Decode, reflect, apply: scaffolding academic language and reflective engagement as foundations for theory–practice transfer in bilingual teacher education

Abstract

In bilingual teacher education, where pre-service teachers engage with academic English as non-native speakers, effective theory–practice transfer depends on two interdependent prerequisites: the linguistic capacity to decode dense academic texts, and the metacognitive capacity to reflect on theoretical knowledge in ways that connect it to emerging professional reasoning. Drawing on research that identifies persistent gaps between theoretical input and authentic classroom application, this paper presents a pedagogical approach that sequences learning activities across three stages — decode, reflect, apply — and reports on an initial empirical evaluation of two illustrative materials operationalizing the approach. The first is a research excerpt that guides students through argumentation, text structure, and the interpretation of findings; the second is a structured “Pause & Reflect” task that prompts metacognitive engagement and the application of pedagogical reasoning. To examine how multilingual pre-service teachers in an English-medium program perceive these materials, a paper-based questionnaire was administered combining adapted versions of the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS), the Interest/Enjoyment and Perceived Competence subscales of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) — administered separately for each material — and an adapted Reflective Thinking Questionnaire (RTQ), alongside open-ended items and a multilingual background inventory. Quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that the materials functioned in a complementary rather than redundant relationship — the reading task building perceived competence, the reflection task building intrinsic engagement — and that the pattern of results is consistent with treating linguistic scaffolding and reflective support as co-constitutive rather than sequential concerns in bilingual professional education contexts, though the cross-sectional, single-session design cannot establish this relationship directly.