Funds of knowledge for synchronous online language teaching: a translanguaging view on an ESL teacher’s pedagogical practices

4.1.1 Extract 1a

Prior to the extract, the teacher (T) was going through a reading passage with the student (S) about the perceptions of beauty in different cultures (see Image 1). T introduced this reading passage to S in the 5th online lesson in week 5 and the main topic of the session was related to beauty and appearance. In the reading passage, it introduces the wealthy noblemen in 18th century France who wore large wigs of long white hair in order to achieve beauty. S was unsure of the meaning of ‘wig’ and at the beginning of this extract, T uses Louis XIV, King of France, as an example to facilitate his vocabulary explanation. In the beginning, T used L1 Mandarin to introduce Louis XIV to S and discussed some distinctive habits of Louis XIV, including the fact that he did not often take shower in order to arouse S’s interest. Subsequently, T made use of a search engine to search for Louis XIV and draw S’s attention to the video thumbnails.

Image 1:

Reading passage on “what is beauty?”.

In line 30, T uses Mandarin to ask S to look at Louis XIV’s portrait on the screen and he concurrently makes use of the full-screen mode in order to display the portrait to S (Figure #1). He then points out Louis XIV’s dressing style (line 32) and his gender in lines 34 and 36 in order to draw S’s attention to the portrait. In the portrait, it is evident that Louis XIV was wearing a wig and a long-sleeved gown and T invites S to comment on his dressing style (line 38). Particularly, T first points out that he is a male, “他是個男的 (he is a man)” (line 36) and then continuously moves his cursor to the right shoe of Louis XIV in a circular movement (Figures #2 and #3, lines 38 and 40) in order to offer clues to S. By drawing on multimodal translanguaging, it can be argued that T’s pedagogical goal here is to help S to understand how Louis XIV’s fashion choices violate modern expectations for typical men’s attire. Nevertheless, S seems to be confused as she utters a minimal token ‘uhuh’ (line 39) (Girgin and Brandt 2020) to possibly indicate her uncertainty about the correct answer. It is noticeable that T deliberately moves his cursor to the right shoe of Louis XIV in a circular movement (lines 40–41), with the aim of providing a clue to S. Although S attempts to provide a response by uttering “公爵 (a duke)” in line 41, such an answer deviates from the main subject of a discussion (i.e. Louis XIV’s dressing style) and there is a long pause in line 42 which signals S’s answer to T’s question is dis-preferred.

T continues to use Mandarin to initiate a new sequence in order to start describing some special features that can be observed in the portrait. He first points out the high heels shoes that the King wore (line 43). He then deliberately stresses the Chinese words “此人 (this person)” as he clarifies that he cannot be sure whether high-heeled shoes were invented by Louis XIV (line 45). He then draws on his historical understanding of high-heeled shoes and suggests that it was Louis XVI who popularized the trend of men wearing them (lines 47–49). T then indicates the ribbon on each of his shoes (lines 51) and concurrently he moves his cursor to the ribbon on Louise XIV’s left shoe continuously (Figure #4) and invites S for confirmation (line 51). After S acknowledges that she can see the ribbon on Louis XIV’s shoes (line 53), T points out how Louis XIV’s dressing style differs from contemporary men’s fashion. Specifically, T indicates that Louis XIV is not wearing “normal pants” (lines 55 and 57) and he is clothed in a robe (line 57). Note that the use of translanguaging strategies, including how T combines his use of paralinguistic features, including stress and elongation, on Chinese words “褲:子” and “袍:子”, and his continuation of moving his cursor to the pants (Figure #6) and to the robe (Figure #7) play a role in guiding S to notice the difference between Louis XVI’s dress style and the modern norm of men wearing jeans. After initiating ‘對 right’ to elicit a response from S (line 59), T’s explanation is later acknowledged by S as she utters “(right)” in line 61. Nevertheless, it is unsure whether S has truly understood T’s explanation as T does not ask any concept-check questions to evaluate S′ conceptual understanding. In line 63, T directs S’s attention to Louis XIV’s hairstyle which is a wig and he translanguages between English and Mandarin to ask students to determine whether Louis XVI’s hair is real or not (lines 65 and 67). Although S’s response ‘yeah?’ in English reveals her uncertainty about her answer, it demonstrates her partial understanding of the meaning of ‘wig’ as her answer is later acknowledged by T’s explanation in lines 72–78. It is evidenced that T translangauges between English and Mandarin again and he first uses English to draw S’s attention to the portrait of Louis XIV again (line 72). T then switches back to Mandarin to point out the years of Louis XVI’s birth and death, while simultaneously moving his cursor to point at “1,638–1,715” (lines 74 and 76, Figure #9). This leads to his subsequent explanation in Mandarin, indicating that the trend of men wearing high-heeled shoes began in the seventeenth century (line 78).

4.1.2 Extract 1b

In the subsequent part of the interaction, T highlights that the use of wigs started in the 17th century (lines 74–78) and it is still being used in contemporary society, such as by court judges (lines 80–92). T first sets the context and invites S to think about the judges in the past and future (lines 80 and 82). Particularly, he points out the top ten judges in the United States as an example which attempts to bring relevant outside knowledge into online teaching (lines 82, 84 and 86). He illustrates a scenario in which barristers and court judges are required to wear a wig when going to a court (lines 88 and 90). He also uses Mandarin to state the colour of the wig (i.e. white) and its distinctive characteristic (i.e. curly) and then switches back to English to utter the word ‘wig’ (line 90) in order to visualise the English vocabulary. T then attempts to elicit S’s understanding of his explanation (line 92) and after S’s acknowledgement of her understanding of T’s explanation (line 94), T continues to use Mandarin to provide some historical context on beauty standards in the past. In lines 96 and 100, T mentions that the image of a judge was already fixed at that time. In line 100, T explains that at that time, the most beautiful thing was only the authoritative ones, specifically in terms of appearance. In order to clarify what kind of appearance that T was referring to, T translanguages between English and Mandarin as he says, ‘一種hairstyle↓’, in order to explain that one of the distinctive features of barristers’ and judges’ appearance is their unique hairstyle (line 102). Here, T reinforces the point that the dress code for barristers and judges is considered as authoritative and socially acceptable. In particular, T stresses the pronoun “他們 (them)” in line 104 in order to emphasise the public’s perceptions of beauty and socially accepted dressing norms for lawyers and court judges.

Extracts 1a and 1b show how T teaches the English vocabulary ‘wig’ using various knowledge sources, including (1) Western history about Louis XVI and (2) the dress code for barristers and court judges. Specifically, T employs linguistic resources (e.g., L1 Mandarin, L2 English in lines 65–67, 72, 100–102), paralinguistic features (e.g., word stress in lines 57 and 96), and multimodal resources (e.g., cursor movement in lines 40–41, 51, 55–57, 63, and the portrait of Louis XVI from a video thumbnail) to scaffold S’s understanding of ‘wig’. T also encourages S to question societal norms regarding men’s fashion. However, it is unclear if S understands T’s explanation due to limited engagement and closed questions (e.g., lines 59, 67), with T positioning himself as the expert (Shepard-Carey 2022). During the video-stimulated-recall-interview, T explains his rationale for using different knowledge sources in teaching (Table 1):

Table 1:

Video-stimulated-recall-interview (extract 1).

Classroom interaction transcript	Video stimulated recall interview excerpts	Teacher’s perspectives	Analyst’s interpretations of the teacher’s perspectives
	01 K: Do you want to quickly summarize what you have seen and your own reflection after watching this particular extract?
	02 T: I do think I am loving this kind of like showing different video clips for my student, this kind of process because it is not the individual teaching mode, I can show her who is the Louis XVI, who is the man? And the history, the background story of this person. Because the word I was trying to teach her was with wig. If another teacher to teach this word to their student, I don’t know what their method or what their skills are gonna be like. But for me, I would like to narrow down the word, narrow down some abstract definition to some real pictures, videos in the history or stories for my student because this is a very good way for them to have a break. Firstly, to have a break. Secondly, to have a deep impression of this, not just about the word, but also about the person to encourage them, to have some interests about the history, and the person, and the wig, this word	T’s pedagogical goals are (1) allowing the student to take a break from abstract vocabulary explanations and (2) creating an opportunity for the student to develop an interest in connecting historical facts with the key vocabulary ‘wig’	It is evident that T aims to promote students’ memorisation of the word through bringing in relevant historical knowledge to the process of teaching
	03 T: So, I truly believe that many years pass or when she graduated from the university, she can always remember the moment that I taught her this word because it’s way too different. I wish I could have some teachers like this to teach me the wig when I was young, because I got no choice. When I was young, the wig is wig. W-I-G, nothing else and go on, move on. So that is the reason why I taught her in this way. Yes
	03 K: Now I find it really interesting, particularly you are using the online search engine to look for a video of Louis XVI. Then you found a video and then you look, and then you point out that portrait to that student. And that would be a good example of showing what a wig looks like. And what I find interesting is that you also bring in that historical context to the student		The researcher is interested to know whether there are anymore pedagogical goals that T aims to achieve. What are his other reasons for bringing historical knowledge into the L2 teaching? Is he trying to encourage the student to question the societal norms surrounding men wearing clothing that is traditionally associated with women?
	04 K: So, it really goes beyond language, just learning the word you also introduce historical context to students: why a male is wearing that wig. That’s something that female should be doing. How come a male is also wearing heels? Do you want to tell me more about what’s the purpose of an bringing in that historical knowledge other than deepened students’ engagement? Are there any particular pedagogical goals that you have in mind?
	05 T: This is maybe my personal teaching style is because in my mind, my mentor used to tell me something like that. Your classroom is a bit unique than other teachers because you can always find some interesting point to get access to. And, at the same time, just give the students another kind of dimension of this perspective of this strange vocabulary or strange stories
	06 T: But when it comes to me, I do think I have to think to myself of reading different kinds of things before or like preparing the class before. Because when I was preparing the class, the book I noticed at the Louis 14, it will be a strange name for the student to learn. So, I could just make some change when it comes to teaching this word. So, I try to tell some stories, I mean the true stories, but not just fake stories made by me. It was true stories in the history combined with some positive concept, because I always talk about the LGBT group	T aims to provide a new way for the student to memorise the meanings of new vocabulary items. This is achieved through bringing in real-life stories and social issues, such as historical events or LGBT community	It is evident that the teacher believes that it is equally important to develop his student’s linguistic knowledge and enhance the student’s awareness of the socio-cultural values regarding equity and diversity in our contemporary society
	07 T: And for my student, and I always tell them, please do not bring your glasses to see anyone else, because all the people, all the things happen … they got some reasons to have it, right?	Highlighting the need for students to learn to respect for diversity and engage with people coming from different cultural backgrounds	It can be argued that T’s pedagogical goal of bringing funds of knowledge in the classroom aims to raise the student’s cultural awareness and her appreciation for diversity and equity. Such a process is shaped by his translanguaging practices for promoting meaning-making and social justice within his online classroom
	08 T: So, to just show your respect to the diversity of the world. So that was kind of like a core value of myself. And I tried to teach my student the core value of this kind of thing. So, telling stories just kind of like a way to transfer that information for them. So, it is far beyond than just teaching them the only the strange word or vocabulary or phrases. But that is gonna be the unique technique of my classroom. They’re gonna be irreplaceable
	09 T: I try to insist doing this, and I’ve been doing this for a long time. I not all the students buy this, but most of them, after class, they’re gonna tell me that. Thanks, <NAME-T>. I learned something from out of the book, but I always interested to learn it. So, after class, I might give them some homework about introducing a celebrity who is the Louis 14. As homework, something like that. Maybe next week they’re gonna give me some fabulous feedback. They’re gonna be a very good loop. It’s all because of the one word which is called the wig	T notes that his former students used to enjoy his pedagogical approach of bringing outside knowledge into the L2 English teaching for enriching students’ knowledge base and infuse positive values and beliefs
	10 T: I tried to do this, and I truly believe it works, and it’s gonna be very influential to my children

In the interview, T explains the pedagogical goals for connecting ‘wig’ with historical facts (1) giving the student a break from abstract vocabulary explanations and (2) sparking the student’s interest in L2 English learning. However, I am interested to know whether there are any additional pedagogical goals that T may aim to achieve at that moment of the interaction. Is he encouraging the student to question societal norms regarding men’s fashion? In lines 5–6, T suggests that it is his teaching style which aims to help the student remember vocabulary by incorporating real-life stories and social issues, such as history or the LGBT community. From T’s perspective, he thinks that such an approach can scaffold the student’s L2 understanding, foster her critical thinking, and broaden the student’s perspectives on cultural and social issues (e.g. Chan and Lo 2017). Such a pedagogical action reflects T’s pedagogical belief as he believes that it is equally important to develop his student’s linguistic knowledge in L2 teaching and socio-cultural awareness.

It is also noted by T that enriching students’ knowledge base and instilling positive values and beliefs in students have a positive impact on their motivation to learn L2 English. This is revealed in T’s reflection as he recalls his former student’s comment. In the interview, T shifts his footing and imitates his former student’s voice, “After class, they’re gonna tell me that: Thanks, <NAME-T>. I learned something from out of the book, but I always interested to learn it” (line 9). Therefore, it can be suggested that T’s motivation for bringing funds of knowledge at the moment of the online interaction stems from his pedagogical goals of raising the student’s cultural awareness and promoting diversity and equity. It is evident in the MCA analysis that T’s attempt to bring funds of knowledge in the online classroom contributes to the creation of a virtual translanguaging space (Li 2014; Li and Zhu 2014; Tai and Li 2020) which affords him to tap on different linguistic and screen-based multimodal resources in order to encourage the student to critically consider cultural norms that exist in our society.

4.2.1 Extract 2a

Before the extract, T was discussing a reading passage about skin as an organ and the significance of skin colour. The reading passage was taught to S in lesson 8 in week 8 and the main topic of the session was related to the biological and cultural significance of skin. T asked S to describe the skin colour of Chinese people, and S correctly said “the people in yellow”. T then asked S to describe the skin colour of Americans and S correctly mentioned “people in white” and “people in blank” for white Americans and African Americans. T then encouraged S to think of an English word for mixed-race individuals. Instead of using English, S used Chinese to provide the phrase “混血兒 (mixed race)” to indicate her conceptual understanding. After T provides the English translation to S, he shares a recent experience at a music festival in Hong Kong. In his narrative, he described the situation at an international music festival in Central where there were lots of people with diverse ethnic backgrounds coming together to attend the event. In this extract, T continues to describe his experience in the festival.

In line 87, T opens a new sequence and recalls his memory of the people around him in Mandarin. When he refers to the people around him, he moves his hands in the circular moment (Figure #29) simultaneously in order to draw S’s attention (line 87). After S utters an acknowledgement token “嗯 (yes)” in Mandarin (line 88), T continues with his narrative. When T mentions the people behind him, he points to the back with his index finger (line 90) in order to facilitate S’s understanding of T’s recount. Notably, T engages in multilingual translanguaging practices as he makes use of a variety of named languages to indicate the diverse people around him during the musical festival (lines 92–107). In lines 90 and 92, T first T utters Korean, “안녕하세요 (hello)” and “습니다: (yes)”, and then switches back to Mandarin to reinforce the fact that he is speaking in Korean (line 94). In lines 96 and 98, T uses Japanese as he utters, “こんにちは(good afternoon)” (line 96) and “こんばんは (good evening)” (line 98) and switches back to Mandarin as he says, “有講日語的 (some were speaking Japanese)” (Line 99) in order to imply the existence of Japanese in the international musical event. T also verbally mentions that there are people who speak Cantonese in lines 101 and 103. Particularly, he translanguages between Mandarin and English as he utters “香港本地的local 講粵語的 (local Hong Kong people speaking in Cantonese)” in order to emphasise the language Cantonese spoken by local Hong Kong citizens (line 103). It is noticeable that T does not utter any Cantonese utterances to imply the existence of Cantonese in the event. This is probably because T does not know any Cantonese phrases. Finally, T uses Mandarin to refer to the people from the United Kingdom who speak English (lines 105 and 107). Similar to lines 92–94 and 96–99, T switches between Mandarin and English as he says, “他們講英語, 講 English (they speak English, speak English)” (line 107), in order to emphasise English as the language that is typically spoken by people from the United Kingdom.

4.2.2 Extract 2b

In the subsequent part of the interaction, T reflects on his own experience at the musical festival and highlights the diversity among people from different cultural backgrounds (from lines 109–148). Particularly, he points out the lack of international exposure in Mainland China and he expresses his positive feelings about the music event (from lines 130–148). He also explains how music is the common language for people all around the world as it is not bounded by nations and all people around the world with different nationalities can understand the same music (lines 136–144). In this extract, T attempts to educate the values of equality and respect to S.

In line 156, T uses Mandarin to emphasize the diversity of people’s skin colours around the world. T then initiates a question in lines 158–160 using the phrase, “但我們基本上要對所有的人保持一個>°甚麼樣°↓ (but we basically have to treat every people with a kind of what)”, while gesturing by moving his palms back and forth alternatively. T’s intention is to prompt S to reflect on how they should treat people from different nationalities (Figure #11). In line 161, T makes use of another gesture by raising both of his hands with his palm facing downwards and moving back and forth continuously (Figure #12) to offer clues to S regarding the idea of equality. However, S is not aware of the meaning of T’s gesture and provides an inappropriate answer, “等級 (hierarchy)”, in line 162. After a 1.7-s pause (line 163), T stresses “平等 (equality)” when uttering “平等對待 (equal treatment)” in line 164, which is an antonym of S’s answer. T briefly elaborates his Mandarin explanation in line 166 by pointing out the value of respect for diversity to S, “尊重 (.) 生命的多樣性 (respecting the diversity of life)” in order to encourage S to reconsider her answer in line 162. Although T attempts to elicit a response from S in line 168, S does not respond to T’s question (line 169) which prompts T to provide additional explanation. In lines 170 and 172, T further illustrates how S could respect the diverse cultures in our world and it is noticeable that T translanguages between L1 Mandarin and L2 English as he says, “>並不是<意味著er: (0.1) black 就不好 (this does not mean that black people are not good) (lines 170 and 172) and “>或者並不是 (or does not imply that white is more superior)” (line 174). While T is using translanguaging, T also uses word stresses when stating the general assumption that people typically have regarding the superiority of white people over black people. This is revealed in lines 172 and 174 as T says, “black+ 就不好 (black is not good)” (line 172) and “white+就多好 (white is good) (line 174)” in order to motivate S to critically consider the issues of racial superiority and its negative consequences on society (Rosa and Flores 2017).

In line 176, T asks a question, “對吧↓? (right?)” in Mandarin in order to seek agreement from S. As there is no response from S in line 177, T continues to provide further explanation to engage S’s learning. T first utters ‘it’ twice in line 178 and he then repairs his unintelligible utterance in line 180 by making a statement, “ 不[是]那樣子去判斷的 (this is not the way to determine)” in Mandarin. It is noticeable that S finally responds with a minimal token “hm” (Girgin and Brandt 2020) to indicate agreement (line 181). However, T continues with his explanation and he again translanguages between Mandarin and English as he utters, “更多的是 (0.8) <+what’s in your mind↓>” (line 183). Note that when he switches back to English, he places stresses on phrases including “what’s” and “your mind”. While making the statement in line 183, T concurrently emphasizes the importance of the “mind” over skin colour by pointing at the left side of their head with their index finger and tapping continuously (Figure #13), while uttering the English sentence. This translanguaging practice by orchestrating both verbal and physical gestures serves to emphasize T’s point that a person’s thoughts and ideas are more significant than their physical appearance. In line 185, T repeats the same English sentence and continues to enact the same gesture. He continues to use English to further highlight the fact that it is our “mind” that is “the most valuable thing” (line 187). T also puts stress on words including “most” and “valuable” when he is uttering and repeatedly emphasises this point by pointing at the left-side of his head (Figure #14) to indicate the importance of having the right mentality. After a 0.5-s pause (line 188), T switches back to Mandarin to recap what he previously said, “你的思想你的認知是最高階的↓ (your thoughts, your cognition, are the highest order)” (line 189), and points to his head (Figure #63) in order to assist S to comprehend the underlying message of respecting for diversity and fighting against racial discrimination. T translanguages in line 191 to first uses Mandarin to refer to people’s skin colour “那些顏色 (those colours)” and switches to English as he says “they are just the surface only” in order to invite S to recognize and reject any beliefs or actions that position one race over another as all individuals deserve equal treatment and opportunities, regardless of their race. In line 191, it is evidenced that S utters a minimal token ‘hmhm’ to acknowledge her understanding of T’s explanation.

Extracts 2a and 2b reveal how T mobilises a range of linguistic resources, including L1 Mandarin, L2 English, Japanese (lines 96–98), Korean (lines 90, 92), and various hand movements (e.g. lines 183, 187), in order to assist S’s understanding of the ways for describing people of colours and facilitate the process of teaching the values of respects for diversity and equality. In particular, T recounts his prior life experience in the classroom and engages in translanguaging practices (e.g. in lines 90–107 and 170–174) as an attempt to represent various people with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds in a musical festival. Such a pedagogical goal reflects T’s personal values of respecting linguistic and cultural diversity and his commitment to going against monolingual and uni-cultural ideologies that exist in our society. During the video-stimulated-recall-interview, T comments on how his prior experience and pedagogical beliefs shape his teaching practices in the online class (Table 2):

Table 2:

Video-stimulated-recall-interview (extract 2).

Classroom interaction transcript	Video stimulated recall interview excerpts	Teacher’s perspectives	Analyst’s interpretations of the teacher’s perspectives
	01 K: That is a moment that shows your core value of your teaching philosophy, which is to promote diversity and also respect. So here, do you want to say something about your pedagogy here, what’s the rationale behind it in mentioning about your experience in a musical festival in Central?
	02 T: Yeah, I’m not sure other teachers, what they should teach when it comes to this topic, but in my mind, people in yellow, people in black, that is a very good way for me to explain different races, different colours of people
	03 T: So, when it comes to this kind of sensitive topic, for me, it’s a bit sensitive because in mainland China, I’m not sure whether you are familiar with the mainland China student or not. Because in our school, in mainland, teacher, they do not always teach the students about the races or the nationality, nor identification, something like that because they can only see the people with the same colour in their life. They don’t have any choices to see some black people and white people, or the people from Thailand, from India get together and just celebrating the same musical festival	T explains that teaching topics that related to racial discrimination can be sensitive in Mainland China since the teachers and students do not have a lot of opportunity to interact with people from other cultural backgrounds	It can be suggested that the teacher shares his experience at an international music festival, with the aim of compensating S’s lack of cultural exposure and developing S’s appreciation for cultural diversity
	04 T: So, this is kind of a scene that I wanna offer, or that I wanna show them that the earth is like a village. I mean, you can just jump out of your comfort zone. It will have a travel, to go travel around the world to see the diversity of the world	Demonstrating his pedagogical goal of broadening students’ worldviews
	05 T: So, behind the course, I wanna give them some information about going out, step out from your hometown. The world is colourful, is not just like you what you see right now. So that is the kind of the hidden curriculum in which you can see at the same time	T points out that it’s part of the “hidden curriculum” that he attempts to integrate in his L2 online teaching	Hidden curriculum is often refereed as the unwritten and unintended values, norms and beliefs that students learn in the lessons. Bengenhenegouwen (1987) suggests that hidden curriculum can be conceptualised as “implicit education” which entails everything that students has learnt beyond the official curriculum. It is noted that T refers to his practice of connecting the teaching of L2 with the teaching of cultural values and ideologies as ‘hidden curriculum’ since he believes that his student is gaining knowledge that goes beyond L2 linguistic knowledge
	06 K: So that is also part of your goal as a teacher is to promote this kind of ideology to your student
	07 T: Yeah, but I have to mention that sometimes I can just … because when we are trying to explain one word, I can just explain it. But in a colourful way, so which is not that how to say it, which is not that practical for them to improve their scores or improve their English scores the same that I thought. I try to balance the two ways. At the same time, I can improve their skills, but at the same time, I can also show them the cultural diversity, the colourful world because English is not just about improving your skill. Learning English is to give you more perspective about the world. This is a very unique subject, which is, I think which is better than other courses, like the politics, like other kind of technological course	Highlighting his pedagogical belief of L2 learning. When students learn a language, they also learn about the cultures, traditions and beliefs associated with it
	08 So, if I teach mathematics, I might have no choice. I might have no time to do this. But if I teach English, I do think this is a very good way. A very good chance I have to grab. I have to go for it. So, it’s a bit dilemma. It’s a bit awkward for me to balance the time management, but I try my best		T’s pedagogical beliefs about L2 teaching and learning resonates with the goal of promoting multilingual education as multilingual education encourages the use of students’ multilingual and multicultural resources for teaching and learning in the classroom to develop openness, respect and intercultural competencies in all students (García et al. 2021)
	09 K: Yes, I think you are absolutely right. English language learning is not just about the proficiency. It’s also about giving you the perspective to the world that you are living in. The culture is to become … It’s to allowing you to engage in intercultural communication

In the interview, T explains that teaching topics related to racial discrimination can be sensitive in Mainland China due to limited cultural interactions. This is possibly because English language teaching in China often focuses on grammar, vocabulary and exam preparation rather than practical usage and cultural aspects of the language (Liu et al. 2023). This can lead to students having a strong foundation in English grammar and vocabulary but limited cultural exposure. Hence, this can explain T’s pedagogical goal of sharing his experience at an international music festival in the classroom interaction data as he aims to compensate for S’s lack of cultural exposure and develop her appreciation for diversity.

In line 5, T highlights his aim to expand students’ worldviews as part of the “hidden curriculum” in L2 teaching. This concept refers to the unofficial and unintended values, norms and beliefs that students learn during lessons (e.g. Jackson 1968). Bengenhenegouwen (1987) suggested that a hidden curriculum can be conceptualised as “implicit education” that goes beyond the official curriculum. It is noted that T connects L2 teaching with the teaching of cultural values and ideologies, believing that students can gain more than just linguistic knowledge. This is evident in the interview as the teacher expressed his belief that learning an L2 exposes students to different cultures, traditions, and beliefs (Line 7). Therefore, I suggest that this pedagogical approach aligns with the goal of promoting multilingual education that fosters openness, respect, and intercultural competencies (García et al. 2021).

Furthermore, T’s effort in incorporating his music festival experience into the online lesson is facilitated by his translanguaging practices which invite the student to consider alternative perspectives for knowledge building. As demonstrated in the MCA analysis, T creates a virtual translanguaging space in the online classroom by utilizing diverse multilingual, paralinguistic, and multimodal resources. I argue that the virtual translanguaging space created by T is shaped by his pedagogical belief in incorporating cultural exposure and diversity in L2 teaching. Such a creation of a virtual translanguaging space can potentially promote the student’s L2 learning and foster the student’s intercultural understanding and empathy, which are essential skills for success in L2 education.