On legitimating translanguaging practices in secondary EFL classrooms: Presence, function and institutional standing

Abstract

Implementation of pedagogical translanguaging in monolingual-framed secondary school systems is fraught with controversy. This study examines translanguaging practices in Poland and Azerbaijan, two post-socialist contexts where target-language-only norms coexist with linguistically diverse student populations. Drawing on a mixed-methods design comprising 38 audio-recorded English as a foreign language lessons across seven secondary schools, a teacher questionnaire, stakeholder interviews and document analysis, the study uses a presence–function–legitimation triad that asks where teacher-initiated translanguaging falls along a continuum from spontaneous translanguaging through planned translanguaging to pedagogical translanguaging , what functions it serves and whether it is legitimated as professional pedagogy. In Azerbaijan, overt teacher translanguaging was concentrated among a small subset of teachers and functionally confined to comprehension repair and behavioural regulation. In Poland, no oral teacher-produced episodes were identified, though covert multilingual scaffolding was present. No teacher in either context met the criteria for pedagogical translanguaging, although instances of planned translanguaging were observed in Azerbaijan. The legitimation gap is sharpest not where translanguaging is absent but where teachers enact multilingual moves yet minimize and disavow them within the professional register, a practice this study identifies as covert translanguaging. The divergence between observed and reported practices is interpreted as evidence of constraint ecologies that limit the professional ownership of multilingual pedagogy in these school settings.