From interaction to competency: the mediating role of social engagement in the emergence of materials-use competency among pre-service EFL teachers

Despite increasing attention to teacher professionalism, little is known about the micro-level classroom processes through which pre-service EFL teachers develop materials-use competency, especially in resource-constrained contexts where lecture materials dominate. Grounded in sociomaterialism, this study examines how social engagement during lecture-initiated interactions mediates the emergence of pre-service EFL teachers’ materials-use competency. The dataset comprises 1,770 student responses across 28 classes in a teacher education module in Southwest China, analysed through two-round grounded coding, multimodal conversation analysis, and thematic analysis of instructor and student interviews. Three patterns of interactional entanglement (low, medium, high) were identified. These patterns shaped the conditions for dialogic learning, and it was particularly high-quality social engagement that mediated whether pre-service teachers transformed lecture discourse into situated instructional resources, enabling interactive designs. Structural and interactional constraints, including multimodal asymmetries and superficial translingual interactions, limited the occurrence of high-quality social engagement, thereby constraining the emergence of materials-use competency. The study contributes to sociomaterial perspectives in teacher education by showing how interactional entanglement and social engagement jointly shape the emergence of materials-use competency. Findings highlight the need to foreground social engagement in fostering such competency in teacher preparation.