A Study on Translanguaging Practice for Improving EFL Students’ Intercultural Competence in College English Classroom

Abstract

This qualitative study investigates how translanguaging functions as a mediating tool in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classrooms to foster Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). Employing a multiple-case study design, the research collected data through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis across two university-level EFL courses in China. The analysis reveals two core findings: first, translanguaging acts as a vital cognitive-semiotic scaffold, enabling students to bridge lexical-conceptual gaps and facilitate metalinguistic dialogue for co-constructing understanding of complex content. Second, it materially constitutes the classroom as a “Third Space,” serving as a key resource for students to negotiate hybrid scholarly identities and articulate nuanced, empathetic intercultural stances. The study concludes that strategic translanguaging is integral to developing ICC, as it mediates both the cognitive and socio-affective dimensions of intercultural learning. These findings contribute to sociocultural and Third Space theories by empirically detailing the micro-processes of multilingual mediation and offer practical implications for designing translanguaging-informed pedagogies in CLIL and broader EFL education.