Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions

Abstract This paper explores how beginners in a second language (L2) perform on and perceive an online writing test that is designed based on the notion of translanguaging. The test was administered during emergency remote teaching when many L2 courses navigated creative solutions to online testing. Situated in an ab initio Mandarin Chinese course in New Zealand, 163 students’ first-time digital compositions in Chinese and responses to an immediate follow-up survey on their translanguaging practices were analysed as part of evaluating a new assessment design. Students’ digital compositions demonstrated purposeful translanguaging in assessment conditions, judiciously negotiating their existing linguistic knowledge when completing the task. The writing assessment showed augmented task completion when learners’ trans-semiotic repertoires were recognised as a legitimate resource for identity expression. The survey found that most students supported the creative design that integrated digital multimodal composition and translanguaging, replacing the monolingually-focused handwriting-based test tasks. Some students were sceptical of the translanguaging approach and found it unexpected, unnecessary, and inauthentic. The study suggests that L2 writing test design might incorporate translanguaging as a creative and transformative assessment facet to genuinely engage beginning learners in meaningful writing tasks when their proficiency level is limited.