ABSTRACT
This book chapter aims to debunk the misconception of acquiring native-like English proficiency by considering English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners as those with limited English proficiency. This chapter briefly illustrates how translanguaging can be conceptualized and applied in English learning contexts, and how translanguaging can be realized in EFL middle school classrooms through book club discussion activities using a wordless picture book Flotsam. With the transcripts of discussions, which were conducted in Korean and translated in English, and the students’ English writing samples, this chapter illustrates how the three focal South Korean middle school EFL students interpreted visuals to make meanings with their peers, how their interpretations in their home language (Korean) were integrated into English writings, and how they made attempts to write English sentences based on the preceding discussions. The focal students traversed between Korean and English without worrying about producing native-like standard English and freely made meanings by using multimodal repertoires and by intermixing Korean and English. The classroom became a translanguaging space where the students intermingled English, home language, and semiotic modes simultaneously.
