Intentional translanguaging and generative AI for metacognitive EFL writing: reflective scaffolding and implications for Latin America

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly used in second-language writing, while translanguaging can serve as a pedagogical resource for mobilizing multilingual repertoires. Neither resource is inherently metacognitive. This Perspective conceptualizes intentional translanguaging and GenAI as complementary resources within a teacher-mediated framework for EFL writing. The Integrated Intentional Translanguaging–GenAI Framework for Reflective Decision-Making situates both resources across planning, monitoring, revision/evaluation, and post-writing through an author-developed heuristic: identify a purpose, examine alternatives, compare, judge, decide, and reflect. Its central mechanism is learner evaluative judgment: learners assess multilingual and AI-generated alternatives and decide whether to accept, modify, reject, or further examine them while retaining authorship and regulatory responsibility. Teacher-mediated scaffolding may structure this process through expectations, modeling, criteria, prompts, feedback, and adjusted support. In Latin American EFL contexts, linguistic diversity, technological access, institutional expectations, teacher preparation, and language ideologies may shape adaptation. The framework is conceptual and context-sensitive, makes no causal claims, and identifies directions for empirical examination.