Translanguaging instruction is often used to decrease students' anxiety in English as foreign language (EFL) situations and improve their English proficiency (Rivers, 2011). Saito, Dewaele, Abe, and In'nami (2018) concluded that the regular and frequent use of a target language (TL) while experiencing enjoyable feelings could decrease anxiety, and improve overall TL proficiency. Translanguageing and enjoyable lessons are likely to have the benefit of decreasing students' anxiety and improving their English proficiency.
The aim of this study was to investigate whether a teacher's language choice in EFL task-based communicative classes could affect students' enjoyment, anxiety, and English proficiency improvement.
As the research design, two groups such as English-only instruction (EE group) and translanguaging instruction (English instruction with some legitimate Japanese support) (EJ group) were created and their enjoyment, anxiety and English proficiency improvement were compared.
As research methods, the questionnaire ninety-two students took twice (at the entry and at the end) was used to measure the levels of students' enjoyment and anxiety. The change between the term tests' scores was used to measure the levels of students' English proficiency improvement.
A chi-squared test, independent t-tests, and paired t-tests were performed using the SPSS statistical package version 23. The difference at p < 0.05 was considered significant. Bonferroni's correction was applied for multiple comparisons.
No significant differences were observed on the baseline data between the two groups. However, differences were observed between them. In EE group, the levels of enjoyment significantly increased from Time 1 to Time 2, but not in EJ group. In EJ group, student's score significantly increased from the midterm to the final exam, but not in EE group.
English-only instruction might contribute to increased enjoyment on students, while translanguaging instruction might contribute to the English proficiency improvement of basic to low intermediate-level students.
