Portfolio & Credentials

English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has spread throughout higher education, and when English is the main language of instruction, this can present linguistic, cognitive and interactional challenges for students whose previous education has been multilingual. In these classrooms, students can use their entire language repertoire to access concepts in the discipline, negotiate meaning, engage in discussion, and request help. This phenomenon, often referred to as translanguaging, has become a more widely studied tool for learning and not just a break from an English-only norm. Meanwhile, academic help-seeking is acknowledged as a crucial self-regulated learning strategy for students to receive clarification, feedback, explanation, or strategic support from the teacher, peers, and other sources. This study explores the connection between translanguaging and academic help-seeking behaviours in EMI classrooms. The design of the study was a cross-sectional survey, and the data were collected from 280 undergraduate students in EMI courses, with additional qualitative data obtained from the interview responses to gain deeper insights into the students' experiences. This analysis looks at the frequency of translanguaging, teacher-directed help-seeking, peer-directed help-seeking, avoidance of help-seeking, and linguistic confidence. Results suggest that translanguaging is positively related to adaptive help-seeking (both peer-directed and teacher-directed) and negatively related to help-seeking avoidance. Further evidence of the effects of translanguaging is provided by regression estimates that indicate that translanguaging is still a significant factor in the prediction of adaptive help-seeking beyond English proficiency and linguistic confidence. Results show that flexible multilingual practices can reduce interactional barriers and increase students' willingness and ability to access academic support. The study makes a contribution to EMI and translanguaging scholarship by focusing on help-seeking as a prime feature of multilingual classroom interaction and by providing implications for teachers, institutions and language policy.