Strategic translanguaging and critical dialogue in EFL: evidence from pre-service teachers’ reflective experiences

This mixed-methods study investigated how 39 Indonesian pre-service EFL teachers (PSTs) utilised strategic translanguaging practices to promote critical dialogue and measurable student engagement across 10 teaching practicum sites. Data were collected through surveys, reflective journals, and focus group discussions over a twelve-week period. Quantitative analysis, employing multiple linear regression, demonstrated that both translanguaging practices (β = 0.2076, p = .0012) and student engagement (β = 0.2748, p = .0001) were significant positive predictors of critical dialogue, collectively explaining a substantial portion of the variance (R2 = 0.6824). Qualitative findings, derived from reflective journals and focus group data, confirmed that translanguaging acts as vital cognitive scaffolding, significantly reducing foreign language anxiety and operating as an essential self-regulation strategy for complex L2 expression. Critically, reflective practice was identified as the key mechanism enabling PSTs to overcome the institutional monolingual habitus and implement these strategies intentionally. These results suggest that pre-service teachers intuitively develop translanguaging competencies despite limited formal training, though persistent tensions between pedagogical beliefs and institutional English-only policies remain.