Resumen en español

Students' oral participation during lessons is fundamental for learning a new language, since it creates opportunities for both meaning production and understanding. However, it is common that school students participate little or mostly in Spanish (L1) during English (L2) lessons; such is the case of the group of Colombian students that were the focus of this study. This action research investigated the opportunities of code-switching and code-blending translanguaging strategies to promote students’ oral participation in L2 lessons. Translanguaging allows two different languages to be used simultaneously as a single linguistic repertoire during communication to enhance the development of the languages involved. Several studies have shown that there is a need for further study to explore the reasons for students’ little oral participation in L2 lessons and how this phenomenon could be overcome through the implementation of strategies such as translanguaging. Data included one class observation, teacher interview, a survey to students, three lesson observations, and a teachers’ reflective journal. Analysis suggested that code-switching and code-blending may have generated an increase in oral participation opportunities in the L2 classroom. Additionally, there was a notorious use of the students’ English-Spanish linguistic repertoire to support L2 learning. However, these changes may also be explained by the integration of translanguaging to meaningful learning activities and topics. The study advocates for the use of Spanish and English flexibly during lessons, as part of a single repertoire students and teachers can use to promote L2 learning in Colombian L2 classrooms.