Pedagogical Translanguaging as A Practice in the ESL or EFL Classrooms: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Over the years, there has been a rise in awareness of translanguaging among bilingual students and teachers. Nevertheless, thus far, little study has reviewed the implementation of the pedagogical practice of translanguaging in the context of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) classrooms. Therefore, this review focuses on synthesising existing research that was conducted between 2018 and 2022. This review aims to outline the characteristics of existing empirical studies on pedagogical translanguaging in ESL/EFL classrooms. This scoping review was guided by the PRISMA for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR). The five-stage framework developed by Arksey and O’Malley was utilised as the basis for this scoping review. A total of 50 empirical studies between 2018 and 2022 were retrieved from four electronic databases: Google Scholar, Scopus, Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC), and Web of Science (WoS). The articles were reviewed and descriptively analysed. The findings indicated that the studies were predominantly conducted in Asia (n=40; 80%), while the research focus of most of the studies was on translanguaging practice in the classroom (n=27; 54%). Based on the pattern of previous studies, the review presented several recommendations for future research. The limitations of this review were also discussed.