Trends in Teaching and Learning English in Vietnam: Implications for the Future

Dr. Lillian Utsumi & Dr. Doan Thi Nam-Hau

CHEER for Viet Nam - Traversing Borders: Viet Nam Teacher Program

Abstract

In this paper, researchers Doan and Utsumi present the results of a study, using
mixed methods that examined current teaching methods and practices in English
language teaching. Spanning five major universities in Vietnam, data were
collected from multiple sources, including focus groups, interviews, classroom
observation, and questionnaires. Results show a shift in teaching and learning
practices, challenges to managing system changes, and perceptions of staffing and
resource shortages, including financing. The researchers and workshop participants
will explore the implications of this study in light of MOET‘s Education Plan to
accelerate and improve the teaching and learning of English in Vietnam as one of
several pathways for economic equity in the global community. This paper
discusses the results of a 2008 study on a compilation of English language teaching
(ELT) practices at the university level in Vietnam.

Conference Paper Limitations

For the purposes of this presentation, we present only the research methods and
summary of combined findings. An Executive Summary of the full research report
will be posted on the CHEER (Culture, Health, Education, and Environment
Resources) website, www.cheerforvietnam.org. CHEER, the sponsoring
organization for this study, is a non-profit organization based in the United States.
One of CHEER‘s major educational activities is Traversing Borders: Viet Nam
Teacher Training Program (VTTP). The objectives of VTTP workshops are to
improve the quality of English language instruction (ELT), to provide participants
with first-hand experiences and opportunities to apply best practices in ELT to their
own classrooms, to promote teacher collaboration and leadership, and to deepen
cross-cultural understanding between the Vietnamese and American teachers.
CHEER forged partnership with several universities to implement these workshops.

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 THE STUDY

Methods

This study obtained descriptions of practice from five universities using a mixed
methods approach of surveys, interviews, and observations. The use of mixed
methods--qualitative and quantitative-- allowed us to gather data about a complex
behavior—the act of teaching--through multiple perspectives and settings.
Quantitative data collection methods included the use of teacher and student
surveys. Qualitative data collection methods encompassed teacher and student
focus groups, individual interviews and classroom observations. Direct
observations in classrooms provided data on teaching practices in the naturalistic
setting (Merriam 1998). The combination of methods enabled us to uncover trends
in the practices and challenges of English language teaching. These methods also
provided participants with a voice on potential solutions to the challenges of
English language teaching. Together, the multiple sources enabled us to weave of
broad tapestry of teaching in Vietnam. Triangulation of the multiple data sources
enhanced the confidence of our results.

The essential questions guiding this study were:

 What do teachers and students report are the teaching practices used in
English language teaching at the university level?

 What do teachers and students report are the challenges to teaching and
learning English?

 What do teachers and students propose as solutions for improving English

teaching in Vietnam?

Site Selection and Access

Five public universities that offer programs in English, pedagogy, and American
Studies were invited to participate in the study. These five sites represent a cross
section of regions in Vietnam-- northern, central, and southern and a mixture of
urban, provincial, and rural settings.

We obtained access to the universities through Ministry of Education and

Training‗s (MOET) agreement to co-sponsor this study. MOET sent an official
letter of introduction directly to the five universities acknowledging endorsement
and support for this research study. We then contacted each university requesting

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their participation. The Rectors and/or Presidents at all five universities agreed to
participate and facilitated our site visits. We provided each university with detailed
information and documentation about the project. Each university established a
contact person to serve as liaison for our site visits. We visited the five universities
from March 18 – March 31, 2008 and spent approximately two to two- and-half day
at each site.

Participants

Participants at each of the five universities included teachers and students for a total
of 178 teaching faculty and 110 students.

Teachers - Each university organized one to two informational meetings for us,
based on their staff numbers and schedules. From each information meeting, we
selected 8 – 12 volunteers for the Teacher Focus Group. Criteria for Focus Group
participation required at least one teacher from each of the following courses:
beginning English, advanced English, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and
American Studies. Each university had at least one Teacher Focus Group; several
had two. From the informational meetings, an additional four volunteers were
selected for individual interviews, for a total of 20 teacher interviews at the five
universities. Observations of classroom teachers were arranged by the University
liaison person. We requested to see certain kinds of classes at each university so
that in total, we would observe a cross section of courses offered, as well as a cross
section of students, including beginning, advanced, and students who represented
ethnic groups.

Students – A total of 110 students participated in the study. Forty-two students

participated in the focus groups--eight students at each of four universities and 10 at
another. On the surveys, 68 students consented to participate out of the 81who
visited the survey website. Three students elected not to participate.

Students were invited to participate in the survey and focus groups from the 18
classroom we visited. At each of the classroom we observed, a few minutes were
set aside prior to the beginning of class for information about the study. Students,
by a show of hands, volunteered to participate in the focus groups at a designated
time and campus venue. For survey participation, we provided a handout about the
survey website for students to pick up at the end of class.

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Data Collection Methods

Survey Questionnaires– Surveys contained specific questions about commonly

used teaching practices, described in the literature on ELT (Brown 1993; Nunan
1999; Larsen-Freeman 1999). Eight questions collected teacher and student
demographic data; three were related to student motivation, language learning
behaviors, and achievement. Nine questions related to teachers‘ pedagogical
background, teaching practices, and professional growth and development. Two
questions focused on technology and other resources. Two questions asked about
challenges to teaching. As an example, we had one question about the use of
multiple strategies during lessons and offered 16 ELT practices that included
memorization, journal writing, questioning, lecture, repetition, pair-share, group
work, brainstorming, graphic organizers, games, songs, warm-ups, role playing
and/or reader‘s theater, oral reading, teacher assigned projects, and student selected
projects. On another question, we asked about practices teachers used to address
differing student abilities within a classroom. Response choices included wait time,
open-ended questioning, pair-share, small collaborative groups for specific
activities, heterogeneous grouping, tutoring outside of class, and the use of
multimedia.

To design the survey and the response types, we utilized Survey Monkey, internet-
based survey software, to design, collect, and analyze the results. Response formats
included multiple choice, rating scales, and open ended comments. Question
responses most items were randomized for each survey taker to eliminate any
suggestion of value-laden hierarchal ordering.

We experienced one major difficulty with the online delivery system. Many survey
respondents informed us that they had trouble submitting their online surveys. The
Survey Monkey support unit thought that the problems stemmed from cookie and/or
security settings on individual computers. Although we sent ―fixes‖ to those who
contacted us, we know many simply gave up. We are certain that this problem
impacted our response rate.

Teacher and Student Focus Groups - Focus groups discussions were initiated by
open-ended question that resulted in free-flowing and lively conversations.
Sessions were approximately 45 minutes in length. All teacher and student focus
groups were asked the same questions. The first was, ―What‘s easy about
teaching?‖ Anticipating that teachers would expect more direct question about
teaching practices, we sought a less structured discussion about teaching. This

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question first surprised them, but immediately stimulated for a stream of responses.
A large number of teaching practices, goals, and professional aspirations were
embedded in these conversations. The same occurred with the second question,
―What‘s difficult about teaching?‖ All sessions were recorded on audiotape and
transcribed.

Individual Teacher Interviews - In the personal interview, we also encouraged the

free flow of comments. We began each interview gathering personal and
educational background information. We used similar open-ended questions as the
focus group questions. The personal ―stories‖ from these qualitative interviews
added depth and meaning to the quantifiable response choices on the survey.

Classroom Observations – Eighteen classroom observations were made. The two

researchers conducted the first four observations jointly in order to ensure inter-
rater agreement. Observations were recorded on a Lesson Observation Protocol we
devised. Lesson components consisted of section headings--lesson focus, lesson
introduction, lesson delivery, observation notes, and lesson closing. There was a
final section to record a post-lesson debriefing with the instructor. In a separate
observation notes section, we noted behaviors related to grouping efficacy,
evidence of scaffolding, checks for understanding, student engagement, and use of
technology and/or other resources. Although we had a linear outline, we made no
assumptions that any lesson would follow either the sequence or the sections on our
protocol. At the end of each lesson, where possible, we held a 15 minute debriefing
session where instructors commented on aspects of the lesson or answered any
questions we had about the lesson. Upon returning to the U.S., we summarized the
teacher/student talk and interactions. We typed up detailed lesson scripts and the
debriefing notes. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from our
protocol.

Data Analysis

In order to bring order, structure, and meaning to the mass of qualitative data we
collected (Marshall and Rossman 1989) we mined the written transcripts for broad
patterns, themes, and categories (Miles and Huberman 1994). Distinct themes fell
into these groupings: teaching practices, challenges, solutions, and
goals/aspirations. Within each broad theme, we then probed the data several
additional times achieving greater specificity each time. For teaching practices, we
grouped similar practices under a general category. Thus, pair/share, triads, small
group work, and teams were grouped as ―Grouping.‖ The following exemplifies

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this process. When teachers posed questions about what students knew about a
topic, or did a short activity as a lead-in to the lesson, the short description we wrote
from the transcript might have been ―T asked questions about songs Ss liked.‖ We
then characterized this and strategies like this as ―tapping prior knowledge.‖ The
researchers spent more than 100 hours working jointly on the mining/coding
process, coding, recoding, checking, rechecking, and referring back to the original
transcripts when ambiguities arose (Miles and Huberman 1994). For practices, we
analyzed both the pattern and frequency of responses, by individual sites and across
all sites. We used Excel to code and sort data.

In our analysis of the classroom observations, we took our notes and recreated
scripts of teachers‘ lessons. As part of our data analysis, we added a section to the
lesson script titled ―teaching strategies.‖ We then extracted strategies from the
lesson script and practices described in the special observation notes section and
listed them. By taking all of the practices from all of the classroom observations,
we created a large list of practices observed across all five sites. The frequency of
practices was then identified. Also, based on the roles of the teachers, students,
lesson delivery, we formed categories for teaching styles.

Survey results yielded quantitative descriptions about specific teaching and

assessment practices, use and availability of technology and other resources, and
professional development practices and needs. Analysis was made simple through
the quantified results provided by the survey software program. These results
included counts, frequencies, mean tendencies, and displays of comment fields,
which were downloadable in a number of formats. In some cases, we used SPSS
for means and standard deviations. We sorted and coded open-ended responses and
comments using Excel.

PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

These preliminary findings represent just one section of the entire report which
includes an introduction, literature review, and detailed findings from each of the
six data sources: teacher survey, teacher focus group, teacher interview, classroom
observation, student survey, and student focus group.

The combined results yielded the following:

1) Teachers report that traditional practices are still used in classrooms across
the five universities. Students agree somewhat, but reported that mostly
traditional practices are in place.
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 2) Teaching practices demonstrate a shift toward more communicative
approaches. All groups, except students agree with this statement.

3) Most teachers in this study report using a combination of practices. These

practices, when arranged on a continuum, range from traditional, teacher-
centered practices to a mid-range combination of teacher-
centered/communicative practices to student-centered/communicative
practices.

4) All groups report similar findings on challenges: teaching and learning

practices, resources and facilities, workload, and policy.

5) Proposed solutions addressed resources and facilities, teaching practices,

university program, policy and institutional support, and teacher learning and
development.

Findings on Teaching Practices

The following results are preliminary summaries of each of the datasets.

Teacher Survey: Survey results showed that the most frequently used practices
were teacher movement to monitor student work, asking open-ended questions,
student groupings, brainstorming, lecture, and warm-up activities. Teachers used
the chalkboard, textbooks, workbooks, visual aids and library resources most as
teaching tools.

Students agreed with the statement that teachers used a variety of methods in their
classrooms. Group work was identified as the most frequently used teaching
practice, followed by questioning. Other practices used by teachers several times
over five sessions included brainstorming, teacher-assigned projects, pair-share,
lecture, memorization, repetition, oral reading, and warm-up activities. The least
used practice was songs. Students marginally agreed that classroom lessons were
informative or interesting. Teaching resources most frequently used were
textbooks, workbooks, chalkboards/whiteboards, and tape recorders.

Teacher Focus Groups: The results across all teacher focus groups revealed a shift
toward more communicative approaches to ELT compared to traditional practices.
Practices most associated with communicative approaches were mentions 39 times
out of 59 references to practices, compared to 20 references to traditional

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approaches. Communicative practices included strategies to improve student
motivation, grouping, computer-assisted language learning/multimedia, and task-
based learning, and problem-based learning, use of authentic materials, linking
English to students‘ lives, open-ended questioning, role-playing, and critical
thinking skills.

Teacher Interviews: From the 19 teacher interviews, more than 50 different

practices were identified. About 61% of all references to teaching practices
involved communicative approaches. These included teaching to cultural
contexts/comparative cultures, comparing literary works, grouping students, having
students generate questions, mini-projects, task-based learning, use of internet and
technology, active learning, activities to motivate and lower affective filter,
extending lessons, critical thinking tasks, developing student learning autonomy,
and others.

Classroom Observations: Observations of teaching practices were grouped into 11

distinct categories out of a total of 143 observed instances of practices. We did not
include seven that occurred between one to three times over the all observations.

The most frequently observed practice was scaffolding, which included pre-view
review, vocabulary, cultural terms, check for understanding, and use of L1, key
points, clarifying questions, lesson debriefing, and charting. Scaffolds were
distinguished from ―comprehensible input‖ which consisted of more visual inputs,
such as pictures, photos, diagrams, and maps, and body language cues such as
gestures and facial expressions.

The second most frequently observed practices were traditional practices

characterized by exclusive adherence to textbooks, textbook/workbook
combinations, error correction, whole-class recitations, and lecturing with some
questioning, but with little to no opportunity for student response or interactions.

The third most frequently observed practice was questioning that included posing
general questions to generate student opinions and comments, questioning with
additional probing, Socratic-type questioning to elicit higher order or abstract
thinking, and student-generated questions. Two instances of questioning focused
primarily on eliciting correct answers.

Ten occurrences of grouping, prior knowledge, technology, and teacher circulation

were observed in the 18 classroom observations.

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Student Focus Group: Across all focus groups, students mentioned very few
teaching practices except some mention of grouping, brainstorming, and teaching
questioning. They all agreed that ―old‖ methods of teaching dictation, grammar,
memorization, and repetition were still predominant in their pre-college experiences
and some of their current classes. Although students overwhelming reported they
wanted to communicate effectively, they expressed conflict about newer practices,
given the need to pass national exams.

Findings on Challenges to Teaching

Teachers reported challenges in implementing practices that address student needs,

such as motivation, multi-level classes, learning communicative teaching strategies,
creating student-centered lessons, and developing student autonomy.

Teacher Focus Group: Across all focus groups, teachers revealed five major areas
of challenges. In priority order, the challenges related to teaching practices,
government and university policy, workload, resources and teacher learning.

Challenges in teaching practices included difficulties in implementing practices

that address student needs, such as motivation, multi-level classes, large classes,
learning communicative teaching strategies, creating student-centered lessons, and
developing student autonomy. The lack of an English environment was a huge
challenge.

Policy challenges included difficulties implementing MOET mandates, excessive

curriculum requirements, poorly prepared pre-collegiate students who seek
university matriculation, the salary system for teachers, and the inadequate funding
of education.

Workload challenges revealed that teachers lacked time to adequately prepare

lessons, conduct research, and engage in their own professional growth and
development.

Resource challenges involved both physical and human resources. Physical

resources referred to library resources such as books, authentic texts, and ESP
materials, and high quality computer laboratories and multi-media platforms.
Teachers indicated several shortages of both qualified teachers and native-speaking
teachers.

Teacher learning challenges consisted of how to design effective lessons, how build
student confidence, and how to teach communicative skills. Teachers also identified
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their own professional challenges of exposure to the differing English language
cultures, confidence in their own fluency and communicative competence,
confidence in their teaching ability, and keeping current with technology. They also
found the opportunities to study abroad a challenge.

Teacher Interviews: Teachers revealed challenges in resources, policy, practices,

teacher learning, and workload, in priority order.

Resource challenges were identical to the teacher focus groups. What was not
mentioned in the focus groups was the inadequate funding for library book
purchases and lack of materials such as teacher‘s guides, answer books, and ESP
tapes and supplementary materials.

Policy challenges most frequently mentioned were concerns with the credit-based
system, the implementing of systemic change without prior study and support,
teacher evaluation processes, class size, graduation rates, academic articulation, and
teacher‘s salary structure.

Challenges to teaching practices were identical in content to the focus groups. The
priority rankings differed slightly.

Teacher learning challenges were identical to the focus group results. Two
additional challenges were identified in the interviews: 1) teachers have had to learn
English in an English-poor environment without adequate language modeling, and
2) the lack of opportunities for sharing knowledge and practices.

Workload challenges were the same as the focus groups but added problems related
to multi-campus teaching.

Teacher Survey: Challenges to practices involved the need to explore methods and
strategies for increasing classroom opportunities for communicative practice,
creating a more student-centered learning while meeting university and national
mandates, and increasing students‘ listening and speaking skills.

Resources challenges were similar to those identified in the teacher focus groups
and interviews. Teacher additionally identified the lack of professional
organizations for language teachers, access to professional meetings and
conferences, access to professional journals, and access to authentic materials from
different English speaking countries.

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Student Focus Groups: Students identified their own learning challenges,
especially in the area of speaking. Pronunciation, intonation, and the rhythm of
English were particularly challenging. Students relied heavily on translation from
Vietnamese to English, which impeded their fluency. They also disclosed
challenges with regional dialects, lack of confidence in speaking, shyness and fear
of making mistakes, and lack of opportunities to practice English outside of the
classroom.

Traditional educational practices challenges were mentioned by all groups related

to their schooling prior to college. They agreed that the only methods used in their
pre-college English training were dictation, grammar rules, memorizing and
repetition. They added that the ―old‖ teaching methods were still in place, as
opposed to more communicative teaching practices. They emphasized that ―society
preferred old methods‖ of learning languages. Expectations for the teacher were to
help students pass tests. Expectations for students were to learn lessons by heart
even when they didn‘t understand the content.

Study load challenges focused the course load of 10-11 courses per semester. This
load left students little or no time to complete assignments, prepare class
presentations, study independently (i.e. research), and learn new vocabulary. Very
importantly, the heavy load prevented them from researching scholarships to study
abroad.

All groups cited the quantity and quality of resources as severe challenges. Limited
library hours impacted having a place to study and a place to access books and
resources. However, the librarian‘s lack of knowledge about English language
books and resources was also a major challenge. The other challenges were
identical to those expressed by teachers.

Student Survey: Survey results show that the challenges faced by students were the
same as identified by teachers. Not mentioned were opportunities to interact with
native speakers of English and career counseling.

Resource challenges based on student comments include the ―unsuitability‖ of

course books and the lack of locally, well-trained and qualified English teachers.

Findings on Solutions to Educational Challenges

Teachers and students offered the solutions in the following areas to address current
challenges in the daily teaching and learning English: practices, institutional support
including resources, and teaching growth and professional development.
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Teacher Focus Groups: Teacher revealed 75 solutions of which the top three areas
in order of priority were institutional support, practices, and teacher learning.

MOET or University Policy Changes– Teachers proposed the following solutions to

improve teaching and learning: equalize educational quality across Vietnam; raise
entry level examination standards for admission into English language programs;
allocate adequate funds for program development; provide systems-wide support
for implementing the credit-based system; improve teacher preparation programs to
develop highly qualified teachers; teach English beginning at 3rd grade through
secondary with a focus on increasing communicative skills and reducing language
anxiety; establish language centers for children; replace textbooks with those that
reflect the change from teacher-centered to student-centered practices; provide
greater emphasis on ESP classes for business, finance and economics; teach more
content subjects in English; establish a reward/system as incentives to teaching
excellence; offer greater access to research opportunities and advanced degrees;
increase support for curriculum development/syllabus building; increase
professional resources, such as journals; and equip classrooms with modern
technology.

Changes to the role of teaching and learning – Teachers would like to see new
models of teaching: student-centered learning activities, language rich
environments for students to learn English; a change in students‘ habits of learning
from passive to autonomous; more communicative teaching approaches; greater
student-teacher interactions to change students‘ mindsets about traditional teacher
roles.

Changes to teaching practices – Teachers proposals emphasized maintaining high

standards of practice, focusing on improving the quality of practices, rather than
acquiring many practices; improving curriculum and materials; creating
benchmarks to measure student outcome, providing coaching/mentoring to new
teachers; co-teaching with native speakers; learning from effective practices used in
other countries that can be adapted to the Vietnamese context; personalizing course
syllabi, especially, to meet the needs of ethnic students; peer tutoring ; and greater
use of grouping to address students‘ differing ability levels; and use of online
meetings to discuss coursework.

Teacher growth and professional development - Teachers suggested the following:

use reflective practice to improve classroom teaching and course syllabi; use
student feedback to inform teaching; learn from each other through classroom
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observations; meet in small professional learning communities to share experiences;
conduct regular teacher performance and course evaluations and engage students in
the evaluation process.

Teacher Interviews: Teacher cited 59 solutions of which to top three areas, in order
of priority, were practices, institutional support, and teacher growth and
professional development.

Practices – Teachers proposed similar solutions as in teacher focus groups.

Solutions not mentioned in the teacher focus groups included the following: Focus
on students passing international exams such as TOEFL to prepare them to compete
in the world economy; teach English in grade 3 for an hour a day, and teach content
subjects in English at the college level; and instruct students time management
skills, as well as how to become self-regulated learners.

To assess student outcome, teachers suggested the following solutions: establish

frequent ―compulsory teacher/student conferences‖ to monitor, assess and measure
student learning outcomes, use student portfolios; expand the use of e-mail to
discuss assignments and issues; keep a reflective journal on lessons to serve as an
assessment tool for teaching effectiveness and changes needed.

Policy and institutional support – Teachers suggested the following for system-
wide improvements: change the educational system to teach students how to
become independent learners; change the traditional methods of grammar rules to
and adopt the communication as a major goal of foreign language instruction; focus
on ―how‖ to teach rather than ―what‖ to teach; encourage MOET to balance out
education quality and equity in Vietnam; increase greater transparency and
accountability at the university level; ensure that the university‘s mission is known
to all with clear goals and objectives; align the university academic program to meet
the economic growth demands of the country; maintain articulation with businesses
or organizations to ensure a well trained and educated work force; decrease teacher
workloads by allocating time for teaching, time for improving their professional
knowledge, and time for conducting research; increase support for expanding
teachers‘ professional knowledge base; reduce class size; retrain primary and
secondary teachers with emphasis on communicative skills--pronunciation,
grammar and language culture context; improve teaching practices of college
instructors to meet students needs; establish relations with international universities;
improve the teaching quality of new teachers; provide regular teacher training
courses to update methods; provide opportunities to study abroad; provide tutors or

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teaching assistants to help teachers and students; reduce class size; and reduce
student workload; and change text books.

For teacher growth and professional development, teachers proposed the following:
provide conference opportunities and practical workshops and training; establish
professional learning communities to share practices; exchange ideas with
international peers; and establish greater network with teachers in the United States.

Teacher Survey: Teachers offered 37 solutions hey would like to see. These are,
in priority order: access to international organizations and meetings; greater
opportunities to share knowledge and practice; increased support for expanding
their professional knowledge base; increased training on curriculum
development/syllabus building; greater research opportunities; and support for
advanced degrees.

Student Focus Group - Students recommended improvements in student university

programs, teacher knowledge and teaching skills, and facilities and resources.

Improvements in student program include: emphasize a practical focus of English

rather than a theoretical ones; revised core courses for teachers of English; create a
movement to encourage people to learn English; provide native speaking teachers in
speaking classes at the university, expand the English Speaking Club and obtain
more student volunteers from English speaking countries to work with Vietnamese
students; host students from English speaking countries; make road signs in both
Vietnamese and English and accurate English road signs at the university; student
career counseling services, posting of scholarships and study abroad programs;
establishing contacts with local companies for internship, work-study for students;

Improvements in teacher practices and knowledge include: improve teaching

strategies for learner autonomy and research opportunities; focus on teacher‘s role
in motivating student learning by teaching language learning strategies; increase
curriculum integration and cultural study, increase age-appropriate and interesting
lessons; increase listening and speaking skills and balance between four skills,
increase a variety of classroom activities, task-based project, PLB, heterogeneous
grouping, collaborative grouping, high order thinking class discussion.

Improvements in facilities and resources include integrating all libraries into a large
one with more staff and hours of operation, subscriptions to professional journals
and acquisition of films, including Hollywood movies; increase access to print
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media, employ competent library staff with knowledge of English, and increase
language lab time.

Policy and institutional support - Begin teaching English earlier in the elementary
grades; change the current English assessment system, , including university
entrance exams; raise the importance of English in learning other subjects;
establish exchange programs with the United States for 4th year students; and
establish university guidelines to encourage students to speak English on campus;
and replicate successful programs at other sites.

Summary

The results of our data show a shift in teaching and learning practices on a
continuum that ranges from very traditional teacher-centered practices with little to
no communicative activities to non-traditional student centered practice with high
levels of communicative activities. Distinct themes emerged into the following
groupings: teaching practices, challenges, and solutions.

We found alignment between teachers and students, on the need and vision of
improving English communication skills. Spanning five universities, faculty
members were making major efforts to implement changes in teaching practices.
Many teachers were attempting to use new and innovative methods to advance their
students‘ communicative competence. Additionally, there was a growing emphasis
on methods to meet learner‘s unique needs. We found high levels of commitment
and dedication by teachers of English to meeting the educational needs of their
students and their country. Students were vocal, critical and pragmatic about their
needs and learning conditions. While we did not include administrator findings in
this report, we wish to note that administrators were making strong efforts to
address the demands and training needs to advance Vietnam‘s goals. Despite these
positive efforts, our findings also identified major challenges and obstacles to the
teaching and learning of English. These were consistent across all sites in four
broad areas: 1) teaching and learning practices, 2) teacher development needs, 3)
resources and facilities, 4) policy and institutional support.

Please note that this report represents only a partial depiction of the large study. A
full discussion of these findings, implications, limitations of the study, and
recommendations for further study are included in the full report.

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