If the goal is to learn a target language, 

does allowing other languages in the classroom defeat that purpose?

Witchuda Chaisong

This question frequently comes up when I present my work on translanguaging. It typically comes from teachers who genuinely care about their students’ progress and wonder how a target language can be effectively learned if it is not the only language used. On the surface, this concern makes sense. At a deeper level, however, it reflects assumptions about how languages are learned and taught.

I grew up in a multilingual household in Thailand, with an Isan mother and a father from the lesser-known Korat Thai ethnic group. In my community, we moved fluidly between Isan, Thai and other varieties in everyday conversation, often without noticing. For us, it felt like one unified repertoire. What mattered was understanding. Correctness developed over time, and meaning-making was not blocked by rigid rules. I only became aware of this dynamic when I was bullied in school for mixing languages. That experience led me to one question: am I being told that my entire community has been using our languages incorrectly all along, across generations? That felt like an attack on the way my family and community spoke. This experience sparked my interest in how multilingual learners use their languages to learn and continues to inform my work as a researcher and ESL instructor in postsecondary education.

In this article, I introduce the concept of translanguaging and draw on my observations and teaching experience to explore what this question reveals about how we understand language, learning and what counts as legitimate communication in the classroom.

Translanguaging, known in Welsh as trawsieithu in bilingual education (Williams, 1994; Baker, 2001), originally described classroom practices in which students used more than one language to support learning, such as reading in one language and writing in another. The concept has since been expanded by scholars in applied linguistics. Canagarajah (2011) highlights how multilingual speakers move flexibly across languages to communicate and participate in academic contexts. In classrooms, students may naturally combine their languages to express ideas, solve problems and engage with content. Recognizing this practice can help teachers support participation and deeper understanding and invites us to reconsider whether keeping languages separate reflects how communication works in real life.

Otheguy et al. (2015) define translanguaging as the use of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without strict adherence to socially and politically defined language boundaries. In other words, students draw on all of their language resources to make meaning without treating languages as separate systems, for example when they feel they should “stay in one language.” This perspective positions students’ linguistic abilities as resources for learning rather than something to control and challenges the idea that languages must be kept separate for learning to be effective. Li (2018) further conceptualizes translanguaging as a broader, multimodal process of meaning-making that includes not only language but also other semiotic resources such as gestures, visuals, tone and symbols. This conceptualization suggests that students can demonstrate understanding in multiple ways.

In theory, many scholars agree that translanguaging supports both language development and learners’ identities. In practice, however, a number of questions and challenges continue to emerge in multilingual classrooms, such as the one raised earlier.

When I hear this question, another question immediately comes to mind: why is the use of other languages often viewed as problematic in target language learning? This perspective seems to assume that the only “correct” way to learn a language is to use that language exclusively, often leading to attempts to minimize the use of other languages in the classroom. While it may be possible to “control” how students use the target language by enforcing a target-language-only policy, teachers cannot determine whether students draw on their first language internally to process and make sense of new ideas.

Based on my observations, one underlying concern seems to be that students will rely too much on their first language instead of using the target language. It is a valid concern and reflects how much teachers care about their students’ progress. However, this concern often overlooks the reality that students are still developing their proficiency and may not yet have the vocabulary and language structures to express complex ideas in the target language. As one of my students once explained, “By looking up the vocabulary in English and [using it] in my own language, I was able to understand it better and participate more actively in class.” In such cases, restricting the use of other languages does not necessarily lead to more effective learning—it can limit it.

In fact, for many beginner learners, a target-language-only policy can lead to communication breakdowns, with conversations ending prematurely due to limited vocabulary and language structures. It may also create pressure and anxiety, reduce students’ willingness to take risks with language and discourage participation. These challenges raise an important question: if you know your students can explain their ideas in more complex ways in their first language, would you rather have them simplify their thinking, reduce nuance and communicate only what their current target language proficiency allows in order to comply with a target-language-only expectation?

From my perspective, what matters is that students are actively making meaning and engaging with others whether in one language or across languages. Silence does not lead to language development—communication does. At the same time, allowing only the target language sends an unintended message: that some languages are more valuable than others. Over time, students may internalize the idea that their home languages are not welcome in the classroom even though those languages are closely tied to their identity.

In practice, such restrictions are difficult to enforce. Students do not leave their languages at the classroom door. They carry them with them, drawing on them to think, make meaning and connect ideas whether or not they are welcome. When these resources are not acknowledged openly, they do not disappear. Instead, they are often used in less visible ways. Students may perform the use of the target language when the teacher is watching, only to return to their first language the moment the teacher turns away. This kind of dynamic is not built on openness and trust. Instead, it turns learning into a performance shaped by compliance and monitoring rather than genuine engagement as the very people who are meant to understand how language learning happens—teachers—may overlook how it actually unfolds in practice.

There is often a gap between the complexity of students’ ideas and what they can express in the target language. If learning is reduced to what can be observed in the target language, what might we be missing? As a teacher and researcher, I value those moments when I can see students working freely across languages and drawing on all the linguistic resources they have to make meaning without having to worry about slipping into their first language. That moment, to me, is where learning is happening whether it is in one language or across languages.

References

Baker, C. (2001). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (3rd ed.). Multilingual Matters.

Canagarajah, S. (2011). Codemeshing in academic writing: Identifying teachable strategies of translanguaging. The Modern Language Journal, 95(3), 401–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01207.x

Li, W. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amx039

Otheguy, R., García, O., & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review, 6(3), 281–307. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2015-0014

Williams, C. (1994). Arfarniad o ddulliau dysgu ac addysgu yng nghyd-destun addysg uwchradd ddwyieithog [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Wales, Bangor.

Bio

Witchuda Chaisong is a PhD student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and an ESL instructor in postsecondary education. She was born in Thailand, is of Isan background and later immigrated to Norway. Having received education across Thailand, Norway and the United States, she draws on these diverse educational contexts to inform her research on emotion and culture in second language education.