EFL teachers learning to translanguage through loop input: implications for their identity-reconstruction

Abstract

While numerous training models aim to empower teachers by positioning them as active participants with agency and freedom, they often fall short in providing opportunities for training that seamlessly incorporates both the participants’ own language and English. In this study, we used loop input (process and content aligned) in two languages that exacerbate the process of translanguaging. Loop input involved learning to translanguage by translanguaging. The study was conducted in Türkiye with 12 in-service English as a Foreign language (EFL) teachers. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, and in-class observations. Findings showed that loop input-modelled training, due to its reflection and awareness-raising orientations, contributes to in-service EFL teachers’ (INSETs) identity reconstruction in complex manners at the intersection of translanguaging-influenced identities: self-reflective critical teacher, student engagement-oriented teacher, and translanguaging-facilitating teacher. We argue that loop input-modelled translanguaging-embedded training could be a proper model to introduce translanguaging pedagogy.