One of the sessions in our internship schedule was a seminar specifically about translanguaging, and it introduced me to a problem I had never really thought about before. In the Philippines, there are two national languages, English and Filipino, plus distinct local languages tied to specific regions. Hiligaynon in Iloilo being one of them. What makes this genuinely complex in a classroom setting is that students sitting in the same class do not always share the same first language. As a teacher you cannot assume a common linguistic ground the way teachers in many other countries can. Translanguaging, the practice of fluidly moving between languages to support understanding, is not a workaround here. It is a necessary skill.

Hearing this properly articulated in the seminar made me stop and think about how much I take linguistic unity for granted back home. In Jakarta, even though we have our own local language and many of us can speak it, practically every student understands Bahasa Indonesia. It is the common thread that makes communication in the classroom almost invisible as a problem. I have never had to think about whether a student could follow me in the language I was using. It was always a given.

That said, the issue is not entirely absent in Indonesia. In rural and remote areas, where Bahasa Indonesia may not be the dominant daily language, teachers likely face something much closer to what Filipino teachers navigate every day. The seminar made me realize that translanguaging is probably an underappreciated skill in Indonesian teacher training, especially for those heading to areas outside the major cities.