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When 'decoloniality' and 'decolonizing' have become words frequently used in conferences and journal publications in our field of Applied Linguistics/Language and Education, as well as on many academics' lips, we start to worry about how they too can be easily co-opted as buzz words emptied of their critical meaning and actional potential and become appropriated as discourses with symbolic capital to add to one's portfolio for academic promotion. What Kubota (2016) has cautioned about translanguaging can be equally true of the scholarship on decoloniality: … its knowledge is becoming another canon -- a canon which is integrated into a neoliberal capitalist academic culture of incessant knowledge production and competition for economic and symbolic capital (p. 475). In this paper, we write about the pains, memories, fears, hopes and desires associated with experiencing colonizing acts across different timescales: in one's everyday life (e.g. micro aggressions in social interactions), in how one's own sense of self and the world (subjectivity) is shaped and reshaped (e.g. through academic socialization), and in embarking on what can be done to change the various social structures of (both colonial and other kinds of) domination and subordination. The journey is never purely academic or intellectual as it is always embodied, evoking painful memories, fears and discomfort. And from this journey of sorting out what has happened to us (and many people like us) who have been subjected to the exercising of colonial power mediated through many diverse agents, across many shorter-timescales happenings as well as longer-timescales events and processes (Lemke, 2000, 2008), we aim at finding a pathway ahead that is over and beyond just research publications and presentations. No doubt, research publications and presentations are important as a starting point, but they must lead to some further actions for them to be truly decolonizing (and not just 'knowledge about decolonizing'). Then we'll propose a tentative thinking and planning tool to work with teachers, students, administrators, policy makers and most importantly ourselves, to grasp what it means/what it takes, and simultaneously begin to work, to 'decolonize' ourselves, our curriculum, our pedagogy, our scholarship and then gradually our field of Language Studies and Education.

In content and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms, it is assumed that non-language content subjects provide more authentic communicative contexts for students to learn a foreign/second/additional language (L2). However, learning abstract concepts and academic language in an L2 simultaneously is also challenging for CLIL students. It is thus important for CLIL teachers to unpack and repack both abstract concepts and academic discourse for the students. 'Semantic waves', which model classroom practices of both unpacking and repacking, is arguably a key to understanding cumulative knowledge-building. Applying the concepts of semantic profiles and semantic waves, this paper analyses the classroom discourse of two CLIL science lessons in Hong Kong. In one lesson, the semantic profile mainly consists of downward shifts. The teacher adopted various useful strategies to unpack science concepts, especially with multimodalities, everyday L2 and students' L1 resources. Yet, there was limited repacking. In contrast, some repacking was observed in another lesson, where the teacher provided explicit instruction on academic language and guided students through academic writing tasks. A semantic wave can thus be observed there. These findings on strategies for unpacking and repacking provide significant insights into knowledge building in CLIL contexts, and may hence illuminate CLIL pedagogical practices.

Arising in Europe in the early 1990s, content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has become a popular educational approach. CLIL involves a dual focus on content and language learning with an additional language used as the medium of instruction. Although CLIL has received much attention and spread widely around the world, there is limited discussion that critically examines CLIL in relation to its core construct of integration between content and language learning. In particular, the phrasing of 'content and language integrated learning' gestures towards viewing language and content as separate entities. With these fundamental issues in mind, we discuss ways in which translanguaging pedagogies can provide a fruitful direction towards a critical integration of content and language learning in multilingual settings. With a view to contributing to a dynamic integration of content and language learning, we argue that CLIL pedagogies informed by translanguaging allow fluidity in meaning-making practices and critically re-examine the construct of language in CLIL. This approach responds to recent calls for more critical approaches to CLIL in order to challenge 'English-only'/target-language-only pedagogies, 'native-(English-)speakerism', and unequal power relations between content and language teachers in many CLIL programs. Implications of this approach to CLIL classrooms in diverse settings are also discussed.

Translanguaging and trans-semiotizing research has problematized the static view of language and argued that meaning making is a dynamic, material, social, and historical process across multiple timescales in complex eco-social systems. The second author proposed the concept of trans-semiotizing as an alternative lens to study language teaching and learning. In this autoethnographic study, the dynamic processes of online language learning and teaching are examined by analysing the semiotic resources, trans-semiotic practices, and the coordination of different semiotic resources. To capture such dynamic processes and the semiotic resources involved, the first author setup multiple cameras and used screen recording to document my teaching. Data include recordings of my computer screens, video recordings of my physical environment, facial expressions, body movements, screen shots of my social media posts, and my teaching notes. We draw on Lemke's dynamic eco-social system concept to discuss how semiotic resources are used in online language teaching and learning across different timescales.

Time-travel television dramas have recently gained tremendous popularity worldwide. Defying stereotypes of romance TV dramas as women’s genres, time-travel romance TV drama genres seem to have attracted young men and women of different walks of life. Informed by positioning theory and Bakhtin’s heteroglossic dialogism, this study investigates a group of bilingual Mainland Chinese, heterosexual postgraduate students’ consumption of a Chinese time-travel TV drama, Scarlet Heart. It is found that well-educated Mainland Chinese women and men are still confronted with dilemmas of gender role boundaries and pressure to subscribe to traditional gender values. However, the time-travel TV drama has enabled the interviewees to negotiate new gender relations when they assign different positions to the female protagonist and themselves in the discussion. It is therefore proposed that time-travel TV dramas can be appropriated as dialogic resources for ideological becoming and critical literacy activities for facilitating construction of alternative subject positions and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) persist under antiretroviral therapy as a complex pathology that has been difficult to study in cellular and animal models. Therefore, we generated an ex vivo human brain slice model of HIV-1 infection from surgically resected adult brain tissue. Brain slice cultures processed for flow cytometry showed >90% viability of dissociated cells within the first three weeks in vitro, with parallel detection of astrocyte, myeloid, and neuronal populations. Neurons within brain slices showed stable dendritic spine density and mature spine morphologies in the first weeks in culture, and they generated detectable activity in multi-electrode arrays. We infected cultured brain slices using patient-matched CD4+ T-cells or monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) that were exposed to a GFP-expressing R5-tropic HIV-1 in vitro. Infected slice cultures expressed viral RNA and developed a spreading infection up to 9 days post-infection, which were significantly decreased by antiretrovirals. We also detected infected myeloid cells and astrocytes within slices and observed minimal effect on cellular viability over time. Overall, this human-centered model offers a promising resource to study the cellular mechanisms contributing to HAND (including antiretroviral toxicity, substance use, and aging), infection of resident brain cells, and new neuroprotective therapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we address the epistemological conflict inherent in the relationship between named languages and translanguaging theory. Following with interest Turnbull's (2016) reframing of foreign language education as bilingual education and García's (2017) response, we see the logic of this reframing, but we also acknowledge García's concern that the notion of deficit lies at the heart of language learning as it is commonly conceptualized, and this deficit construct sits uncomfortably within translanguaging epistemology. In the article, we draw on Bakhtin's (1981) dialogical theory of language, Thibault's (2011) distributed language view and the theoretical construct of desire as both a lack and an energy (Ahmed 2010) to suggest that the naming of languages needs to be incorporated into translanguaging theory in a way that acknowledges the social construct of 'named languages' as integral to the expansion of one's linguistic repertoire as a whole. We make this suggestion in order to help develop translanguaging theory from a subaltern to a majority theory. We further suggest that language education can play a significant role in furthering the translanguaging project.

Although people may readily refer to Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. as Anglophone countries, recent demographic and sociolinguistic profiles of these countries indicate that they are actually both Anglophone and multilingual, and in some of their cities, even more multilingual than Anglophone. Recent research also indicates that when plurilingual approaches to teaching and learning were tried out in these settings challenges arose due to the 'either-or' binary thinking often found in institutional policies and among some instructors. In this paper, the rich semiotic practices and repertoires of migrant and international students are discussed to call for a shift from a deficit model to an asset model of teaching. Some possible ways to break through these 'either-or' binaries are offered through using a heteroglossic, plurilingual lens.

This paper examines the roles of multimodality and thematic patterns in the teaching of the particle model of matter. Although the particle model is a fundamental topic in science education, there is no consensus on (1) whether or not the model should be introduced in early grades and (2) how to introduce the model to students for the very first time. Drawing from teacher development projects in Sweden (Grade 3) and in Hong Kong (Grade 7), we suggest that the learning and teaching of the particle model can be facilitated by utilising a variety of modes. With multimodal scaffolding, Grade 3 students were able to demonstrate aspects of the particle model related to the expansion of gases in a warmer environment. The paper illustrates teaching episodes from the two projects in terms of (i) aspects of the particle model that were constructed using different semiotic modes, (ii) shifts in the salience of different modes in the teaching and learning process, and (iii) a thematic pattern that the classroom interactions adopted to explain puzzling phenomena. For a theoretical advancement, we suggest that thematic analysis should be extended to multimodal interactions.

Content-based education programmes, in which a second/foreign language (L2) is used as the medium of instruction when teaching non-language content subjects, aim at both content and L2 learning. With such dual goal in mind, and with the rapid expansion of the programmes to contexts where students might have only basic L2 proficiency, there have been consistent calls for reconsidering the roles of first language (L1) in the teaching and learning process. The functions of L1 in content-based classrooms have been well documented, but it is necessary to have a more systematic approach to planning and using L1. This paper seeks to address this gap by applying the notions of 'curriculum genres' and 'task structure' when analysing patterns of teachers' use of L1 and L2 in a collection of content subject lessons observed in English-medium secondary schools in Hong Kong. With illustrative episodes presented in this paper, we would argue that 'curriculum genres' and 'task structure' can serve as useful tools for both researchers and teachers to analyse and critically reflect on patterns of pedagogic practices and language use in content-based classrooms. These will have significant implications for future research on using L1 and illuminate effective pedagogy in content-based education.

Translanguaging theories emphasize a fluid, dynamic view of language and differ from code-switching/mixing theories by de-centring the analytic focus from the language(s) being used in the interaction to the speakers who are making meaning and constructing original and complex discursive practices. Trans-semiotizing theories further broaden the focus to analyse language as entangled with many other semiotics (e.g. visuals, gestures, bodily movement) in meaning making. In this paper recent developments in trans/languaging and trans-semiotizing theories are discussed in conjunction with fine-grained classroom analyses to illustrate the key role played by trans/languaging and trans-semiotizing practices in the dialogic construal of content meaning in content-based education.

While translanguaging research has been gaining currency worldwide, calls have been made for deepening its theorisation and providing more systematic pedagogical guidance. To contribute to this discussion, this study is informed by a fluid, distributed, dynamic process view of human meaning-making. Through a fine-grained multimodal analysis of classroom activities and interactions, it elucidates the translanguaging/trans-semiotising practices of an experienced science teacher trying out a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach inspired by the Multimodalities-Entextualisation Cycle (MEC) in a Grade 10 biology class in Hong Kong. Post-lesson interviews and survey indicated that such practices generated a positive impact on the students in the continuous flow of knowledge co-making. Implications of the study for furthering the theorisation and practices of translanguaging/trans-semiotising will be discussed.

This article drew on the recent dynamic, distributed view of translanguaging and flows and the New Materiality view of meaning making to explore content and language integrated learning (CLIL) activities in an English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) secondary Science classroom. Fine-grained analysis of the multilingual and multimodal classroom interactions between a Cantonese-speaking Science teacher and her Urdu-speaking students exemplified how students and teacher engaged in dynamic translanguaging, trans-semiotizing and trans-registering. The analysis supports the dynamic, heteroglossic, trans/languaging view of language learning and sheds light on some of the current queries about translanguaging. 本文應用學者近年提出的動態分散性超語流動觀 和新唯物意義構建觀 兩種理論對以英語作爲教學語言(EMI)的中學科學課堂中内容與語言融合教學 (CLIL)的活動進行了探索, 透過精細地分析課堂上母語為廣東話的科學教師與其母語為烏都語的學生之間多語多模態的課堂互動, 為師生如何投入動態超語, 超符號及超語域的交流提供了示例。 數據分析支持動態的、話語混雜的、超語的語言學習觀, 並為目前有關超語的一些疑問提供了解釋。 This article explored the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) activities in an English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) secondary Science classroom based on two recent theories of translanguaging and meaning making. The detailed analysis of classroom interactions between a Cantonese-speaking Science teacher and her Urdu-speaking students offered an example of how students and teacher engaged in multilingual and multimodal interactions during CLIL lessons. The findings of this research shed light on some of the current queries about translanguaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]