The Affordance of an Emotionally Safe Translanguaging Space for Supporting Hong Kong Ethnic Minority Students in Managing Second Language Classroom Anxiety: A Study of Chinese as an Additional Language Classrooms

Project Summary:
The linguistic challenges that EM students need to confront when they are expected to learn a second language (L2) while living in a host society can affect their emotions. L2 classroom anxiety is the negative emotional reaction experienced by those learning or employing an L2/foreign language in a classroom context, encompassing feelings of embarrassment and loss of self-confidence regarding L2 learning and use.

This research project aims to investigate how do Chinese as an Additional Language (CAL) teachers use translanguaging practices to support ethnic minority students in mitigating their negative reactions of Chinese language learning. The project aims to develop pedagogical resources for current and future CAL teachers, enabling them to implement effective translanguaging strategies for ethnic minority students. Additionally, teachers will engage in reflective practices, which are valuable for their professional development as educators.

Deliverables:
A data analysis report and an academic paper for publication.

Preferred discipline(s):
Language Education, Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Project Essential Skills:
The selected students must have a good command of written and spoken English and Chinese (spoken Cantonese).

Undergraduate students who are interested in the research topic will be recruited to participate in literature search, data collection and analysis procedures, including conducting a questionnaire, shadowing the semi-structured interviews carried out by the researchers (the PI or his RA or PhD student), transcribing some video classroom data and analysing the quantitative and qualitative data. Students will also be involved in the piloting of the multimodal resource package, which will be used by a number of pre-service and in-service teachers and second language researchers in order to obtain their opinions and guide further fine-tuning of the package.

Other Selection Criteria (if any):
Relevant experience in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies would be an advantage.

Details of supervision arrangements:
Progress meetings will be conducted physically. Under some circumstances, the meetings can be conducted virtually.