Ecological Approaches to Language Education: Translanguaging in the Algerian EFL Classroom

The present paper reports on the findings of a study investigating the validity and feasibility of translanguaging as a potential alternative pedagogical practice in the Algerian EFL classroom. Translanguaging represents the discursive practices whereby multilingual learners employ all their linguistic repertoire as well as a modern multilingual pedagogy where all the language resources of the learner are exploited to maximize learning. Despite being a multilingual country, the Algerian educational system is still lacking in terms of language teaching pedagogies which embrace the linguistic diversity of the learners. Before implementing such inclusive pedagogies, a survey of their validity and feasibility in terms of human and material resources in our context is needed. It is in this vein that this research tried to capture the perspectives of ten Middle School teachers of English regarding the extent to which can translanguaging be adopted to teach English to young learners in public schools. The issue was approached from a socio-cultural lens and the data was collected using semi-structured interviews. The outcomes of this research reveal that the participants are, to a large extent, in favor of adopting translanguaging as a valid pedagogy for teaching and learning. However, its feasibility seems to be limited due to various social and political constraints making its implementation highly challenging as it requires the collaboration of all the parts involved in the teaching and learning continuum.