Shifting beliefs and practices on translanguaging in an online master’s programme

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present action research on translanguaging beliefs and practices in an online graduate education programme. The focal course is a master’s programme in an English-medium university in Kazakhstan, a country with two official languages (Kazakh and Russian), a trilingual education policy to develop proficiency in English alongside Russian and Kazakh, and a history of mixing Russian and Kazakh languages. The focal course shifted to an online teaching mode in Fall 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis. The author has analysed data from a Zoom recording of a class lecture and a post-course anonymous survey to identify students’ beliefs and shifts in beliefs, along with influences on those beliefs. The findings suggest there are a constellation of influences online and offline that contribute to the positions and movement of student beliefs along different continua about translanguaging. One unique online contribution may be workshops and seminars in distant locales that might not otherwise be accessible for students face-to-face. Regardless of modality, providing active models of pedagogical translanguaging is recommended in future professional development courses.