Funds of knowledge for synchronous online language teaching: a translanguaging view on an ESL teacher’s pedagogical practices

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the integration of synchronous online teaching tools in language teaching. Recent research has explored how second language (L2) teachers utilise available resources to engage students’ learning within the virtual learning space. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of research exploring how L2 teachers bring in different funds of knowledge to connect the teaching of specific aspects of the L2 with some broader social-cultural issues and/or values. Further research is necessary to explore how the teaching of specific sociocultural values and beliefs is achieved through translanguaging, with the aim of enriching students’ L2 learning experiences. This study adopts translanguaging as an analytical perspective and investigates how different funds of knowledge are being incorporated into the online teaching processes in order to mediate the student’s L2 English learning and promote specific sociocultural values and beliefs to the student. Multimodal Conversation Analysis is used to analyse the online classroom data and the analysis is triangulated with the video-stimulated-recall-interview that is analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings demonstrate that the online language classroom is a virtual translanguaging space which affords classroom participants to bring with them diverse funds of knowledge for constructing new knowledge in online classrooms, bridging the gap between L2 learning and everyday life experience and promoting certain values and beliefs, as well as facts and practices, in the online classroom.