The Development of TESOL Postgraduate Coursework Students’ Knowledge and Beliefs about Translanguaging through a Professional Development Program

Abstract

This thesis investigates how Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) postgraduate coursework students develop knowledge and beliefs about translanguaging through participation in a five-week professional development (PD) program. Although translanguaging has gained prominence as a multilingual pedagogical approach, it is often only implicitly addressed in TESOL teacher education. Developing a clear and conceptually grounded understanding of translanguaging is therefore important for preparing future TESOL teachers to work in linguistically diverse classrooms.

The study addresses two research questions: (1) the nature of TESOL postgraduate coursework students’ theoretical and pedagogical knowledge of translanguaging before and after the PD program, and (2) the extent to which their beliefs about translanguaging change over the course of participation. A qualitatively driven research design with questionnaire triangulation was adopted. Data were collected through pre- and post-PD interviews, session reflections, and a post-PD questionnaire. Of the initial 39 participants, 12 who completed all components were included in the final analysis. Knowledge development was analysed using the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy, while belief development was examined through a theory-informed and inductive coding framework.

Findings show that participants initially held surface-level or misconceived understandings of translanguaging, often conflating it with translation or code-switching. After the PD program, participants demonstrated more differentiated theoretical and pedagogical understanding, though ideological reflection remained limited. Beliefs shifted toward greater pedagogical endorsement of translanguaging, but institutional constraints and uneven alignment between knowledge and beliefs persisted. The study highlights the importance of explicitly scaffolded PD and conceptual clarity in TESOL teacher education.