarfia (2008). The results are compared to Maltese FFL teachers’ statements about their views on translanguaging in a recently administered questionnaire (Bezzina, 2016). Basic statistics reveal that the target language is often far from being the dominant language in the FFL classroom, and that learner talk is hardly encouraged in any language. Observations are interpreted in the light of possible practical factors of influence on translanguaging in the FFL classroom, as proposed in Molander (2004).