VietTESOL International Convention 2026

Translanguaging has become one of the most influential ideas in TESOL, but its conceptual scope, pedagogical functions, and institutional viability remain under debate just as Vietnam embarks on a national project to reposition English from a foreign to a second language across 2025 to 2035. This presentation reports a systematic literature review with thematic synthesis of empirical post-2020 TESOL research on translanguaging, conducted in line with established systematic-review reporting principles. Twenty-nine peer-reviewed empirical studies were synthesised, comprising eighteen international and eleven Vietnam-context studies set in primary, secondary, tertiary, and teacher-education contexts, and spanning EFL, ESL, EAP, ESP, and English-medium instruction. Thematic analysis identified five patterns: plural and slippery conceptualisations of translanguaging; convergent but methodologically thin claims about cognitive scaffolding; recurring but unreplicated affective benefits; institutional constraints described rather than theorised; and teacher agency more often asserted than evidenced. The Vietnam-context evidence is small-scale and descriptive, and substantially overlaps with strategic L1 use under a new label. The presentation discusses what these findings imply for Vietnam's ESL agenda across teacher education, classroom language policy, curriculum design, assessment alignment, English-medium instruction, and equity for ethnic-minority languages, and closes with conservative design moves and a research roadmap that translanguaging-aware policy in Vietnam will need before any scale-up.