Found in translation: empowering Chinese students in Anglo-centric pedagogical contexts

This research explored the impact of the implementation of translanguaging pedagogy through a fragmented approach for Chinese students in a business school in the North West of England as a pilot study. It examined the influence of bilingual academic support via social media on their performance, motivation, and engagement. Chinese international students in the UK face many challenges when they study in UK universities for the first time. Moreover, many factors could affect Chinese students’ expectation due to differences in cultural background and education system between China and UK. These factors include adjustment problems, perceived isolation, limited understanding of academic requirements, language barrier, etc. Nevertheless, communication difficulty was perceived as the main barrier by the Chinese students to study abroad. This research postulated that communication issues can be alleviated through adopting a translanguaging pedagogy by having different type of lecturers who know various languages and provide support through social media. Instead of having timetabled classes to give support, an education support worker (in this case an Associate Lecturer) who speaks both Chinese and English, provided support to students through social media. So students can make better use of their out of class hours (fragmented time) ask for help. Findings showed that the bilingual academic support via fragmented approach has positive impact on students’ performance, motivation, and engagement to empower students to achieve better results in higher education. There are total 21 Chinese students in business school in 2015-16 and 31 in 2016-2017. Two focus group (n=10*2) were conducted to explore and evaluate students’ expectation and perception before and after the bilingual academic support. These focus group lasted around 2 hours per session. Moreover, students’ assessments and exam results were compared between 2015-16 and 2016-17 to evaluate the before-after effect of this kind of support on their performance. Furthermore, questionnaires’ results were collected and analysed to assess the impact of this support on their engagement and motivation. This provides insights on university strategies to improve Chinese students’ satisfaction due to the effect of implanting bilingual academic support and fragmented approach