Translanguaging Strategy in Teaching Narrative Text to Junior High School Students in North Sumatra

This study aims to identify the types of translanguaging
strategies used by an English teacher and to describe how these
strategies are utilized in teaching narrative texts at SMP Negeri 10
Medan. This research applied a descriptive qualitative design based on
the theory of translanguaging proposed by García and Wei (2014),
which views translanguaging as the flexible use of learners’ full
linguistic repertoires to support meaning-making in multilingual
classrooms. The data were obtained through classroom observations
and an interview with an English teacher of Grade VIII students. The
observations were conducted in three meetings to capture natural
classroom interactions, while the interview explored the teacher’s
perspectives on the use of translanguaging strategies. The findings
revealed that five types of translanguaging strategies were employed,
namely instructional translanguaging, collaborative translanguaging,
scaffolded translanguaging, student-initiated translanguaging, and
visual and multimodal translanguaging. Among these, instructional
translanguaging was the most dominant strategy, as it was consistently
used in all meetings to explain narrative structures, clarify vocabulary,
and provide grammatical explanations. Scaffolded translanguaging was
also frequently utilized to support students in organizing ideas and
gradually shifting from their first language to English. Furthermore,
translanguaging strategies were utilized across different stages of the
teaching process, including explanation, classroom interaction,
comprehension, and production, where they supported students’
understanding and participation. In conclusion, translanguaging
strategies function as pedagogical tools that facilitate comprehension
and engagement in narrative text learning within a multilingual EFL
classroom.