Pedagogical translanguaging in secondary EFL: A systematic review of practice and teacher development (2023–2025)

Abstract

While pedagogical translanguaging (PT) has gained prominence as an approach for bridging learners’ multilingual repertoires and monolingual teaching paradigms, secondary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts remain underexamined, particularly following recent shifts in classroom diversity. This systematic review synthesizes 25 empirical studies of PT in secondary EFL education published between January 2023 and August 2025. Based on Reflexive Thematic Analysis, four interconnected themes were identified: (1) barriers to PT implementation due to structural, ideological, and teacher preparation constraints within institutional environments; (2) pedagogical rationales that integrate cognitive, affective, and sociocultural justifications; (3) observable classroom practices organized by pedagogical function, revealing strategic deployment of more-enabled and less-enabled languages; and (4) learning outcomes across cognitive, affective, and sociocultural domains. These themes reveal a fundamental tension: although translanguaging proves pragmatically necessary for effective EFL teaching, it remains systematically unsupported at the institutional level. Teachers justify and enact sophisticated multilingual practices, but without formal preparation, they tend to implement PT covertly within unsupportive structures, relying on knowledge that remains tacit and difficult to share. The review shows that PT has outpaced institutional recognition, calling for systems that treat it as professional expertise rather than tolerated improvisation.