ABSTRACT

This study compares the language proficiency gains of two groups of students taking a business English course module in a bilingual university in Catalonia (Spain). Whereas one of these groups followed a ‘translanguaging’ or ‘plurilingual’ pedagogy, the other followed a strictly monolingual approach. Participants were 54 mostly Catalan/Spanish bilingual university students of Business (n = 35 translanguaging and n = 19 monolingual). Whereas the teacher in the ‘translanguaging group’ used and fostered the use of Catalan and Spanish besides English, the teacher in the ‘monolingual group’ only used English and allowed only English in class. Participants were administered a placement test, and performed a written composition and an oral sales pitch the first and last week of the semester. Participants were also administered a questionnaire before and after the treatment. The EFL development of the participants was measured in terms of fluency, lexical complexity, grammatical complexity and accuracy, but it was also assessed by an expert examiner, who based her ratings on a rubric including four scales: language, communicative achievement, content, and organisation. Results show that both groups experienced comparable gains, but the few significant differences favoured the translanguaging group.

摘要

本研究比较了在加泰罗尼亚（西班牙）的一所双语大学学习商务英语课程模块的两组学生的语言能力提升情况。其中一组遵循“跨语言”或“多语种”教学法，而另一组则遵循严格的单语方法。参与者是 54 名主要是加泰罗尼亚语/西班牙语双语大学商科学生（n  = 35 跨语言和n = 19 单语）。“跨语言组”的老师使用并鼓励使用除英语之外的加泰罗尼亚语和西班牙语，而“单语组”的老师只使用英语，课堂上只允许使用英语。参与者接受了分班考试，并在学期的第一周和最后一周进行了书面作文和口头推销。参与者还在治疗前后接受了问卷调查。参与者的 EFL 发展从流利程度、词汇复杂性、语法复杂性和准确性方面进行衡量，但也由一位专家考官评估，她的评分基于一个包括四个量表的量表：语言、交际成就、内容和组织。结果表明，两组都获得了可比的收益，