<![CDATA[Microteaching plays a central role in EFL teacher education as a platform for developing initial teaching competence; however, its contribution to deeper pedagogical understanding remains underexplored. This study investigates how pre-service EFL teachers demonstrate pedagogical competence, how it is enacted in teaching practice, and how it is evaluated by lecturers, with a particular focus on the gap between procedural and conceptual competence. A mixed-methods explanatory sequential design was employed involving 35 pre-service teachers and two lecturers. Quantitative data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, followed by qualitative data from semi-structured interviews to explore teaching practices and lecturer evaluations in greater depth. The findings indicate that students demonstrate relatively strong competence in lesson planning and instructional implementation, while showing weaker performance in assessment and student development. A notable discrepancy is also found between students’ self-perceptions, their enacted teaching practices, and lecturers’ evaluations. These results suggest that microteaching tends to strengthen procedural teaching skills, while deeper pedagogical understanding remains limited. The study highlights the importance of positioning microteaching as a transitional learning space that should be complemented with authentic teaching experiences, reflective practice, and targeted feedback to support more holistic pedagogical competence development.]]>
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