Brokering content communication through translanguaging: teachers’ discursive practices in Philippine EMI online mathematics classrooms

The online delivery of mathematics instruction in a rural Philippine context provides a distinctive context for examining how translanguaging practices support pedagogy. Filipino students have long demonstrated difficulties in mathematics, as reflected in international assessments, a challenge intensified by using English as a medium of instruction in a highly multilingual environment. Within this context, translanguaging in content areas, particularly mathematics, offers productive ground for inquiry, as online mathematical discourse involves complex processes of meaning-making shaped by multiple communication modes and semiotic resources. Drawing on 16 hours of online classroom observations involving four mathematics teachers and four hours of video-stimulated-recall interviews, this study employs multimodal discourse analysis to examine how translanguaging operates in instruction. Findings show that translanguaging functions as a communicative broker through two interrelated forms: content support, which directly scaffolds mathematical understanding, and auxiliary support, which complements and sustains classroom discourse. These practices amplify spoken explanations through visual, gestural, and linguistic resources, facilitate conceptual understanding, regulate classroom interaction, and ease academic tension through humor. The study advances understanding of the multifaceted role of translanguaging in online mathematics classrooms and contributes empirical insights from an underrepresented rural Philippine context, with implications for similar multilingual and digitally mediated learning environments.