Pedagogical Translanguaging in L2 Teaching for Adult Migrants: Assessing Feasibility and Emotional Impact

Pedagogical translanguaging (PTL) refers to the use of educational techniques that incorporate learners’ entire linguistic repertoire. Recent studies indicate that PTL is efficient in the teaching of morphological awareness to bilingual children. The question remains whether it can be successfully applied in the highly specific context of adult forced migrants’ classrooms. This study describes a new protocol developed within the framework of PTL to teach derivational morphology to L2 French and Greek adults. We used questionnaires to quantitatively and qualitatively assess the feasibility of the protocol, teachers’ and learners’ attitudes, and learners’ emotions in the PTL lesson. A total of 141 migrant learners (79 forced migrants) and 13 teachers were involved in 23 2 h lessons. Teachers and learners gave high overall evaluations of the feasibility of the PTL protocol and of their pleasure from teaching and learning using PTL tools. Learners’ ease of learning and learning benefits were positively influenced by their perception of the proximity between their L1 and L2. Learners reported higher positive emotions and lower negative emotions during the PTL lesson, while forced migrants showed more hope and shame overall than voluntary migrants, as well as gained more benefits from PTL due to enjoyment. These findings suggest that the use of pedagogical translanguaging in migrants’ classrooms is feasible and develops positive attitudes and emotions, which are more pronounced in forced migrants.