French language teaching in a multilingual era: A study of translanguaging in letters written by learners of beginning French

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine pedagogical implications of translanguaging in letters written by Korean learners of beginning French. Methods: Fifty-six students at Seoul S Girls’ High School, enrolled in a French I class in the first semester of 2022, were given the task of writing letters to Japanese high school students as a simulation class activity. In order to do this, the instructor showed Korean learners a series of YouTube videos of Japanese learners introducing themselves in French, and set up a situation where they had to write letters in response to them. Results: Almost all students were actively involved in the letter writing, especially those who did translanguaging. They used effective communication strategies to compensate for the limited linguistic abilities of beginners by using a variety of languages from their linguistic repertoire and combining non-verbal elements, such as emoticons and drawings. Conclusion: The study illustrated that the writing activity, inducing translanguaging, as a part of a process-oriented class activity can be beneficial in eliciting learners’ autonomy and initiative. This encourages foreign language teachers in a multilingual era to accept the multilingual reality of today’s learners as it is and to develop authentic class activities that can effectively mobilize individual learners’ diverse linguistic and non-linguistic resources, and have them collaborate with fellow teachers for this purpose.