Translanguaging to enhance reading comprehension among first-year medical students

Abstract

Since the turn of the century there has been an increase in the use of translanguaging in multilingual learning contexts. Many researchers have shown how translanguaging enhances multilingual students’ ability to understand academic content. This experimental study provides empirical evidence that translanguaging can enhance reading comprehension. An experimental group and a control group were used to establish whether there was a significant difference between the performances of the two groups after reading an academic text. Using the t-test analysis, the results show a significant difference in the performance of the control group and the experimental group. These findings prompt us to conclude that translanguaging is an effective strategy that enhances reading comprehension.