Building Teacher Capacity in Vietnamese English Language Teaching: Research, Policy and Practice

225 Pages·2019·2.286 MB·

by  Le Van Canh, Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh, Roger Barnard (eds.)

Building Teacher Capacity
in English Language Teaching
in Vietnam
This timely volume opens a window on issues related to English language
education in Vietnam. The authors consider that teacher quality is the key factor
to be considered if the national English language curriculum outcomes are to be
achievable. Aiming to shed light on key issues recently observed in the Vietnamese
landscape of English language education, the volume examines the complexity of
the institutionalisation of the standardised English proficiency policy, which has
been in force since 2008. That policy uses the Common European Framework of
References for Languages (CEFR) as the model to set the standards and levels of
proficiency for teachers, learners, and state employees.
The book presents both the theoretical and practical aspects of the standardisation
movement in English language education. The contents comprise a series of
extended research-based chapters written by experts of language-in-education
policy and planning in and about Vietnam from a range of perspectives including
teachers, English language curriculum developers, and teacher educators and
researchers. The rich coverage of the book includes the current discussion on
English language education in Vietnam ranging from policy to practice, making
it highly relevant to English teachers, teacher educators, and scholars, in Vietnam
and worldwide, who aspire to broaden their horizons and professionalism.
Le Van Canh is an associate professor in applied linguistics at Vietnam National
University, Hanoi. He has been involved in English language teacher education
in Vietnam for the past 40 years. His publications centre on second language
teacher education in response to the enactment of innovation in Vietnamese
ELT. For the last few years, he, as a teacher educator, promotes teacher research
among Vietnamese ELT teachers in an attempt to bridge global disciplinary
discourses with local practices. His research interests are teacher education,
language planning and policy, and context-based TESOL pedagogy.
Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at The
University of New South Wales, Australia, and specialises in teacher education
and development, mentoring, TESOL, and sociocultural theory. She has
experience teaching and training pre-service and in-service teachers in Asia and
Australia. She has had two authored books, two edited books and over 15 book
chapters and 20 articles in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals and international
prestigious publishers. She is also an honorary research fellow at the University of
Sydney and a visiting scholar at King’s College London.
Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh is an associate professor in the English Language and
Literature Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests include pragmatics
in language teaching and learning, interactional competence development,
language pedagogy and language teacher education. She has published widely in
mainstream TESOL and applied linguistics journals and reputable edited books,
and co-authored several teachers’ handbooks and school resource materials.
She is currently serving on the editorial board of the A sian Journal of English
Language Teaching published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Roger Barnard is an associate professor in applied linguistics at the University
of Waikato, New Zealand. Over the past 15 years, he has worked with academics
in Vietnam and many other Asian universities on collaborative research projects,
resulting in several publications, most recently, R. Barnard & Z. Hasim (Eds.),
English Medium Instruction Programmes: Perspectives from South East Asian Uni-
versities (2018).
Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education
Series Editors: S. Gopinathan, Wing On Lee
and Jason Eng Thye Tan
Literature Education in the Asia-Pacific
Policies, practices and perspectives in global times
Edited by Chin Ee Loh, Suzanne Choo and Chatherine Beavis
English Tertiary Education in Vietnam
Edited by James Albright
English Language Teacher Preparation in Asia
Policy, research and practice
Edited by Subhan Zein and Richmond Stroupe
Lesson Study and Schools as Learning Communities
Asian school reform in theory and practice
Edited by Atsushi Tsukui and Masatsugu Murase
The Asian EFL Classroom
Issues, challenges and future expectations
Edited by Soo-Ok Kwen and Bernard Spolsky
Teacher Education for English as a Lingua Franca
Perspectives from Indonesia
Edited by Subhan Zein
The Governance and Management of Universities in Asia
Global influences and local responses
Chang Da Wan, Molly N.N. Lee, and Hoe Yeong Loke
Building Teacher Capacity in English Language Teaching in Vietnam
Research, Policy and Practice
Edited by Le Van Canh, Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh,
Roger Barnard
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Critical-Studies-in-Asian-Education/book-series/RCSAE

Building Teacher Capacity
in English Language
Teaching in Vietnam
Research, Policy and Practice
Edited by Le Van Canh, Hoa Thi Mai
Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh,
Roger Barnard
The
HEAD
Foundation
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Le Van Canh, Hoa Thi Mai
Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh, Roger Barnard; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Le Van Canh, Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Thuy
Minh, Roger Barnard to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-31386-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-45737-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of figures and tables ix
Foreword x
List of contributors xvii
List of abbreviations xxi
Introduction 1
1 English language teaching in Vietnam: aspirations,
realities, and challenges 7
LE VAN CANH
2 Problematising pre-service English language teacher
education curriculum 23
HAI HA VU AND DIANA L. DUDZIK
3 Risk, uncertainty, and vulnerability: primary teachers’
emotional experiences of English language policy
implementation 44
LAURA GRASSICK
4 Exploring teacher learning in mandatory in-service
training courses: challenges ahead 62
LE VAN CANH
5 Teachers’ professional learning in the context of language
education reforms 80
HOA THI MAI NGUYEN, TRAM DO QUYNH PHAN, AND
MANH DUC LE
6 Leveraging teaching knowledge to develop teachers’
classroom English: working at scale 99
DONALD FREEMAN AND ANNE KATZ
viii Contents
7 University lecturers’ perceived challenges in EMI:
implications for teacher professional development 115
LÊ THỊ THÙY NHUNG
8 Teachers’ implementation of computer-assisted language
learning in the context of educational change in Vietnam 133
NGUYEN THI HONG NHAT
9 An evaluation of the intercultural orientation of
secondary English textbooks in Vietnam: how well
are students prepared to communicate in global
contexts? 150
NGUYEN THI THUY MINH AND CAO THI HONG PHUONG
10 English as a lingua franca for Vietnam: current issues
and future directions 166
MY HAU THI HO AND HANH THI NGUYEN
11 Building teacher capacity for ELT in Vietnam:
ways forward 184
LE VAN CANH AND ROGER BARNARD
Index 197
Figures and tables
Figures
2.1 ETCF framework 25
5.1 The structure of human activity 83
5.2 The activity system of teacher professional learning 84
6.1 The English-for-Teaching Framework 104
Tables
2.1 Main contents of the PELTE curriculum under study 27
2.2 Example of course objectives linked to ETCF 28
2.3 Syllabi analysis: strongly and weakly represented competencies 29
2.4 Highest-rated performance indicators 30
2.5 Lowest-rated performance indicators 30
2.6 Performance indicators with the lowest standard deviations
in descending order 30
3.1 Profile of the participants 48
5.1 Socio-demographic characteristics of the participants 85
6.1 English-for-Teaching – functional areas, sample classroom tasks,
and language exemplars 105
6.2 Three implementations of the English-for-Teaching course: a
comparative snapshot 109
7.1 Lecturers’ teaching experience (years) in EMI mode 119
8.1 Data collection methods 136
8.2 Overview of case study teachers 137