Translanguaging As Flow: A Conversation with Dr. Angel Lin

Ching-Ching Lin, Adelphi University, New York, USA
Angel M. Y. Lin, The Education University of Hong Kong, China

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin: In your 2023 autoethnography, you describe your research evolving through interconnected stages. As someone from the Global South with a similar path, I admire the depth and bold vision of your work. Could you share how your life experiences, alongside shifts in the field, have shaped the development of your research agenda?

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: Thank you. It’s a lifelong story, and I need to keep it brief. I was born in the 1960s to refugee parents from mainland China. My parents were so poor that they lived in a wooden hut, and when a typhoon came, my father later told me they had to stay alert all night due to the danger of flooding. They would climb to the upper deck of a bunk bed because the water might rise so high that we could all drown. In 1960s Hong Kong, it was a very poor situation. I grew up in Yuen Long, a border town between Hong Kong and mainland China at that time. There were very slim chances for someone like me to learn English.

In primary school, the teaching methods turned me off. I still remember the textbook from Primary 3 with sentences like, "This is a man. Is this a man? Yes, this is a man. This is a pan. Is this a pan? Yes, this is a pan." Almost 40 years later, when my partner and I went to a shopping mall to buy a frying pan, I forgot to bring an eco-friendly shopping bag. My partner, Martin, carried the frying pan for me. Suddenly, I realized that 40 years ago, in my English textbook, I saw "a man and a pan." Finally, I thought, "A man and a pan!" I took a picture of him. That kind of situation didn’t make me interested in learning the language or help me actually learn it. In colonial Hong Kong, and even now, without English, you couldn’t enter the university.

By some stroke of luck, two fresh graduates from Robert Black College of Education, came to my rural borderland school. They were young, energetic, and turned things around. They helped me get interested in learning this foreign language. For me, in the rural countryside, English was a foreign language. I always say it depends on your social class whether English is a second or foreign language. For working-class children like me at that time, it was a foreign or alien language (EAL), not a second language. For middle-class people in urban areas, it might be a second language because their parents use it in everyday life.

This laid the foundation for my critical orientation, though I didn’t have critical consciousness until I met Professor Alan Luke. We’re having a podcast with him on April 12th, so tune in for that. I realized these issues are systemic—how language hierarchies are set up and how some children are not provided access. That has been part of me, and I cannot shake it away. My own experience makes me committed to the work I’ve been doing and to working with teachers. Teachers are the most humble yet powerful workers. They can make a difference. I’m still grateful to my primary school teachers.

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin: Thank you for sharing your experiences. In one of your articles, you suggest viewing students’ language production as a speech event, part of an entanglement of material flows across multiple media, where history, time, habitus, and identity shape their language practices. Could you elaborate on this perspective?

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: I guess you are looking for a teacher-actionable example. In a Hong Kong classroom in a working-class area with local and ethnic minoritized students speaking languages like Punjabi or Nepalese, the teacher, who speaks Cantonese and English, teaches science to Grade 8 students. She doesn’t know translanguaging theories but practices it. Teaching about different kinds of teeth, she uses a teeth model, humorously calling it her "good friend." It’s engaging and funny, using material and sensory support. Good teachers always do this.

TESOL teachers often focus on the linguistic part, like naming canine teeth, but a good teacher draws on sensory information to guide students’ attention. I’ve been working with Professor Paul Thibault, using an ecological lens from ecological psychologist James Gibson, which has influenced AI research. Teaching is about guiding students’ attention to relevant aspects of the ecology, like material objects or concepts, not just linguistic elements. In TESOL or foreign language teaching, we often decenter the human learner. Think of a parent teaching a child: they focus on the child and the environment, not just language. The ecological lens deepens the theorization of human languaging, a term coined by evolutionary biologist Humberto Maturana. We’re not teaching language; we’re teaching a person, guiding their attention to couple meaning with experiences.

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin: Thank you! I'm trying to approach this from a teacher’s perspective. From a teacher’s perspective, supporting translanguaging can be challenging—especially when teachers don’t share students’ linguistic repertoires. What advice would you offer educators committed to translanguaging but unsure how to implement it meaningfully in practice?

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: Traditional language teaching focuses on lexical, grammatical, or phonetic patterns, but these are tools that may not be useful unless required in the flow. For example, in a Primary 6 classroom in Hong Kong, the teacher was constrained by a syllabus requiring phrasal verbs like "put on" or "take off" for an exam. After practicing with worksheets, she enlivened the lesson with a story-making game. Each group contributed a sentence using a phrasal verb. One group said, “When Mr. Loy saw Miss Chan, he threw up,” making the class burst into laughter. They were emotionally engaged, mobilizing linguistic patterns (and discussing privately in their home languages) to create a fun story. The teacher didn’t understand their home languages but facilitated this engaging flow. The class energetically read the story aloud because it was their creation. Experienced teachers do this intuitively, but systematizing it is important for sharing and advocacy.

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin: What I admire about you is your constant drive to explore new horizons. I know you’re working on an exciting project—your Multimodality Entextualization Cycle (MEC)—which offers a pragmatic approach, especially given that assessments are still largely monolingual. Could you share why this work is important? In particular, should we consider assessing translanguaging?

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: Yes, it’s my current project. At applied linguistics conferences, assessment sessions rarely discuss translanguaging, and translanguaging sessions rarely address assessment. We’re not assessing translanguaging itself but knowledge, allowing students to use translingual resources to construct and communicate knowledge. For example, in a monolingual Cantonese speaking test, students might feel stressed about tones. A humanized test allows translanguaging, like using Mandarin or English to maintain the flow of meaning-making. In an IELTS speaking test, if a student forgets a word, like the name of a TV program, they could use another language to describe it, and the assessor could help, like suggesting “Star Trek.” This keeps the flow going. With AI, dynamic adaptive assessments could allow translanguaging, making it more humanized and systematic.

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin: You describe translanguaging as inherently decolonial, yet in practice it doesn’t always challenge linguistic hierarchies. How should we understand it as a decolonizing approach while sustaining and expanding students’ existing language practices? Could you unpack its meaning and implications for educators uncertain how to apply it in the classroom?

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: Like any theory, translanguaging has potential for good or bad. Research shows that in some contexts, translanguaging only involves prestigious languages, excluding non-prestigious ones. Translanguaging describes mobilizing all resources to maintain the flow of meaning-making, but it doesn’t inherently challenge language hierarchies. It can be used to challenge them, but sometimes it’s limited to prestigious languages, which misses the decolonizing potential.

Let students use all resources, whether prestigious or not. Good teachers do this intuitively, but monolingual theories can make them feel guilty. We need counter-theoretical discourses to support policy advocacy, affirming what good teachers do. Otherwise, monolingual discourses condemn them as unprofessional. The flow is key—not mechanically mixing languages but allowing uninterrupted meaning-making.

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin: What if the flow gravitates toward the dominant language, like English, because that’s what students are assessed on?

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: If students only use home languages, we’re not helping them expand their repertoire. Engage them in dialogue, set parameters, like using specific phrasal verbs for an exam, while giving leeway for creative, humorous flows. Good teachers balance this, but we need to systematize and theorize their practices for advocacy. Teachers shouldn’t use authoritative discourse, like banning home languages, but internally persuasive dialogue to explain the need to expand communicative resources.

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin: As a summary, what practical advice would you give teachers?

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: In Cantonese, there’s an idiom: “Have heart.” Don’t be interrupted by monolingual discourses. If you feel something helps students keep the flow of meaning-making, let it go on. Notice the emotional dynamics. If students are engaged and enjoying it, the flow is there. If they’re just following orders, like in a role-play, it’s not the right flow. Care about your students, help them say what they want within civil boundaries, and give them agency to make meaning with all resources—linguistic, gestural, or semiotic.

Ching-Ching Lin: Thank you, Dr. Lin. I love your concept of flow, and you’ve explained translanguaging intuitively, offering heartfelt advice for teachers. Due to time constraints, we must end here. It’s been a joy and privilege to have you on the podcast.

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin: Thank you, and let’s keep the flow going.

References

Lemke, J. L., & Lin, A. M. (2022). Translanguaging and flows: Towards an alternative conceptual model. Educational Linguistics, 1(1), 134-151.

Liu, J. E., & Lin, A. M. (2021). (Re) conceptualizing “Language” in CLIL: Multimodality, translanguaging and trans-semiotizing in CLIL. AILA Review, 34(2), 240-261.

Yan, H. (2024). From Macro to Micro: A Summary of Dr. Angel Lin’s Research over Time. Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education/Revue canadienne des jeunes chercheures et chercheurs en éducation, 15(1), 201-206.

Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin is a leading scholar in the fields of English language education and critical literacy. Since the late 1990s, she has conducted impactful classroom research projects in Hong Kong schools. Her research expertise spans second language education, discourse analysis, translanguaging, trans-semiotizing, content and language integrated learning, decoloniality, and critical media literacy. Professor Lin's mentorship has shaped the careers of doctoral students and emerging scholars in Asia and Canada.

Dr. Ching-Ching Lin is a teacher educator in TESOL and Bilingual Education at Adelphi University in New York. Her research centers on leveraging diversity as a strategic driver for educational and social change.