A bibliometric analysis of pre-service teacher education in EFL/ESL contexts from 2020 to 2025

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Abstract
This study maps a narrowly defined Scopus indexed corpus on pre-service teacher education in English as a foreign language and English as a second language contexts from 2020 to 2025. The corpus contained 34 English language documents retrieved through a title-based search and analysed with Bibliometrix, igraph, and VOSviewer. The analysis examined annual publication and citation patterns, recurring terms, highly cited documents, country and author collaboration, and reference co-citation. Publication output increased unevenly from four documents in 2020 to nine in 2025. Term patterns suggest a movement from pandemic and distance education language towards language teaching, World Englishes, practicum, and teaching strategies. Citation visibility was concentrated around a small number of documents, especially one 2020 article, and citation counts were treated as visibility indicators rather than evidence of quality. Country and author collaboration appeared fragmented, with several small components and only one recurring research team. Reference co-citation was also weak, suggesting limited shared intellectual grounding within this title defined corpus. The review offers a cautious map of what is visible in Scopus and identifies priorities for future research, including broader database comparisons, clearer terminology, stronger cross-national designs, and closer links between teacher education research, practicum supervision, curriculum development, and technology literacy.

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