EXTANT AND EMERGENT APPROACHES IN ESL TEACHING: TRANSLANGUAGING INSTRUCTION IN NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS: TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

<doi>10.24250/jpe/1/2026/OOO/FOE</doi>

Abstract

Nigeria is a multilingual society, where English co-exists with and prevails over 450 indigenous languages. English is taught as a second language through various approaches, including Classical, Structural, Natural, Functional-Notional, and Oral-Situational, which generally prioritise the use of English over mother tongues, with the exception of the Classical approach. Translanguaging emerged in the 1980s as a paradigm in foreign language teaching, gaining focus by 2001. It involves the use of two or more languages by learners and teachers during the teaching process. Literature reveals the facilitative effect of translanguaging in foreign language learning, but research on the topic is primarily exploratory and more prevalent in advanced countries than developing ones, Nigeria inclusive. This study therefore, investigated teachers’ and students’ perceived awareness of, problems and prospects of translanguaging instruction in English language teaching in Nigerian secondary schools. Purposive and random sampling techniques were used to select 120 teachers and 250 students from 25 public schools. Data were collected using two Questionnaires and a structured interview. Results revealed teacher and students low level awareness of translanguaging in English lessons (whole scale mean: 2.83 and 3.11) respectively. They showed moderate acceptance of translanguaging as an instructional approach (mean score: 3.94 and 3.98). They also revealed that translanguaging will be difficult to practice in a class made up of students with diverse mother tongues (mean score: 3.74; 4.37) and due to lack of well-known methods of translanguaging (mean score: 3.51; 4.33). Both teachers and students were doubtful of the positive effects of translanguaging in ESL lessons (item 6: mean score: 2.01). The study, therefore concluded that there is urgent need to popularise multilingual education especially in developing countries. Also, clear-cut strategies and methods should be designed to enhance the use of translanguaging; students and teachers should be sensitised on the benefits/prospects of translanguaging.