Exploring the benefits of translanguaging pedagogies on secondary-school students’ metalinguistic awareness: the role of language learning aptitude and vocabulary knowledge

While translanguaging pedagogies have gained traction among stakeholders as effective tools for teaching content and language leveraging students’ linguistic repertoire, there is a limited body of quantitative evidence on their impact on students’ cognitive and linguistic development. Moreover, the mechanisms driving these potential benefits are still unclear. This study explores whether secondary-school students who have been exposed to translanguaging pedagogies over four years (target group) demonstrate superior metalinguistic awareness (MLA) compared to their peers in traditional, monoglossic education (control group). Additionally, the study examines how language-learning aptitude and vocabulary knowledge mediate the effect of the educational context on students’ performance in a MLA test, based on the hypothesis that these variables influence MLA rather than the other way round. The findings reveal that students in the target group outperformed their control group peers in both MLA and language-learning aptitude. The positive impact of translanguaging pedagogies on MLA was mediated by an enhancement in language-learning aptitude, suggesting that one mechanism through which translanguaging fosters MLA is by strengthening language-learning aptitude. Furthermore, students in the target group were more likely to leverage their vocabulary resources during the test. All the benefits of translanguaging pedagogies stem from their capacity to foster cross-linguistic awareness.