‘Nabewa nabedayo!’: Foreign faculty members’ perceived need to learn the students’ L1

This paper is part of an ongoing research project that examines translanguaging practice in predominantly monolingual social domains, and it reports on the views and practices of non-Japanese English teachers’ translanguaging in Japanese higher education. Fifteen faculty members from four universities were interviewed about their perspectives on translanguaging and their reasons for supporting or rejecting the practice. Additionally, the participants were asked about their views on the necessity of acquiring proficiency in the learners’ mother tongue (L1). A thematic analysis of the interview data indicated that translanguaging is prevalently and purposefully implemented for pedagogical and sociocultural purposes in and out of the classroom. Affective benefits were also identified that underline foreign teachers’ desire to establish close rapport with their students. All participants agreed on the necessity of foreign teachers being proficient in the students’ L1, including because proficiency increases cultural literacy. The lack of cultural literacy likely necessitates repeated requests for elaboration of culture-laden lexis such as ‘nabe’, to which frustrated students with limited proficiency could only counter, ‘Nabewa nabedayodo!’ Nabe is nabe!. The findings suggest the need to develop theorised translanguaging pedagogies that can help teachers make strategic language choices for optimal learning outcomes.