Language challenges in English medium higher education and translingual assessment as an alternative tool
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Date
2023
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Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2023.
Abstract
This thesis involves three studies conducted in a private university in Türkiye to observe students’ language use in content exams which do not impose language constraints, to understand factors influencing their language use, and to investigate the impact of providing textual input in the first language (L1) on students’ written production in their second language (L2). The studies combine quantitative and qualitative data, including the development, implementation, and scoring of assessment tasks, and student interviews. The findings revealed that students encountered challenges in L2 comprehension and production in lessons and exams. The participants engaged in both monolingual and translingual practices in the content exams given as part of the current thesis. Their language use was associated with relative proficiency in the L2, encoding-retrieval match, and compartmentalization of languages. Additionally, students performed better in the L2 writing task when both input texts were in the L2 compared to when one of the texts was in the L1. Overall, the findings show that translanguaging is a common practice both inside and outside the classroom and that offering flexibility in terms of language use in content exams may serve at least as a temporary accommodation which allows students to express their content knowledge more fully, particularly in time-constrained exams. However, this should not lead to decreased provision of L2 input, as input contributes to students’ L2 proficiency and may ultimately lead to a level where students are able to, and choose to, express their content knowledge in the L2 without considerable language-related hindrance.