Raising multilingual learners’ awareness of social justice through translanguaging pedagogy

Abstract

This paper outlines a small-scale intervention plan designed to assess the awareness levels of multilingual learners in an English for Academic Purposes class concerning social justice issues and to examine the potential for increasing their awareness of injustices through pedagogical translanguaging for social change. This mixed-method study involved 59 participants who were initially assessed using a pretest comprising open-ended questions and a Likert scale questionnaire. Subsequently, an intervention plan was implemented over seven weeks, involving the use of news, videos, and inclass and out-of-class forum discussions conducted in both English and the learners' native languages. A posttest, with minor modifications from the pretest, was administered to 40 of the participants to assess changes in their perspectives. The findings indicate that more than half of the learners already possessed some awareness of the term; however, engaging in classroom discussions on social issues improved their conceptual understanding and heightened their awareness of diversity, equity, and injustices. Furthermore, translanguaging was found to be an effective tool in facilitating their comprehension and discussions of these topics.