English Primary Teacher Agency

English primary teacher agency: a case of Vietnam
Author:
Le, Manh
Publication Date:
2018
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/3585
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English primary teacher agency:
a case of Vietnam
Le Duc Manh
A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy
School of Education
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
November 2018
ii
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet
Surname/Family Name Le
Given Name/s Duc Manh
Abbreviation for degree as give in the University calendar PhD
Faculty Arts and Social Sciences
School Education
Thesis Title English primary teacher agency: a case of Vietnam
Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)

Teacher agency has become a growing research interest in language education,
especially at the critical juncture of widespread globalisation, when many nations including Vietnam,
the context of the study, have promulgated a new language policy to respond to this transformation.
However, teacher agency remains under-examined despite a small number of recent studies.
Therefore, it is a critical issue within the field of language policy (LP) since the roles of teachers are
evidenced to be fundamental to policy implementation. In response to the gap in the current LP
literature, this qualitative case study, grounded in positioning theory, aims to explore how English
teachers exercise their agency in response to the policy under prescribed conditions. A group of
English primary teachers, school principals, and regional English managers in a province in Vietnam
were purposively selected as study participants. Data were collected from multiple sources including
in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and documents. The findings showed that teachers were
positioned (by the policy and their institutions) as “mere” policy implementers who were expected to
strictly follow the mandates and instructions transferred to them. Their implementation was regularly
supervised and inspected by their stakeholders (including DOET, BOET, and school leaders).
However, in the classroom context, the teachers attempted to adapt the policy mandates according to
their interpretations, preferences, choices, and current teaching conditions. Even though the teachers
claimed that they conformed to the policy mandates, this conformity did not mean that they faithfully
followed all of them. Teachers’ capacity to act was also informed by their previous professional
experience, beliefs and teaching passion and specific contexts. Teacher agency enactment was also
found to vary across the regions. The rural and island teachers tended to exercise more on negative
agency due to their insufficient support, especially that of professional development. The study
explicitly theorises teacher agency in a context of language policy enactment. It also proposes
implications for policy makers, educational managers and school leaders to facilitate teachers’ active
roles in reform implementation.
Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation
I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis
or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the
provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all property rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future
works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation.
I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International
(this is applicable to doctoral theses only).
The University recognises that there may be exceptional circumstances requiring restrictions on copying or conditions
on use. Requests for restriction for a period of up to 2 years must be made in writing. Requests for a longer period of
restriction may be considered in exceptional circumstances and require the approval of the Dean of Graduate Research.
FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date of completion of requirements for Award:

iii
ORIGINALITY STATEMENT
‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of
my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by
another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been
accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any
other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made
in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with
whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in
the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the
product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in
the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic
expression is acknowledged.’
iv
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to
archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the
University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the
provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent
rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all
or part of this thesis or dissertation.
I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in
Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only).
I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I
have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not
been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of
my thesis or dissertation.'
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
‘I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final
officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred
and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the
conversion to digital format.’
v
Declaration and inclusion of published work
I declare that this thesis is entirely my own original work and has not been
submitted for any higher degree in another university.
The papers listed below were written and published during the period of the
preparation of the thesis. Content from these papers has been adapted and updated for
use in the thesis.
Manh, D.L, Nguyen, H.T.M, and Burns, A (2017). Teacher language proficiency
and reform of English language education in Vietnam: 2008-2020. In D.Freeman &
L.Le Drean (Eds.), Developing classroom English competence: Learning from Vietnam
experience (pp.19-31). Cambodia, Phnom Penh: IDP Education.
Manh, D.L. (2018). Agentic responses to communicative language teaching in

language policy: An example of Vietnamese English primary teachers. In J. Crandall &
K. Bailey (Eds.), Global perspectives on educational language policies (pp.34-45).
New York, NY: Routledge.
vi
Acknowledgements
This research project has benefited greatly from the beneficence of many. I am
especially thankful to my supervisors- Professor Anne Burns and Dr. Hoa Nguyen who
have given me generously of their time, professional council, friendship, and mentoring.
I could not have asked for better research mentors. Their patience and timely support
have kept me always on the right track.
Over the four years of candidature, I have been blessed by a wealth of
academics, colleagues, and friends who have motivated and inspired me with their
expertise, love, passion, and friendship. While I cannot possibly mention everyone by
name, this research project has benefited tremendously from the comments of the Panel
Review Committee of the School of Education, UNSW- Dr. Phiona Stanley, and
Associate Professor Jihyun Lee. In addition, I owe a big thanks to my friend- Helen
Whitson for her unconditional companionship throughout and her proofreading.
I am very grateful for my extended family members, especially to my
Grandfather, my Mom, and Dad, who, as I am sure, have always provided me with
unwavering support, even from a distance.
Finally, the research project would not have been possible without the financial
sponsorship of Australian Awards Scholarship (AAS) and the International Research
Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF) during my candidature journey.
vii
Abstract
Teacher agency has become a growing research interest in language education,

especially at the critical juncture of widespread globalisation, when many nations
including Vietnam, the context of the study, have promulgated a new language policy to
respond to this transformation. However, teacher agency remains under-examined
despite a small number of recent studies. Therefore, it is a critical issue within the field
of language policy (LP) since the roles of teachers are evidenced to be fundamental to
policy implementation. In response to the gap in the current LP literature, this
qualitative case study, grounded in positioning theory, aims to explore how English
teachers exercise their agency in response to the policy under prescribed conditions. A
group of English primary teachers, school principals, and regional English managers in
a province in Vietnam were purposively selected as study participants. Data were
collected from multiple sources including in-depth interviews, classroom observations,
and documents. The findings showed that teachers were positioned (by the policy and
their institutions) as “mere” policy implementers who were expected to strictly follow
the mandates and instructions transferred to them. Their implementation was regularly
supervised and inspected by their stakeholders (including DOET, BOET, and school
leaders). However, in the classroom context, the teachers attempted to adapt the policy
mandates according to their interpretations, preferences, choices, and current teaching
conditions. Even though the teachers claimed that they conformed to the policy
mandates, this conformity did not mean that they faithfully followed all of them.
Teachers’ capacity to act was also informed by their previous professional experience,
beliefs and teaching passion and specific contexts. Teacher agency enactment was also
found to vary across the regions. The rural and island teachers tended to exercise more
on negative agency due to their insufficient support, especially that of professional
development. The study explicitly theorises teacher agency in a context of language
policy enactment. It also proposes implications for policy makers, educational managers
and school leaders to facilitate teachers’ active roles in reform implementation.
viii
Table of Content
ORIGINALITY STATEMENT ...................................................................................... iii

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ......................................................................................... iv
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT .................................................................................. iv
Acknowledgements......................................................................................................... vi
Abstract .......................................................................................................................... vii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................ xii
List of Tables ................................................................................................................. xiii
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... xiv
Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Context of the Study ................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Research Problems ...................................................................................................... 6
1.3 Research Aims and Research Questions ..................................................................... 7
1.4 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................ 8
1.5 Organisation of the Thesis .......................................................................................... 9
1.6 Summary ................................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 2: Primary English Teaching in Vietnam ..................................................... 11
2.1 Background ............................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Overview of Primary English Teaching Policy in Vietnam ...................................... 13
2.3 Critical Issues in English Primary Teaching ............................................................. 17
2.3.1 Recruitment ............................................................................................................ 17
2.3.2 Pedagogy ................................................................................................................ 19
2.3.3 Professional development ...................................................................................... 21
2.3.4 Equality .................................................................................................................. 24
2.4 Summary ................................................................................................................... 26
Chapter 3: Literature Review....................................................................................... 27
3.1 Language Policy........................................................................................................ 27
3.1.1 Teachers as enactors of policy................................................................................ 30
3.1.2 Teachers as agents of change ................................................................................. 32
3.2 Conceptualisations of Agency................................................................................... 34
3.2.1 Definitions of agency ............................................................................................. 34
3.2.2 Structure and agency .............................................................................................. 37
3.3 Positioning Theory .................................................................................................... 39
ix
3.3.1 Overview ................................................................................................................ 40

3.3.2 Key constructs of positioning theory ..................................................................... 41
3.3.2.1 Moral order.......................................................................................................... 41
3.3.2.2 Rights and duties ................................................................................................. 42
3.3.2.3 Positioning triangles ............................................................................................ 42
3.3.3 Modes of positioning ............................................................................................. 45
3.3.4 Agency and positioning theory............................................................................... 47
3.4 Empirical Studies of Teacher Agency ....................................................................... 50
3.5 Summary ................................................................................................................... 53
Chapter 4: Methodology ............................................................................................... 55
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 55
4.2 Philosophical worldviews ........................................................................................ 56
4.3 Qualitative Approach ................................................................................................ 56
4.4 Multi-case Study Inquiry........................................................................................... 57
4.5 Research Methods ..................................................................................................... 59
4.5.1 Research site, participant selection and recruitment .............................................. 59
4.5.2 Data collection methods ......................................................................................... 63
4.5.3 Data collection procedures ..................................................................................... 67
4.5.4 Data analysis procedures ........................................................................................ 71
4.5.5 Language and translation ....................................................................................... 74
4.5.6 Researcher’s position ............................................................................................. 75
4.5.7 Validity and reliability in case study research ........................................................ 77
4.6 Ethical Considerations .............................................................................................. 80
4.7 Summary ................................................................................................................... 83
Chapter 5: Positioning Teachers in the Policy ............................................................ 85
5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 85
5.2 An Overview of Data Analysis .................................................................................. 85
5.3 An Overview of the Policy Goals.............................................................................. 87
5.4 Positioning English Primary Teachers as Policy Implementers ................................ 89
5.4.1 Teacher Duties ........................................................................................................ 89
5.4.2 Teacher Obligations................................................................................................ 91
5.4.2.1 Obligations of Textbook and Resource Use ........................................................ 91
5.4.2.2 Obligations of Teaching Contents ....................................................................... 94
5.4.2.3 Obligations of Teaching Methods ....................................................................... 98
x
5.4.2.4 Obligations of Assessment ................................................................................ 101

5.4.3 Teacher Rights ...................................................................................................... 103
5.5 Summary ................................................................................................................. 106
Chapter 6: Urban Teachers’ Responses ..................................................................... 108
6.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 108
6.2 The Research Site.................................................................................................... 108
6.3 Participants .............................................................................................................. 110
6.4 Summary of Data Types and Analysis .................................................................... 112
6.5 Textbooks and Resource Use .................................................................................. 115
6.6 Teaching Content .................................................................................................... 120
6.7 Teaching Methods ................................................................................................... 124
6.8 Assessments ............................................................................................................ 133
6.9 Summary ................................................................................................................. 138
Chapter 7: Rural Teachers’ Responses ...................................................................... 140
7.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 140
7.3 Participants .............................................................................................................. 141
7.5 Textbook and Resource Use .................................................................................... 144
7.8 Assessment .............................................................................................................. 167
7.9 Summary ................................................................................................................. 170
Chapter 8: Island Teachers’ Responses ..................................................................... 172
8.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 172
8.3 Participants .............................................................................................................. 173
8.5 Textbook and Resource Use .................................................................................... 177
8.8 Assessment .............................................................................................................. 196
8.9 Summary ................................................................................................................. 201
xi
Chapter 9: Discussion .................................................................................................. 202

9.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 202
9.2 Summary of Findings .............................................................................................. 202
9.2.1 How do English primary teachers exercise their agency? ................................... 203
9.2.1.1 Misalignment between policy rhetoric and classroom realities ........................ 203
9.2.1.2 Teachers’ inner desires and motivation ............................................................. 204
9.2.1.3 Teachers’ symbolic responses to the policy mandates ...................................... 205
9.2.2 What are the regional similarities and differences in the way participating teachers
exercise their agency? ................................................................................................... 206
9.2.2.1 Regional similarities.......................................................................................... 206
9.2.2.2 Regional differences.......................................................................................... 208
9.3 Teachers’ Positions .................................................................................................. 210
9.4 Teachers’ Acts and Actions ..................................................................................... 216
9.5 Factors Affecting Teacher Agency .......................................................................... 220
9.5.1 External forces ..................................................................................................... 220
9.5.2 Internal forces....................................................................................................... 223
9.6 Beyond Policy Implementation ............................................................................... 226
9.7 Summary ................................................................................................................. 231
Chapter 10: Conclusion............................................................................................... 232
10.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 232
10.2 Teacher Agency in Policy Implementation ........................................................... 233
10.3 Implications of the Study ...................................................................................... 236
10.3.1 Implications for macro-level actors: MOET ...................................................... 236
10.3.2 Implications for meso-level actors: DOET, BOET and schools ........................ 237
10.3.3 Implications for teachers’ professional development ......................................... 238
10.3.4 Implications for English primary teacher education .......................................... 240
10.4 Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................ 242
10.5 Suggestions for Further Research ......................................................................... 244
10.6 Concluding Remarks ............................................................................................. 246
References .................................................................................................................... 249
Appendices ................................................................................................................... 287
xii
List of Figures
Figure 2.1 The ETCF framework .................................................................................... 22

Figure 3.2 Positioning Triangle ....................................................................................... 42
Figure 3.3 Repositioning Act .......................................................................................... 49
Figure 4.1 Framework for Design ................................................................................... 55
Figure 4.2 The Local Educational System ...................................................................... 60
Figure 4.3 Data Collection Procedures ........................................................................... 67
Figure 5.1. Data Types from Different Stakeholders ...................................................... 86
Figure 9.1 Teachers’ Positions in Different Levels ....................................................... 211
Figure 10.1 Teacher Agency at the Classroom Level ................................................... 235
xiii
List of Tables
Table 3.1: Summary of Key Positioning Elements ......................................................... 44
Table 3.2: Types of Intentional Positioning..................................................................... 46
Table 4.1: English Primary Teachers in Nam Ninh ......................................................... 61
Table 4.2: Profiles of the Participating Schools .............................................................. 62
Table 4.3: Teachers’ Demographic Profiles ..................................................................... 63
Table 4.4: Macro-level Policy Documents ...................................................................... 68
Table 4.5: Meso-level Data Collection ............................................................................ 69
Table 4.6: A sample of date analysis ............................................................................... 73
Table 4.7. A Sample of Teaching Syllabus ..................................................................... 96
Table 6.1: Teaching Resources and Facilities................................................................ 109
Table 6.2: Socio-demographic Characteristics of the Participants ................................ 112
Table 6.3: Interview Data Sources................................................................................. 113
Table 6.4: Summary of Key Findings............................................................................ 114
Table 6.5: Urban Teachers’ Reliance on the Textbook .................................................. 116
Table 6.6: Urban Teachers’ Adaptive Strategies............................................................ 119
Table 6.7: Urban Teachers’ Teaching Content Focus .................................................... 122
Table 6.8: Urban Teachers’ Child-friendly Strategies ................................................... 126
Table 6.9: Urban Teachers’ Formative Assessment Strategies ...................................... 135
Table 7.1: Demographic Characteristics of the Participants ......................................... 143
Table 7.4: Rural Teachers’ Reliance on the Textbook ................................................... 146
Table 7.5: Rural Teachers’ Adaptive Strategies ............................................................. 149
Table 7.6: Rural Teachers’ Teaching Content Focus ..................................................... 156
Table 7.7: Rural Teachers’ Interactive Strategies .......................................................... 161
Table 7.8: Rural Teachers’ Non-Child-friendly Strategies ............................................ 166
Table 8.1: Demographic Characteristics of the Participants ......................................... 175
Table 8.4: Island Teachers’ Reliance on the Textbook .................................................. 178
Table 8.5: Island Teachers’ Adaptive Strategies ............................................................ 182
Table 8.6: Island Teachers’ Child-friendly Strategies.................................................... 189
Table 8.7: Island Teachers’ Non-child-friendly Teaching Strategies ............................. 194
Table 9.1: Mismatch between Policy Intention and Classroom Realities ..................... 218
xiv
Abbreviations
BOET : Bureau of Education and Training
CEFR : The Common European Framework of Reference for Language
CLT : Communicative Language Teaching
DOET : Department of Education and Training
ETCF : English Teacher Competency Framework
LP : Language Policy
MOET : Ministry of Education and Training
NFLP 2020 : Vietnamese National Foreign Languages Project 2020
PD : Professional Development
PT : Positioning Theory
Chapter 1
Introduction
Teacher agency is imperative for the process of implementing educational

changes (Hamid & Nguyen, 2016). Over the past decades, in the field of language
education, the recognition of English as a core subject in the mainstream curriculum in
many non-English nations is deemed one of the most noticeable changes (Wedell &
Grassick, 2018). Yet, change planning processes are largely hierarchical, top-down,
power coercive, and linear in most education systems worldwide (Wedell & Grassick,
2018). While teachers are rarely informed about the changes or allowed to get involved
in the policy planning processes, they are expected to live up to social and policy
expectations even with limited pedagogical training and support (Hamid & Nguyen,
2016; Wedell & Grassick, 2018). However, empirical studies show that English teachers
exercise their agency when the policy is translated into the classroom context (Ollerhead
& Burns, 2017; Phan & Hamid, 2017; Yang, 2012; Yang & Clarke, 2018; Zacharias,
2013; Zhang & Hu, 2010).
The impetus for the research project presented in this thesis results from my
experiences as a teacher trainer of English primary teachers during my five-year
participation in the Vietnamese National Foreign Languages Project 2020 (commonly
known as NFLP 2020 or Project 2020). This professional experience enabled me to
meet and work with English primary teachers from different regions in Vietnam and
listen to their stories about their classroom lives during the implementation of the
NFLP2020 language curriculum. Through these teachers’ discussions and reflections, I
became empathetic towards the myriad of challenges they encountered in their daily
teaching practices, such as heavy teaching workloads, overloaded teaching content,
rigid curriculum specifications, low student motivation, low salaries, tight
administrative supervision, and insufficient professional support and resources.
Although the list seemed endless, I was particularly interested in their stories of how
they overcame the constraints they encountered in order to accomplish their teaching
responsibilities in the workplace, despite the very limited support they appeared to
receive from policy stakeholders.
The stories that the teachers told illustrated in various ways their personal
manifestations of teacher agency. I became inquisitive about how and why the English
1
primary teachers I encountered exercised their agency under the constrained conditions
they described, despite the imposition of new policies. Clearly, teachers are not empty
vessels (Freeman & Johnson, 1998). They have funds of knowledge (Graves & Garton,
2014), theories for practices (Burns & de Silva Joyce, 2007), and teaching passion (Day,
2004). They mediate classroom practices “through the values, beliefs and attitudes that
underlie professional actions” (Burns & de Silva Joyce, 2007, p.9).
The overarching purpose of this thesis is to explore Vietnamese primary teacher
agency enactment in response to a new language policy. In particular, this case study
research examines how a group of English primary teachers in the urban, rural, and
island region of a province in Vietnam exercise their agentic power in response to the
primary English language curriculum introduced as part of the NFLP 2020. The study
aims to shed light on teacher agency in a centralised educational system. This chapter
introduces the study under four themes: context of the study, research problems,
research aims and significance, and thesis structure.
1.1 Context of the Study
This section aims to set out the broader context of the study. It first looks at
language policy (LP) as an emergent field in applied linguistics, followed by a
discussion of language policy in the Asian context. The section also highlights the
critical roles of teachers in relation to language policy implementation.
The hegemony of English and the spread of globalisation have significantly
impacted language education worldwide (Jenkins, 2013). Globalisation has necessitated
closer interactions among peoples, nations, and societies and English as a global
language is now a major tool for such interconnection. Therefore, good English
proficiency has come to be regarded as essential for national development and economic
integration in an increasingly competitive globalised world (Ali, 2013; Baldauf &
Nguyen, 2012; Chua & Baldauf 2011; Hamid, 2010; Hsieh, 2002). Having a good
command of English is considered an invaluable asset that many non-English speaking
nations now aim to achieve. As a result, in recent years, many governments across the
world have increasingly focused on developing national language policies.
Language policy is an emerging field of research both internationally and in
Vietnam, the location of this study. Originating in the early 1960s, this area of research
aimed to address the language problems of new, developing or post-colonial countries
(Baldauf, 2004; Goundar, 2017; Ricento, 2000). Goundar (2017) identifies three periods
2
in the evolution of LP as a field of applied linguistics: the 1950s-1960s era, in which the
aim was to provide solutions for LP-orientated issues in the light of colonial rule
globally; the 1970-1980s era, which mainly focused on addressing the immediate
language issues of the newly emergent post-colonial states; and the 1990s to the present,
which has increasingly sought to examine “the agency of local social actors in the
policy-implementational spaces” (p. 83). However, LP received only limited attention
until the final years of the 20th century, when it came to prominence as a consequence of
political and economic turmoil throughout the world (Kaplan 1994). Currently, LP is
one of the fastest growing subdisciplines in applied linguistics, especially in the era of
globalization (Hult & Johnson, 2015). It is against this overall backdrop that the present
study aims to make a contribution.
In Asia, in recent decades, the marriage of English and globalisation has acted as
a motiver of English-in-education policies in Asia (Hamid & Nguyen, 2016;
Kirkpatrick, 2014; Li, 2008). Many Asian countries have substantially modified their
language policies to boost the acquisition of English language competence. In one of the
most significant recent transformations, English is now officially taught as a
compulsory subject in the primary education curriculum in many polities, including
Vietnam. According to Johnstone (2009), this change is “possibly the world’s biggest
policy development in education” (p.33).
In Vietnam, in 2008 the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET)
proclaimed a new language policy entitled “National Foreign Language Project 2008-
2020” (commonly known as NFLP 2020, Decree 1400 or Project 2020) in which
English was officially introduced as a compulsory subject into the mainstream
curriculum from years 3-12. The intended outcome of NFLP 2020 is to provide
Vietnamese graduates of all educational levels with a good command of a foreign
language so they can confidently participate in competitive global and regional markets
(Bui & Nguyen, 2016; Nguyen, 2011; Nguyen & Mai, 2014; Phan & Hamid, 2017). At
the elementary level, in 2010-2011, a pilot English primary program in which English
was taught as a compulsory subject from grade 3 was implemented in a number of cities
(see Section 2.2, Chapter 2 for further discussion of the English primary teaching
policy). This change has had a profound impact on English language education in
Vietnam and the research in this thesis focuses specifically on this area of policy
change.
3
Akin to other centralised educational systems, NFLP 2020 in Vietnam follows a
traditional top-down approach in which policy is initiated, decided and developed at the
macro level (i.e., the MOET). The policy is forthwith trickled down to lower
administrative levels (Department of Education and Training (DOET), Bureau of
Education and Training (BOET), and schools) for further translation and interpretation
prior to its arrival at the classroom level. In such a system, teachers are at the opposite
end of the continuum in the divide between “the policymakers on the one hand and the
local practitioner on the other hand” (Fullan, 2007, p. 99). They have no involvements
in initiating, developing, or negotiating the policy-making process. Therefore, they are
widely viewed as policy recipients who are expected to follow and implement the policy
mandates in their classroom contexts.
In addition, a culture of compliance (Hallinger, 2010; Yin, Lee, & Wang, 2014)
may impact Vietnamese English teachers’ policy implementation. In a highly
centralised administrative structure such as in Vietnam, power distance (Hofstede,
2003) seems to be taken for granted. English teachers are likely to accept discrepancies
in power, authority, or social status as normal notions and respect what authority
imposes. Policy makers, curriculum developers, educational managers, and leaders at
the higher level may hold the mindset that their proclamations, initiatives or mandates
are to be accepted once they have been transferred to the lower levels. In other words,
English teachers, who are at the end of the power continuum, are expected to accept the
top-down requirement for implementation without questioning.
However, as several scholars have argued the key to curriculum enactment in the
classroom is the role played by the teacher (Graves, 2008; Wang, 2005). Teachers can
be deemed to be the “final arbiters” of policy mandates (Menken, 2010, p.1). Kaplan
and Baldauf (2003) identify seven components in the successful implementation of a
new language policy: access, personnel, curriculum, community, methods and materials,
resourcing, and evaluation. Of these, language teachers play a fundamental role in
implementing the changes in language learning and language policy. Ricento and
Hornberger (1996) also locate teachers in the centre of their language policy enactment
model, which shows several layers including national, state, institutional, and classroom
levels. Other scholars view teachers as key implementers and language planners (Li
2008; Li, 2010; Menken & Garcia 2010; Throop, 2007), or agents of change (Lamie,
2004; Waters, 2009; Wedell, 2009). They are even regarded as “central agents”
(Baldauf, 2006, p. 154), or active agents (Johnson, 2009; Levinson & Sutton 2001) of
4
LP implementation. These scholars have portrayed teachers’ critical roles towards the
educational changes (see Section 3.1.1 and 3.1.2, Chapter 3 for the further discussion of
teachers’ roles).
Despite the recognition of teachers’ roles in policy implementation, the
policymaking process, especially in hierarchical education systems, still predominantly
follows a traditional top-down approach (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Spolsky, 2004).
Baldauf, Kaplan, Kamwangamalu, and Bryant (2011) observe that in many Asian
contexts, language policy decisions are taken by the government, are predominantly
politically motivated, and lacking in sound research evidence. Teachers are explicitly
positioned as policy implementers whose duty is to strictly follow policy mandates and
the roles of these practitioners are, therefore, overlooked (Menken & Garcia 2010).
Recent debates highlight also that macro level LP is not sufficient to bring about desired
changes in national language education (Bui & Nguyen, 2016; Hamid & Nguyen,
2016). Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008), for example, insist that “language does not simply
exist at the macro level of the nation-state or other macro level polity” (p.9). Their
suggestions further strengthen the issue of the importance of teachers’ roles in response
to language policy.
To effectively implement language policy, LP scholars have recently called for
closer examination of the role of teacher agency at the grassroots level in different
contexts (Baldauf, 2006; Hamid & Nguyen, 2016; Li, 2010; Menken & Garcia 2010;
Zhao 2011). Although an impressive body of research on teacher agency has so far
been conducted in language education (e.g., Allen, 2018; Harris, 2017; Hoang & Le,
2017; Lee, 2011; Ng, 2017; Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Ollerhead & Burns, 2017; Phan &
Hamid, 2017; Yang, 2012; Yang & Clarke, 2018; Zacharias, 2013; Zhang & Hu, 2010),
more empirical studies from a wider range of contexts is needed to develop theoretical
models of teacher agency in language policy implementation.
This case study is, therefore, conducted in response to the above call. It aims to
examine teacher agency in classroom contexts in response to the English primary
language curriculum policy in Vietnam. The case study aims to challenge the view that
top-down policy making is the property of central government, or macro-actors, and that
school teachers are mere policy implementers (Baldauf, 2006).
The discussion so far has been about macro LP issues. It has revealed that the
status of English and globalisation have radically impacted language education
worldwide. As a result, many governments have introduced new language policies in
5
response to these pressures. It is also argued that English teacher agency is an important
component toward effective policy implementation. In the following section the specific
research problems of teacher agency, in the micro context of Vietnam are further
discussed.
1.2 Research Problems
Three major research problems motivate this study: (1) the paucity of research
on English primary teacher agency, (2) the undertheorised concept of teacher agency,
and (3) the absence of comparative investigations on teacher agency across different
regions. These research problems are further discussed below.
First, little is known empirically about how English primary school teachers
exercise agency in implementing LP in their classroom, particularly in the context of
Vietnam. From a broader perspective, although empirical evidence on English primary
teaching is abundant, most studies have focused on teachers’ interpretations of LP
(Chen & Cheng, 2010; Copland, Garton, & Burns, 2014; Crawford, 2001; Garton, 2014;
Jung & Norton, 2002; Su, 2006), teachers’ beliefs about English primary teaching
policy (Caner, Subasi, & Kara, 2010; Liao, 2007; Zhang & Liu, 2014) or teaching
activities and challenges (Copland et al., 2014), rather than on teacher agency. As
teacher agency is argued to be a critical component to successfully implement language
policy at the classroom level, further research on English primary teacher agency is
needed.
In the Vietnamese context, while research on teacher agency has gained
increasing prevalence (Bui & Nguyen, 2015; Hoang & Le, 2017; Nguyen & Bui, 2016;
Phan & Hamid, 2016), the topic still seems to be in its infancy. Most of the research on
teacher agency has emerged within the past three years (from 2015). This dearth of
empirical studies on English primary teacher agency in the local context, therefore,
opens an avenue for the current study.
Second, teacher agency in policy implementation is still undertheorised
(Priestley et al., 2012). The concept of human agency has been described as elusive
(Emirbayer & Mische, 1998), slippery (Hitlin & Elder, 2007), difficult to define (Biesta
& Tedder, 2007; Robinson, 2012) and varying depending on “the epistemological roots
and goals of scholars who employ it” (Hitlin & Elder, 2007, p.170). Biesta, Priestley,
and Robinson (2015) suggest that further research is needed to understand the dynamics
and complexity of teacher agency and the factors that contribute to its promotion and
enhancement. As one way to address this problem, in the current study positioning
6
theory (PT) is employed as a theoretical framework to explore Vietnamese English
primary teacher agency. Positioning theory, which is the study of the meaning of actions
(Harré & Slocum, 2003), is a tool for exploring the relationship “between what is
possible and what is permitted” (Moghaddam, Harré, & Lee, 2008, p. 13). PT enabled
me as a researcher to examine intergroup relations and to capture the multi-layered
mechanisms of language policy. This theoretical framework is discussed in more detail
in Section 3.3, Chapter 3.
Third, LP implementation is context-specific (Zakharia, 2010). Current
conditions, resources, and structures in Vietnam suggest that LP may be differently
enacted in different geographical regions (e.g. rural, urban, and island), which gives rise
to concerns about inequality of policy provision (Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Trang, 2012;
Tran & Le, 2017). English primary teachers in disadvantaged locations may be
marginalised in relation to professional supports, facilities, and resources (Bui &
Nguyen, 2015; Chinh, Quynh, & Ha, 2014; Trang, 2012) (see Section 2.3.4, Chapter 2
for the discussion of regional equality). Yet there has been little documentation of how
teachers in these areas exercise their agency under such conditions. Nor has there been
any comparative investigation of teacher agency in different regions of Vietnam in
response to the LP enactment.
Against the background of the aforementioned discussion, the current study aims
to explore the phenomenon of English primary teachers’ agency in response to the
primary English curriculum policy, which is part of the NFLP 2020 in Vietnam. It also
proposes to examine the similarities and differences in teachers’ agency enactment in
three different contexts. In the following section, the research aims are further
described.
1.3 Research Aims and Research Questions
As discussed in the introductory section, the research presented in this thesis is a
case study that explores teacher agency in the teaching of English following its
introduction at the primary education level in the Vietnamese context, as part of the
NFLP 2020 policy. It is a micro-level policy study that takes into account the
perspectives and experiences of teachers. The study is also a multisite study conducted
across three different school contexts - urban, rural, and island in one province of
Vietnam (see Section 4.5.1, Chapter 4 for the descriptions of research sites). More
specifically, the study aims to:
7
(1) explore how English primary teachers exercise their agency in response to
the new English language policy reforms in the three different contexts (urban,
rural, and island);
(2) compare how teacher agency is exercised across the three contexts.
To achieve these research aims, the study seeks to respond to the two research
questions stated below:
1. How do English primary teachers in each selected region exercise their
agency in response to the language policy?
2. What are the similarities and differences in teachers’ enactment of agency
across the selected regions?
A descriptive-exploratory multi-case study research design was selected (Duff,
2008; Yin, 2014), in order to gain insights into the perspectives of teachers who are
charged with implementing the curriculum and data were collected via in-depth
interviews and classroom observations (see Chapter 4). Before the case studies in each
site were conducted, analysis of policy and curriculum documentation was carried out.
This analysis aimed to frame the teachers’ perspectives and to embed their insights
within the broader policy perspective (see Chapter 5). By exploring the interplay
between individual and systems-level mechanisms, this study aims to provide
understanding of language policy implementation in this context (Hopkins, 2016).
1.4 Significance of the Study
This study aims to provide insights into teachers’ practices in responding to a
reform policy in a specific context, which may also have implications for other similar
educational policy processes elsewhere. It is argued that the exploration of multiple
contextual layers, from the outer layer of official policy to the inner layer of the school
and classroom unveils the relationship between the policy and its daily practices
(Ricento & Hornberger, 1996). In other words, by unpeeling the processes within each
layer, the findings can illuminate the dynamic practices of the policy making and its
translation into classrooms (Honig, 2006; Menken & Garcia 2010) and therefore, brings
to life the mechanisms that connect policy and practice (Stritikus, 2003). In that respect,
the study aims to incorporate analysis of the policy documents, to seek the perspectives
of possible interconnection among macro-, meso -, and micro-levels.
The study also seeks to contribute to theorising the concept of teacher agency in
a context that is embedded in the implementation of reform in language education
8
policy. Although the important role of individual agency has been widely recognised in
contemporary LP literature, the concept is still under-theorised because of its dynamic
and multi-faceted nature. This study explores teacher agency within the lens of
positioning theory in which teachers have rights to choose to act or not to act in
response to the policy mandates under certain contextual conditions. The empirical
findings also aim to provide insights into the concept of teacher agency enactment in the
context of a centralised and hierarchical education system.
Finally, the study aims to suggest implications for policy makers, policy
supervisors, and school leaders, in Vietnam and possibly in other Asian contexts, who
wish to facilitate the active role of teachers in reform implementation, particularly in
relation to how they could foster teacher agency. Language policy does not only exist in
the form of written documents and mandates, but also in what teachers do and why in
the everyday context of classrooms. In other words, when language policies are written
as documents, they are essentially static and dead. A new policy only comes to life
when it is brought into the classroom for implementation via teachers’ sense-making
and reinterpretation (Graves, 2008). Therefore, the success or failure of a language
policy depends on teachers, who warrant the attention of policy makers and other
educational stakeholders in successful policy formation and implementation.
1.5 Organisation of the Thesis
The thesis comprises ten chapters, including this introductory chapter. The
second chapter describes the context of English primary teaching in Vietnam in more
detail through an examination of teaching English to young learners in the mainstream
curriculum. The third chapter synthesises the current literature on language policy,
teachers’ roles in policy implementation, the construct of agency, and positioning
theory. Chapter 4 discusses the methodology of the project. It elaborates the
philosophical assumptions that shape the inquiry, the research strategy of multisite case
study, participant selection and recruitment, methods of data collection and analysis,
integrity and ethical considerations. The four consecutive Chapters, 5, 6, 7 and 8 present
the findings of the study. In particular, Chapter 5 analyses macro-and meso-level
policies in relation to English as a foreign language at the primary education level.
Chapters 6, 7 and 8 analyse teachers’ responses to the language policy in the urban,
rural and island settings, respectively. The ninth chapter summarises the research
findings and discusses them with reference to the current literature. Finally, Chapter 10
9
highlights the main contributions of the study by theorising the concept of teacher
agency, acknowledges the limitations of the study, discusses implications for key
stakeholders in policy formation and implementation, and proposes areas for further
research.
1.6 Summary
This chapter introduces the study presented in the current thesis. It included an
initial overview of the context for the study in relation to LP as a macro-context and
Vietnam as a micro-context. The discussion suggests that individual teacher agency has
now become an important topic in language policy implementation. However, further
research is still needed, especially in the context of a centralised educational system
such as in Vietnam, where teacher agency enactment may be constrained.
The following chapter provides further discussion about the Vietnamese context,
where the research project was conducted.
10
Chapter 2
Primary English Teaching in Vietnam
This chapter describes the study context, Vietnam, with particular focus on the
primary English teachers who have been implementing the primary English curriculum
introduced as part of the NFLP 2020 language policy as discussed in the previous
chapter. The first section provides a snapshot of the educational system in Vietnam. The
second section discusses issues associated with teaching English at the elementary level,
including a critical examination of three core workforce factors - recruitment, pedagogy
and equality. The aim of this chapter is to provide contextual knowledge for interpreting
the research data and locating the study.
2.1 Background
In 1986, the Vietnamese government decided to step away from its previous neo-
Stalinist policy framework and it embarked on the so-called doimoi (renovation) period
(Lammert, 1999). Since then, Vietnam has undergone comprehensive political and
economic change. After 10 years of doimoi, the country was openly collaborating with
“non-communist regimes on an unprecedented scale” (Wright, 2002, p. 238). As a result
of this liberalisation, the flow of investment capital from Western and regional countries
into Vietnam increased exponentially. International relations were marked by the
establishment of trade relations with more than 100 countries. Consequently, a number
of foreign enterprises, corporations and international organisations chose Vietnam as a
potential destination for investment or the establishment of representative offices. With
the attainment of full membership in such trade organisations as ASEAN Free Trade
Area (APTA), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Vietnam has
emerged as an international player. Suffice it to say that the external expansion of trade
relations has led the country to become more deeply involved in the processes of
globalisation.
These accomplishments, nevertheless, posed two major challenges. As noted by
Dung (1998, cited in Wright, 2002), “the lack of knowledge of business practices, laws
and a poor knowledge of foreign languages are the main reasons many people fail to
perform in foreign companies” (p. 239). In response to these challenges, the Vietnamese
government has prioritised education innovation and change to enhance human
resources. The Education Law promulgated in 2005 was an important indicator of the
11
government’s intention to overhaul its education system. It articulated the goals of
education as follows:
The goals of education are to educate Vietnamese into comprehensively
developed persons who possess ethics, knowledge, physical health, aesthetic
sense and profession, loyalty to the ideology of national independence and
socialism; to shape and cultivate one’s dignity, civil qualifications and
competence, satisfying the demands of building and defending the
Fatherland. (Education Law, Article 2)
More specifically, in the era of international economic integration, the
responsibilities of the education system are:
To provide high quality human resources in line with the socio-economic
structure of the industrialisation and modernisation of the nation; enhance the
competitiveness in fair co-operation for Vietnam in its international economic
integration; to facilitate the expansion of post-secondary education through
diversification of educational programs on the basis of a pathway system that
is suitable for the structure of development, careers and employment, local
and regional human resource needs and the training capacities of education
institutions; to increase the appropriateness of training for the employment
needs of the society, the ability to create jobs for oneself and for
others.(MOET, 2006)
Clearly, the Vietnamese government recognises the critical role of education in
national development and prosperity and considers it one of the top priorities for
investment. In 2000, Vietnam universalised primary education (Linh, 2012); every child
in Vietnam is now guaranteed to receive primary level education. Structurally, the
current national education system is divided into five levels: pre-primary, primary,
junior high school, high school, and tertiary education. The Vietnam Law of Education
(2005) stipulates that all children must access the primary level for five years from age
6 (Grades 1 to 5). Table 2.1 provides a structural overview of the education system in
Vietnam.
12
Table 2.1
Vietnam’s Education System
Age Level Institution
3months-5 years Pre-primary Kindergarten/nursery school
6-11 years Primary Primary school
(Grades 1-5)
12-15 years Junior high school Junior high school
16- -18 years High school High school
19+ years Tertiary Vocational school/ college/university
(Source 1: Government, 2005)
The education system in Vietnam is centralised and hierarchical (London, 2011,
Pham, 2005). At each level, there is a national curriculum that clearly stipulates subjects
and courses, expected teaching methodology, materials and resources, and time
allocation. Administratively, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) stands at
the highest level. This government body is responsible for policy formation, macro level
strategic planning, budget and human resources management, and curriculum. Below
the MOET are provincial departments of education and training (DOETs) which are
located in each province, and bureaux of education and training (BOETs) at district
level. The differences between MOET, DOETs, and BOETs are as follows:
The MOET operates under the supervision of the National Assembly, the central
committee and politburo of the Communist Party. The DOET is in charge of
educational management on the provincial level, and follows the directions of
the MOET […]. DOET and BOET also play liaising roles (communication,
management…) between the MOET and the institutes. The BOET members are
thus the specialised, liaising education officers who are closest to the
communities and the schools. (VVOB, 2008, p. 9)
In summary, the education system in Vietnam is a top-down arrangement with the
MOET at one end and schools at the other. In this system, the BOET is considered to be
closest to the school level.
2.2 Overview of Primary English Teaching Policy in Vietnam
As noted elsewhere, teaching English in primary schools is expanding rapidly
around the world (Copland, Garton, & Burns, 2014; Enever & Moon, 2009; Enever &
Moon, 2010; Moon, 2000; Nunan, 2003). Vietnam is no exception. A review of key
1
The sourse was originally written in Vietnamese and was translated into English. The translation
process was discussed in Section 4.5.5
13
literature and legal documents identified two milestones in English primary education in
Vietnam, which are discussed below.
First, in the early 1990s, English was initially taught as a foreign language at
some private schools and language centres in large cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh
City and Hai Phong (Chinh, Quynh, & Ha, 2014; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2007). In 2003, in
the face of high social demands and parental expectations, the Ministry of Education
and Training (MOET) issued Decision No 50/QĐ- BGDĐT, which approved a pilot
English language program for primary students. Accordingly, English was officially
introduced as an optional subject in the primary curriculum, starting from Grade 3 with
two 40-minute periods a week (Hoang & Le, 2017; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2007). This
marked a revolutionary change and pioneering initiative in relation to teaching English
at the primary level in Vietnam (Khalifa, Nguyen, & Walker, 2012, p. 8; Nguyen,
Hamid, & Renshaw, 2016).
In this period, there were no official and mandatory English textbooks (Nguyen
& Nguyen, 2007). Rather, different schools used different textbooks for their English
language teaching and learning, catering to the school teaching conditions and students.
However, three sets of textbooks were available for selection - Let’s Learn English
(published by Educational Publishing House), English 1-5 (published by the Centre for
Educational Technology), and Let’s Go (published by Oxford University Press). While
Let’s Go was deemed to be suitable for children in terms of contents, resources, and
activities, this material was rather expensive. Therefore, only 11 out of 25 provinces in
which English was taught chose Let’s Go as textbooks (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2007).
Other provinces tended to select Let’s Learn because of its low cost.
Second, in 2008, the MOET officially promulgated the policy entitled “National
Foreign Language Project 2008-2020” (commonly known as NFLP 2020, Decree 1400
or Project 2020). The project set out a 10-year foreign language program from years 3-
12 for all Vietnamese students at school level and an intensive English program for
students at a higher educational level. The intended outcome of NFLP 2020 is to
provide Vietnamese graduates of all educational levels with a good command of a
foreign language so they can confidently participate in competitive global and regional
markets (Bui & Nguyen, 2016). NFLP 2020 outlines the goals, tasks, solutions, and
plans for implementing the teaching and learning of foreign languages at all educational
levels. The introduction of this legal document indicates the government’s strong
14
political motivation and determination to improve the quality of language teaching and
learning so that “by the year 2020 most Vietnamese youth who graduate from
vocational schools, colleges and universities will have the capacity to use a foreign
language independently” (Article 1.1). NFLP 2020 specifically identifies different
stages of implementation:
from 2010 - 2011, implement language teaching in accord with the new
curriculum for about 20% of 3rd graders and gradually expand the scope to
about 70% in the school year 2015 - 2016, aiming to reach 100% in the school
year 2018 – 2019. (Article 1.2)
It can be inferred from this statement that, after 2016, English was to be taught in
primary schools nationwide.
The introduction of NFLP 2020 dramatically impacted English primary teaching
and learning in Vietnam. With Decision No 3321/QĐ- BGDĐT, signed on 12 August,
2010, another pilot primary English curriculum associated with NFLP 2020 came into
effect. Under this new curriculum, English was taught from Grade 3 as a subject in the
mainstream curriculum, with four 40-minute periods a week (Nguyen, 2011). In total,
there are 140 English teaching periods a year for each of grades 3, 4, and 5 (English
Primary Curriculum, 2010). Currently, all the nation’s provinces in which English is
taught are implementing this English curriculum.
Although the MOET claims that there may be different sets of textbooks for the
English primary curriculum and that schools have the freedom to choose textbooks, the
Ministry suggested six textbook sets from different publishers including: Tieng Anh
3,4,5 (published by Educational Publishing House), Family and Friends (published by
Oxford University Press), Let’s Go (published by Oxford University Press), UK English
Programme (published by VP Box Publisher), Smart Start (published by Hochiminh
Pedagogical University Publisher), and Let’s Learn English (published by Educational
Publishing House). All suggested series are produced by Vietnamese publishers, except
Oxford University Press, which comes from an international publisher. These textbooks
were already evaluated and approved by MOET. However, in practice it seems that the
Tieng Anh 3, 4 and 5 textbooks are widely used in many schools because of their
continuity in the educational system when students transit to junior high school in the
future. Hoang (2016) comments that the Tieng Anh 3, 4, and 5 are closely related to
MOET curriculum in terms of contents and time allocation. Each textbook set in this
15
series consists of two students’ books, a teacher’s book, two work books and two CDs.
The book is structured into 20 units. In each unit, there are three lessons which are to be
taught in six 35-minute teaching periods.
Overall, the advent of NFLP 2020 is considered a driving force for educational
language change (Nguyen, 2011), innovation and transformation (Le, 2015) throughout
the nation. To achieve the stated policy goals, a major focus has been placed on English
teacher quantity and quality. This focus is indicated in the policy’s stated intention “[t]o
review and formulate master plans and plans on training, re-training and recruitment of
teachers (…) nationwide, ensuring that requirements in relation to quantity, structure
and levels of training are met” (Decree 1400, Article 1.III.2, p.3). Specifically, NFLP
2020 aims to:
- review and assess the pool of foreign language teachers […] at all
education levels, especially at general education institutions, thereby formulating
master plans and plans on recruitment, training and re-training of teachers
annually, up to 2010 and 2020, according to current regulations and criteria;
- implement plans on training, re-training and recruitment of foreign
language teachers at different education levels in order to supplement teachers
and standardise their training levels under regulations. To introduce courses on,
and grant certificates of, training skills to those reaching prescribed foreign
language levels and wishing to become foreign language teachers. (Decree 1400,
Article 1.III.2, p. 3)
As these excerpts reveal, considerable emphasis is placed on the recruitment and
training of qualified English teachers to match the workforce demands, educational
structures and levels of teacher professionalism necessary to achieve the NFLP 2020
goals. The policy also proposes that the assessment and re-training of the current
educational workforce should be accelerated and standardised through in-service
professional programs or open courses in order to improve teaching quality.
There remains, however, a gap between policy rhetoric and reality (Nguyen,
2011; Nguyen 2012; Le, 2015; Pham, 2005). In the following sections, I critically
examine issues related to English primary education with the focus on English primary
teachers, who are viewed as key implementers of language policy.
16
2.3 Critical Issues in English Primary Teaching
In this section, I draw on current empirical studies in the local context to examine
the critical issues in English primary teaching. Four relevant themes emerged from the
literature review including recruitment, pedagogy, professional development and
equality.
2.3.1 Recruitment
Effective teacher recruitment ensures that an appropriate number and calibre of
English teachers is available to implement policy. This issue, however, has become a
problem in Vietnam because of its recruitment policy, teacher training, and teacher
shortages.
First, the recruitment policy for English primary teachers seems to be
inadequately addressed (Nguyen, 2011; Nguyen, 2012). Although the NFLP 2020 came
into effect, few English primary teachers were permanently employed. In a recent article
published on a newspaper (Yen, 2016), MOET reveals that in the school year 2015-
2016, there were 21,430 English primary teachers nationwide. Among them, 7,361
teachers are recruited as permanent employees (occupying 29.11%). This figure
indicates that a majority of current teachers are employed on short-term contracts (i.e.,
six months to one year). Their contract renewal depends on the school’s demand in the
following year. Therefore, it may be inferred that their teaching position at school is
insecure and unstable because their labour contract may be halted.
There is also a big gap between permanently employed and short-termed
contract teachers. Short-term contract teachers receive a lower salary pay without
receiving other social benefits such as labour and health insurance. In addition, they
might be assigned higher teaching workloads at school. The gap seemed to widen even
further when MOET issued document No 1240 on the guidance to English primary
teachers’ recruitment in 2013. According to this document, English primary teachers
with a permanent position are entitled to PD activities, fully-paid social benefits, and 18
fixed teaching periods a week. This discrimination is likely to undermine short-term
contract teachers’ commitment, motivation, and enthusiasm for teaching.
Second, a majority of English teachers at the elementary level are not officially
trained to teach English to primary students. The defects in teachers’ training are
probably due to the government’s inadequate preparation for NFPL 2020 (Le & Yeo,
2016; Le, 2015; Le & Do, 2012; Nguyen, 2011; Nguyen, Hamid, & Renshaw, 2015).
17
When the language policy was introduced in 2008, no colleges or universities in
Vietnam provided pre-service English primary training programs (Vu & Pham, 2014). It
was not until 2012 that the MOET officially approved a national training curriculum for
English primary education and some Vietnamese colleges and universities began to train
English teachers for this educational level (NFLP2020, 2016). However, it takes a pre-
service student at least three years to complete a teacher training program. Therefore, it
could be assumed that before 2015, all the English primary teachers who were
employed at that time have no major in English primary education.
Even when prospective English primary teachers participate in a teacher training
program, one may question the quality of this program in terms of teaching
methodologies (Le & Do, 2012). Although the MOET regulates and manages the
national teacher training curriculum, some scholars were concerned about the unbalance
between general language knowledge and methodological practical skills (Le, 2011;
Nguyen, 2017). Nguyen (2013) observes that the current language teacher education
program focuses much on English proficiency, linguistics, English culture and literature,
and subject matter knowledge and theory. Teaching methodology courses only occur in
the third year of training with only two or three components of micro-teaching (Le,
2011). The teaching practicum places in the last semester of the education program, and
runs for only six weeks (Nguyen, 2017). Given the structure of the current training
program, it is arguable that teachers are insufficiently equipped with teaching
methodologies to deal with classroom complexities of introducing their students to
English. Nguyen (2017) suggests that the current teacher training program should
“move beyond the provision of subject knowledge to the development of teacher
development processes” (p. 11).
Without appropriate practical teaching methodology, teaching English at the
primary level is likely to be very difficult for newly employed teachers. As various
scholars elsewhere argue the methods of teaching English at primary level differ from
those adopted at junior high school or high school level (Enever & Moon, 2010; Li &
Baldauf, 2011; Moon, 2000; Nguyen, 2011; Nguyen et al., 2016). Chinh et al., (2014),
for example, argue that at the primary level, knowing how to teach children is much
more important than what to teach. English primary teachers are also expected to know
how to integrate pedagogic, psychological, affective, and creative activities into their
lessons.
18
Third, the quality and quantity of English primary teachers have become one of
the greatest concerns for the nationwide implementation of NFLP 2020 in Vietnam (Le,
2007; Nguyen, 2011; Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen, 2017). The government’s slow responses
to pre-service English primary teacher training is likely to have imposed challenges for
the recruitment of qualified English teachers. It seems obvious that hasty policy-making
has led many stakeholders in Vietnam to “use untrained and limited competence
teachers as a stop-gap measure” (p. 130). Nguyen (2011) reports that all of the
participant teachers in her study admitted having no formal training in English primary
education. It is common that teachers who have only been trained to teach English to
older students are being employed to teach younger learners (Le & Yeo, 2016; Le & Do,
2012; Nguyen, 2012). According to Vu and Pham (2014), for example, “most practicing
teachers, often trained to teach secondary level or higher, are perceived as lacking age-
appropriate teaching methods” (p. 93). Nguyen (2012) discloses that some rural schools
even have to hire teachers without formal qualifications in English, as long as they have
a national English proficiency certificate. These empirical studies have revealed the
current limited quality of English primary teachers in the Vietnamese context.
The shortage of qualified English teachers may continue in some coming years.
Nguyen (2011) reported that in the year 2008-2009, when teaching at the primary level
was first introduced, at least 16,600 English primary teachers were to be recruited. The
acute shortage of English primary teachers, however, remains unresolved after nearly a
decade. In the school year 2016-2017, it was reported that approximately 8,000 English
primary teachers were still needed for schools across the nation (Yen, 2016). Beginning
in 2019 when the proposed new curriculum comes into practice, the MOET plans to
recruit 5,616 new English primary teachers (Hung, 2018), which indicates that the issue
of recruiting qualified English teachers for the elementary level is still to be addressed.
2.3.2 Pedagogy
To develop students’ communicative competence, NFLP 2020 expects all English
teachers to employ communicative activities in their pedagogical practices (see Chapter
4). Some typical pedagogical issues that arise in the local context are discussed below.
First, many English primary teachers in Vietnam do not feel confident about
their expertise in teaching English communicatively (Hayes, 2008). Nguyen (2012)
conducted a study with 64 English primary teachers in rural settings in Vietnam to
explore how they implemented the language policy in the classroom level. She reported
19
that most of the English primary teachers in her study still employed a teacher-dominant
teaching approach. They typically used teaching techniques such as drills, repetitions,
explanation and translation. In addition, Nguyen (2017) observes that in many language
classrooms, the teacher seems to behave as “an actor who performs a live show on stage
while the students watch and listen like a theatre audience” (p.6). Although teachers had
some knowledge of communicative language teaching or total physical response, they
saw these as new methods and refused to use them in their practice (Nguyen, 2012).
Other studies also report that English primary teachers still used traditional teaching
methods such as a focus on forms, teacher-centred activities, drill exercises, repetition
and limited use of interactive activities (Le & Barnard, 2009; Le & Do, 2012;
Tomlinson & Dat, 2004).
Second, having a pre-determined syllabus and prescribed textbook also
constrains teachers’ ability to use to communicative methods. In Vietnam, MOET
develops the national curriculum and sets the syllabus for schools throughout the nation.
The Ministry also monitors the implementation of the syllabus to ensure the expected
outcomes. The syllabus and the textbook, once approved by the Ministry, become laws
that must be strictly observed. Therefore, teachers are expected to strictly follow the
suggested syllabus and textbook materials in their classroom practices. Textbooks are
considered as a standard teaching material, which can be used to test what students have
learnt (Le, 1999; Tomlinson & Dat, 2004). Therefore, teachers are likely to choose to
focus on covering all the textbook content for future testing purposes, which may hinder
them from employing communicative activities in their classrooms because of the time
constraints they incur (Tomlinson & Dat, 2004).
Third, teachers’ poor language proficiency and lack of confidence in their
English competence have been cited as major impediments to communicative language
teaching in many contexts (Butler, 2011; Hamid & Honan, 2012; Hayes, 2010; Li,
1998). Research shows that English teachers’ language proficiency in Vietnam is
significantly lower than the MOET required levels (i.e, B1 CEFR) (Hayes, 2008b; Le,
2015; Nguyen, 2011; Nguyen & Mai, 2015). For example, Nguyen (2013) reported that
an overwhelming majority (more than 87%) of the 80,000 English teachers in state
schools had low language proficiency as measured through the nationwide assessment
in 2011-2012. The specific figures were 83% of primary school teachers, and 87% and
92% of junior and high school teachers, respectively. These teachers were deemed
20
underqualified (Nguyen, 2013; Nguyen & Mai, 2015) because they did not meet the
minimum language proficiency required to teach English communicatively. The high
number of underqualified language teachers (Nguyen, 2013) was described as
“alarming” (Nguyen, 2016, p. 8) and “shocking” (Nguyen & Mai, 2015, p. 1831).
Therefore, many local educators came to believe that the NFLP 2020’s goals for
students’ communicative competence were unrealistic and impossible to achieve (Bui &
Nguyen, 2016; Le, 2015; Le & Do, 2012).
2.3.3 Professional development
As a result of the issues discussed above, there is a pressing need for professional
development (PD) opportunities for English primary teachers, especially in relation to
pedagogical methods and language competence, if educational policy in Vietnam is to
be successfully implemented (Ho, Nakamori, & Ho, 2014; Le & Yeo, 2016). This
section focuses on the current PD policy, models of PD, and quality of current PD
activities.
In Vietnam, the MOET is in charge of policies, funding, and strategies in relation
to teacher professional development, and its subdivisions (such as DOET or BOETs) are
responsible for administering, implementing and managing PD activities and funding
(Ho et al., 2014). While the MOET, in principle, confirms that all employed English
teachers are entitled to access some of a pool of 120 hours for their PD activities a year
(Circular 26/ 2012/ TT-BGDDT), this proposal is not fully addressed in practice. Not
every English primary teacher can equally gain these PD opportunities because of
budget constraints.
To manage the PD policy implementation, the MOET appoints a number of
selected universities and organizations as PD program providers to English primary
teachers. Le and Yeo (2016) report:
To support the National Foreign Languages Project 2020, Vietnam’s MOET
rolled out an in-service training program for primary teachers of English. This
training was carried out by different agencies including the Ministry of
Education and Training, Department of Education and Training, Universities,
foreign organizations such as the British Council and Cheers for Vietnam [sic].
The objectives of the training were to help primary teachers to improve their
knowledge in teaching English to young learners and specifically to develop
21
appropriate teaching methods for young learners. Additionally, the program was
expected to help trainees improve their own language proficiency. (p. 35)
To facilitate the implementation of PD activities, the MOET also issued a legal
document (No. 792/BGDĐT-NGCBQLGD, dated 25/02/2014), known as the English
Teacher Competency Framework (ETCF). It covers five domains: knowledge of
language, language learning and curricular content; knowledge of language teaching;
knowledge of language learners; professional attitudes and values in language teaching;
and practice and content of language teaching. Figure 2.1 sets out the components of
the ETCF.
Figure 2.1 The ETCF framework (theNFLP2020, 2014, p. 19)

(Dudzik, 2008, adapted from Ball & Cohen, 1999)
The purpose of the ETCF is to provide English teachers with the knowledge and
skills they need to become effective teachers. The framework is also “a tool for teachers
and trainers to identify specific areas for training and self-study and to acquire expertise
over time” (NFLP 2020, 2014, p.17). However, the adoption of this framework is still in
its infancy and has experienced some barriers such as lack of communication,
innovation, and independence (Nguyen & Hamid, 2015).
Over the period 2016-2020, NFLP 2020 will continue to pursue its goals to
standardise teachers’ language proficiency. NFLP aims all primary teachers to meet
required language competence set by MOET (i.e, B1 CEFR) by 2019 (NFLP, 2016). In
a recent interview, the Minister of Education and Training stressed that English teachers
22
must meet the standard requirements. He emphasised that “if teaching and learning
English is not going to achieve standardisation, it is better to stop” (Phan, 2016). He
went on to say that those teachers who do not achieve the minimum standards will be
re-trained, and if their proficiency does not improve, they are likely to lose their
teaching positions.
To disseminate PD activities, different models have been employed, such as the
cascade approach (Hamano, 2008; Hayes, 2008a), and the train-the-trainer model (Vu &
Pham, 2014). PD activities take many forms, such as summer school, qualification
upgrading, demonstration-lesson training, and in-school training (Hamano, 2008;
Hayes, 2008a; Nguyen, 2012; Le & Yeo, 2016; Saito, Khong, & Tsukui, 2012). Other
PD models, such as self-directed, collaborative, and inquiry-based professional learning
for teachers, which are believed to work well in other contexts, are unfamiliar to
Vietnamese English primary teachers, although they are beginning to be introduced in
some locations (Le & Nguyen, 2012; Saito & Tsukui, 2008). In addition, teacher
collaboration (Deni & Malakolunthu, 2013; Forte & Flores, 2014), which is seen as a
solution to bring about change in daily classroom practices and working communities,
seems to be neglected in the Vietnamese context. Such professional development
activities as reflection and experience sharing among peers are not widespread in the
daily practices of Vietnamese teachers (Le, 2007; Saito, Tsukui & Tanaka, 2008).
Indeed, Nguyen (2017) observes that English teachers in Vietnam tend to work in
isolation from their colleagues. These kinds of evidence suggest that PD for English
primary teachers tends to comprise structured activities and depends on input from PD
providers rather than approaches that develop teachers’ reflective practices.
It has been argued, however, that current teacher PD activities in Vietnam are
unlikely to advance teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and skills (Chinh et al., 2014). PD
activities are mainly crammed, one-off crash courses (Hamano, 2008; Hayes, 2008a; Le
& Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen, 2011). Le and Yeo (2016) for example, report that one PD
workshop program they analysed contained 15 modules on primary English teaching
methodology, but was intended to last only three weeks with ten hours of training a day.
In addition, PD content has been described as theory-based, formal and irrelevant to
teachers’ needs (Hamano, 2008; Hayes, 2008a). PD activities commonly take the form
of workshops, seminars, and lectures (Le, 2002), but participant teachers do not have
the opportunity to share and discuss their specific problems with trainers and colleagues
23
during these activities. Third, school administrators may not support teachers’ utilisation
of the knowledge and skills gained in the PD activities. Hayes (2008b), therefore,
recommends that administrators should receive the same training opportunities as their
teachers so they can “provide constructive support rather than acting as formal
inspectors” (p. 95). Finally, professional development may be undervalued in Vietnam
as a result of teachers’ perceptions of the necessity for certificates or awards to satisfy
administrative requirements (Le & Yeo, 2016), rather than those that spring from their
inner motivation and needs.
2.3.4 Equality
Since NFLP 2020 is implemented nationwide, uniformity and equality across
different classrooms are a major concern to the MOET and policy makers. This issue,
however, has received little attention in the current literature. Despite the dearth of
empirical evidence, it is believed that inequality exists across pedagogical contexts
(Chinh et al., 2014; Hamano, 2008; Linh, 2012; Rew, 2008). In the following
discussion, I examine three main sources of regional inequality.
First, resource support varies across the different regions. Although the
Vietnamese government provides funding for basic teaching resources and facilities,
this provision is limited. Therefore, students’ parents are encouraged to contribute to the
financial support of the school, which potentially widens the regional gap:
The reason there is a difference in funding for rural and urban schools is the
Parents’ Union. Parents in rural areas have less money as most are farmers or
laborers. They have enough money for their students to attend required classes
and own necessary materials, but not enough to give to the school for language
teachers, school constructions, or full day staff. (Behr, 2005, p.17)
A study by Khalifa et al. (2012) also identified the gaps in English teaching and
learning conditions in large cities in Vietnam. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (the two
largest cities in Vietnam), it was observed in this study that the schools have better
equipped classrooms, better qualified teachers and more age-appropriate teaching
practices. In addition, as Chinh et al. (2014) note the schools in urban areas seem to
receive more funding and higher levels of engagement from parents in supporting their
children’s learning. As the success of teaching and learning English is partially
determined by teaching conditions and classroom facilities (Chinh et al., 2014), this
24
finding suggests that English primary teachers in rural or remote areas are more
disadvantaged than their counterparts in urban regions.
Second, the quality of employed English primary teachers differs among the
regions. Teaching quality is closely related to the abilities of English primary teachers
(Nguyen, 2016; Nguyen, 2011; Nguyen & Bui, 2016). However, many pre-service
teachers, especially those who are competent, are reluctant to take jobs in rural areas
(Hamano, 2008). It may be an even greater challenge for schools in island areas to
attract qualified teachers to implement NFPL 2020. Once teachers have been recruited,
no measures are taken to secure more competent teachers in these regions (Hamano,
2008). The quality of English primary teachers in rural or mountainous areas is,
therefore, a pertinent issue to be considered. Chinh et al. (2014) report the case of a
rural teacher who stated that she had never seen a foreigner in her life. Nguyen (2012)
also indicates that rural English primary teachers have difficulties with English
language competence.
Third, English teachers in rural, mountainous, or island areas may be
marginalised in terms of their access to professional development. Currently, PD
activities for in-service teachers in Vietnam adopt a one-size-fits-all approach (Nguyen,
2016) and are organised in major cities (Trần & Lê, 2017). Therefore, all teachers,
regardless of their regional location, participate in the same PD program. It is obvious
that effective PD activities should connect to teachers’ daily responsibilities (Flores,
2005, Mohan, 2015; McLaughlin & Tah 2006). However, there is evidence that current
in-service PD programs in Vietnam lack context-sensitivity and practicality (Le & Yeo,
2016). Trần and Lê (2017) report that English teachers in rural and mountainous regions
complain about the effectiveness of PD activities. Their participant teachers did not find
the knowledge and skills useful for their specific needs. Therefore, they expressed the
desire to participate in other PD programs that addressed their situated concerns. While
this suggestion is obviously worthwhile, it is doubtful if their concerns will be quickly
addressed in such a centralised education system.
All things considered, it is likely the regional divides among teachers will
increase. The urban teachers seem to receive more support in term of training
opportunities, teaching resources, and facilities than their rural and island counterparts.
This gap indicates that English primary teachers in rural and island regions may
implement the language curricular policy in a more constrained condition. As a result,
25
regional variation in policy implementation is also likely to grow. Therefore, the
discussion in this section on the critical issues and regional differences has strong
implications for the current study, which aims to explore how English primary teachers
in three contexts- urban, rural, and island exercise their agency in response to a new
language policy in Vietnam (see Section 1.3, Chapter 1 for the research aims).
2.4 Summary
This chapter has examined issues in English primary education policy in the
national context of the study. The discussion was intended to provide the contextual
knowledge for the current study which would be useful for interpreting the research data
and locating the study. It highlighted that the English primary language curriculum
policy in Vietnam was politically motivated and insufficiently prepared. Under the
impact of globalisation and regional integration, language education in Vietnam has
undergone a number of radical changes. Through the NFLP 2020 policy, English was
introduced as a compulsory subject in the mainstream curriculum from Grade 3. While
this it was considered a breakthrough in language education in Vietnam, the new policy
creates a number of challenges that still need to be addressed. One of the most pressing
issues is the impact on English primary teachers, who are considered key policy
implementers. From the available literature, the chapter identified and discussed three
core workforce-related issues: recruitment, pedagogy and equality. It has also revealed
the gap between policy rhetoric and the reality of teaching English at the elementary
level in Vietnam.
The next chapter aims to locate the research in a broader context of current
literature on language policy, positioning theory, and agency. Its primary purpose is to
set out a theoretical framework and identify the research gap for the current study.
26
Chapter 3
Literature Review
This research aims to explore Vietnamese English primary teacher agency in
response to the language curricular policy introduced as part of the government
language policy (see Chapter 1). Chapter 2 provided the contextual background of the
study, in order to locate the research and contribute towards the interpretation of the
data. This chapter aims to present a review of relevant literature and establish the
theoretical foundation for the current study.
The chapter is organised into four main sections: definition of language policy;
conceptualisation of teacher agency; positioning theory; and current literature on teacher
agency.
3.1 Language Policy
Although language policy (LP) is an emerging field of research, which was
introduced in the early 1960s (Goundar, 2017), it is one of the fastest growing
subdisciplines in applied linguistics, especially in the era of globalization (Hult &
Johnson, 2015). This section aims to define the key construct of the study, language
policy and explain its recent focus from current literature.
There seems to exist various definitions of language policy in the current
literature. From the sociocultural perspective, McCarty (2011) defines language policy
as “a complex sociocultural process and as modes of human interaction, negotiation,
and production mediated by relation of power” (p.8). With this definition, McCarty puts
more emphasis on the LP interaction and negotiation among human actors. In a similar
vein, Schiffman (1996) considers language policy as a social construct, which may
consist of different components that he refers to as linguistic cultures, and which he
defines as “the sum totality of ideas, values, beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, religious
strictures, and all other cultural baggage that speakers bring to their dealings with
language from their background” (p. 276). However, from the critical perspective,
Tollefson (1991) defines language policy as “the institutionalization of language as
basic for distinction among social groups (…) one mechanism by which dominant
groups establish hegemony in language use” (p.16). This definition seems to focus on
the language use within a community. Unlike these scholars, Spolsky (2004) sees
language policy through three interrelated components - language practices, language
27
beliefs or ideology, and language management. These definitions obviously offer
different perspectives to understand the concept of language policy.
In this study, following Kaplan and Baldauf (1997), LP is viewed as a set of
laws and regulations which are made by government bodies. In particular, language
policy is defined as “a body of ideas, laws and regulations, change rules, beliefs, and
practices intended to achieve a planned change in the language use in one or more
communities” (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, p.3). In this understanding, the macro level is
responsible for language planning that responds to such national goals as modernizing
language to cope with advanced technology, standardizing language for underlining
political incentives, or achieving unification among other ethnic minorities within a
nation. Language policy can be either overt, which includes legal documents, directives,
instructions, or guidelines or covert (i.e., unstated) (Baldauf, 2006). This LP
understanding reflects the centralised and hierarchical political system in which
Vietnam is an example.
Language policy is conceptualised as multi-leveled layers and processes
(Johnson & Johnson, 2015; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996). LP
scholars use different terms to refer to these levels, such as macro-, meso-, and micro-,
top-down and bottom-up, explicit and implicit, overt and covert, de jure and de facto
(Johnson & Johnson, 2015). Traditionally, it is taken for granted that LP is the property
of macro-actors who have rights to make LP decisions. Therefore, most of the studies
tended to focus on the macro-level, where LP was believed to occur (Baldauf,
2006).With this focus, it could be inferred that the micro level of LP research used to be
neglected, suppressed or simply regarded as secondary to the overall process of
planning (Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008) because most studies tend to focus on top-down
policies and documentary analysis (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Spolsky, 2004). In other
words, the roles of practitioners tend to be overlooked (Menken & Garcia, 2010).
Recently, however, the critical roles of the micro-level for effective language
policy implementation have been widely recognised. As Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008)
observe, “language does not simply exist at the macro level of the nation-state or other
macro level polity” (p. 9). They continue:
Language is something with which individuals and communities engage daily in
ways which are not relevant to national level objectives and processes. Each
language exists in its own local language ecology and it is in relation to these
28
ecologies that at least some language planning activity must be carried out to
resolve local problems and address local needs (p. 9).
Therefore, scholars in the field have called for consideration of a broader
language ecology (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997) and politics of the LP situation
(Pennycook, 1998). In other words, a holistic approach to LP research is required. This
view is supported by Kheng and Baldauf (2011), who contend that “language planning
needs to include macro and micro planning processes since micro planning is subsumed
within the larger macro planning framework” (p. 948). This change in perspective has
reshaped the classical macro-level approach to LP and encouraged a focus on the micro
context.
Baldauf (2006) emphasises the role of local context, which he views as a useful
concept that should receive “the wider research consideration it deserves” (p.166).
According to Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008) :
The study of local contexts reveals clearly that micro-level language planning is
not only a legitimate area of investigation for language planning scholars but
that it is a fundamental part of the language planning process with which
language planning as a discipline must engage (p. 15).
In fact, interest in LP has shifted increasingly to micro situations since the late
1990s (Kaplan 2011). Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008) explain what is involved in this
approach:
... rather than focusing on the work of governments and their agencies as the
agent in language planning, a micro level approach needs to consider a range of
agents, which exist greater or less formality within their local speech
communities. (p .5)
It can be inferred that LP is dynamic, which involves a complex process of
interpretation, negotiation, construction and reconstruction (Menken & Garcia, 2010).
Shohamy (2003) argues that language policies are not acts but simply static and dead
policy documents, which must be translated into practice by the enacting of agency
across the macro- meso- and micro- levels. Schools are, therefore, primary sites for the
implementation and contestation of a new language policy (Garcia & Menken, 2010).
Once the policy is translated into the classroom context, teachers become those who act
as policy implementers. In sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2, the current literature on teachers’
roles in enacting a new language policy is examined.
29
3.1.1 Teachers as enactors of policy
Teachers play a number of dynamic roles in LP, including as central policy
actors (Brown, 2010; Zakharia, 2010), language planners (Freeman, 1996) and
policymakers (Li, 2010). Teachers are held to be inevitably engaged in acts of language
policy and planning (Throop, 2007) and are seen as active agents of language policy
implementation (Levinson & Sutton 2001; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996). Cummins
(2000) regards teachers as the bond which connects macro-policies and micro-levels in
practice. In the classroom, Garcia and Menken (2010) argue, teachers do not blindly
follow a prescribed text but implement it in an agentful way by drawing on their own
knowledge, experience and understandings, and their language ideologies and
professional backgrounds (Varghese, 2008). In this sense:
Teachers have considerable autonomy in their implementation of high-level
decisions, which leaves room for significant variation in the way they put the
plan into practice on the classroom level … [C]onsidering teachers and
administrators as planners allows an understanding of how practitioners
potentially shape the language plan from the bottom up (Freeman, 1996, p. 560).
Recent empirical studies at the micro level highlight teachers’ active role in
policy implementation (Hawanti, 2014; Heineke, 2015; Hopkins, 2016; Pease-Alvarez
& Samway, 2008; Pease-Alvarez & Thompson, 2014; Yeung, 2009). Research by Li
(2010) is an example that highlighted teachers’ active role as decision-makers in the
classroom. Li investigated English teachers who implemented the top-down language
policy in China. Her study revealed that rather than strictly following instructional
guides or recommendations from curriculum developers, teachers made their own
choices according to what they believed would work best for their students’ exam
results. In a similar vein, Heineke (2015) conducted a study with a group of language
teachers in Arizona, USA when they were mandated to implement a language policy in
the state. The study showed that the participant teachers made daily negotiation,
interpretations of and decisions of language use. Given the findings, Heineke (2015)
suggested that language teachers should be provided with spaces to “explore their active
roles in language policy, interpret and negotiate the implementation of language policies
in practices” (p. 868). Other studies produced similar results (de Jong, 2008; Li 2008;
Stritikus, 2003; Wang, 2008; Wang & Cheng, 2005). These studies showed that
teachers did not passively follow in their classrooms what policymakers require them to
do. Instead, they performed their teaching practice in the context of existing classroom
30
conditions and realities. For example, de Jong (2008) investigated teachers’ perspectives
on the implementation of a top-down English-only state law in the United States and the
impact of policy on teachers’ classroom practices. The study showed that the participant
teachers tended to negotiate contradictory policy discourses in their daily classroom
practices. The findings, therefore, foreshadowed the importance of teachers’ roles in the
policy implementation.
Empirical studies also showed that English teachers had to implement a
language policy with local constraints (Li, 2010; Ramanathan & Morgan, 2007; Waters,
2009; Yeung, 2009; Zacharias, 2013; Zakharia, 2010). Cray (1997), for example,
investigated how teachers in a province in Canada perceived language policy in the
local teaching context. The findings indicated that the policy was well-articulated and
documented, with clear instructions and guidelines for assessment and curriculum,
which were expected to have a direct effect on teachers’ performance in the classroom.
Teachers, however, were found to rely a great deal on their own experience, preferences
and local resources. Various mediating factors in teachers’ policy execution have also
been identified, including local school context, teachers’ beliefs and assumptions, class
size, learners’ language proficiency, students’ motivation and behaviours, and
institutional testing mechanisms (Silver & Skuja-Steele 2005; Stritikus, 2003; Wang,
2008; Wang & Cheng, 2005; Yeung, 2009; Zhang & Hu, 2010). For example, Wang
(2008) conducted a study with English tertiary lecturers in a Chinese context. She used
interviews and classroom observations as data collection instruments to explore
teachers’ execution of the language curricular policy and factors that impacted the
execution. The study identified a number of local contextual factors as constraints for
English teachers to implement the language policy mandates such as students’
competence, lecturers’ roles, teachers’ evaluation, or administrative system. Copland,
Garton and Burns (2014) investigated the challenges that English primary teachers
encountered globally and locally. The study found that the teachers struggled with their
teaching skills particularly on speaking, writing, pronunciation, grammar, and
classroom management. Besides, English primary teachers had to cope with
differentiation problems when they taught English in mixed-level classes with students
of different individual needs, and learning stages. Likewise, Su’s (2006) empirical study
provided two additional constraints that English teachers coped with in policy
enactment, namely resources, and parental aspirations. Regarding parental pressure, Su
(2006) found that parents’ expectations in South Korea would create stress for children
31
and thus discourage them from effective learning. It was also reported in the study that
insufficient facilities and finance significantly restrained teachers from effective
teaching practices. Although teachers demanded teaching equipment such as CD, DVD
players or computers, and other teaching resources, schools could not afford them
because of very limited budgets (Su, 2006; Enever & Moon, 2008). Similarly, Hamid
(2010) presents the example of Bangladesh, where many poor rural schools could not
afford to purchase teaching and learning aids, equipment and other facilities for
language learning and teaching purposes. These studies provide empirical evidence on
the contextual and structural obstacles that English teachers encountered when they
implemented the language policy
It seems from these studies that teachers can be portrayed as active actors in the
language policy implementation even in a constrained environment. They implement
the policy they need to work with flexibility so as to cater to their teaching conditions
and students. As argued in Section 3.1, teachers are believed to serve different roles in
implementing a language policy. From the current literature, some empirical studies
have portrayed English teachers as change agents. This role is further discussed in turn.
3.1.2 Teachers as agents of change
In recent years, the concept of innovation or change has gained much attention
in the literature on language teaching (Hyland & Wong, 2013; Lamie, 2004; Waters,
2009; Wedell, 2003; Wedell, 2009). Fullan (2007) uses the term “change in practice” (p.
30) to refer to the implementation of educational change and identifies three core
components that are necessary for change to occur: materials (instructional resources),
teaching approaches (new teaching strategies or activities) and alterations of belief
(assumptions). Similarly, Lo Bianco (2013b) proposes that innovation in language
education is manifested through “curriculum design, teacher preparation, textbook
writing, or classroom pedagogies” (p. 140). In many contexts, the implementation of
language policy has significantly changed language curriculum and teaching practices.
In Turkey, for instance, the introduction of a new language policy led to the revision of
its foreign language curriculum, which was embedded in a communicative approach as
part of the innovation process (Kirkgoz, 2008). Similar situations have been reported in
China (Kennedy, 1996; Yan & He, 2012), South Korea (Choi & Andon, 2014), Vietnam
(Le & Barnard, 2009), Libya (Orafi & Borg, 2009), and Thailand (de Segovia &
Hardison, 2009; McDonough & Chaikitmongkol, 2007).
32
There is also ample evidence to support suggestions that teachers themselves are
“the centerpiece of educational change” (Schmidt & Datnow, 2005, p. 949), key players
in the reform process (Swanepoel, 2008; Wedell, 2003), agents of change ( Spillane,
Reiser, & Reimer, 2002) or chief implementers of change (Guro & Weber, 2010). The
crucial role of teachers in implementing educational change is widely recognised
(Adams, 2000; Fullan, 2007). As Vongalis-Macrow (2007) argues, “what teachers do
and how they react to educational change is significant in determining the outcomes of
change” (p. 436). Similarly, Hargreaves and Evans (1997) propose that “where
educational change is concerned, if a teacher can’t or won’t do it, it simply can’t be
done” (p. 3).
In this context, McLaughlin (1987, 1990) discusses the “will” and “capacity” of
teachers to implement educational change. “Will” refers to “teachers’ motivation to
change their practice to carry out reformers’ recommendations while capacity concerns
educators’ ability to practice in ways recommended by reformers” (Spillane, 1999,
p.144). Busher (2006) emphasises that teachers should serve as proactive actors in
educational change in practice:
If teachers do not own innovations but are simply required to implement
externally imposed changes, they are likely to do so without enthusiasm, leading
to possible failure. (p. 46)
The educational change literature shows that the process is governed by a
number of factors, including teachers’ past experience, assumptions and behaviours. As
Fullan (2007) puts it, “educational change depends on what teachers do and think” (p.
129). At the same time, teachers’ prior knowledge may lead them to different
interpretations of the same policy texts, and sometimes even result in misunderstanding
of the policy intentions (Spillane et al., 2002). Therefore, “key players (i.e., language
teachers) will need to make considerable adjustments to their existing beliefs and
behaviours” (Wedell, 2003, p.443) to achieve the desired outcomes.
Empirical evidence from different contexts illustrates how language teachers
implement and respond to educational innovations and changes. In Asian countries, for
instance, the language curriculum is incorporating innovative teaching methods such as
task-based teaching in Hong Kong (Carless, 2001; Todd, 2006), communicative
language teaching in Vietnam and China (Hiep, 2005; Li, 1998; Liao, 2000; Yu, 2001),
cooperative learning in Lebanon (Ghaith, 2004),and project-based learning in Thailand
33
(Simpson, 2011). Teachers, however, respond differently to changes and innovations in
different contexts (Kirkgöz, 2007; Kırkgöz, 2008; Li & Baldauf, 2011; Wang & Cheng,
2005; Wu, 2008; Yeung, 2009; Zacharias, 2013; Zhang & Liu, 2014; Zhang & Hu,
2010). Le and Barnard (2009), for example, investigated how Vietnamese English
teachers actually implemented CLT in their classroom. The findings revealed a gap
“between the idealized world of innovation designers and the realistic world of teachers,
who are essential to the implementation of innovation” (p. 30) and did not follow what
was prescribed in the official curriculum document. Instead, they continued to adopt
teaching styles that were traditional, teacher-centred, test-oriented and textbook-based.
This situation was seen to result from factors such as teachers’ insufficient language
proficiency, pedagogic knowledge and beliefs about educational changes. These
findings are consistent with those from previous studies, where teachers resisted
changes involving innovative methods imposed by a new language curriculum in
different contexts, including China (Carless, 2001; Wang, 2008; Wu, 2008); Japan
(Humphries & Burns, 2015; K. Sato, 2002) and Thailand (de Segovia & Hardison,
2009).
In summary, as this section has outlined, language education policy is a dynamic
process that involves the important role of teachers at the micro-level (Johnson &
Freeman 2010; Johnson & Johnson, 2015; Menken & Garcia 2010). It is clear that in the
implementation of LP policy, schools are sites of both implementation and contestation
of LP (Cooper, 1989; Corson, 1999) and teachers are “the final arbiters of language
policy implementation” (Menken & Garcia, 2010, p. 1), acting as “central agents in
language policy development” (Baldauf, 2006, p. 154). They have the power to act as
mediators between the policy and the pupils, classroom practices and texts (Martin,
1999). They are not passive recipients of policy but play an active role in enacting it. In
this sense, teachers have agency, as elaborated in the following section.
3.2 Conceptualisations of Agency
This section discusses the concept of agency as it pertains to the current project.
Specifically, it addresses definitions of agency, and agency-structure relations.
3.2.1 Definitions of agency
Although human agency has been widely discussed in fields such as sociology,
psychology, anthropology and politics, there is no convergent understanding of the
term. The concept of human agency has been described as elusive (Emirbayer &
34
Mische, 1998), slippery (Hitlin & Elder, 2007), difficult to define (Biesta & Tedder,
2007; Robinson, 2012) and varying depending on “the epistemological roots and goals
of scholars who employ it” (Hitlin & Elder, 2007, p.170).
From a sociocultural perspective, for instance, Ahearn (2001) refers to agency as
a “socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (p. 112). From a sociological perspective,
Giddens (1984) and Bourdieu (1977) use the concepts of structuration and habitus,
respectively, to indicate agency. From a psychological perspective, Bandura (2001)
associates agency with four main constructs: intentionality, forethought, self-regulation
and beliefs of efficacy. All these conceptualisations have been criticised. Giddens’ and
Bordieu’s theories, for instance, are said to demonstrate a “one-sided conception of
agency” (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 963), misunderstanding the nature of
individuals (Hitlin & Elder, 2007) and failing to explain social transformation and
innovation (Sewell, 1992).
Moreover, Eteläpelto, Vähäsantanen, Hökkä, and Paloniemi (2013) argue that
the concept of agency in 20th century discussions was “mostly addressed as a non-
historical phenomenon taking place in the present” (p. 59), while recent views have
“extended its temporal dimension from the present to the past and to the future” (p. 59).
Temporal orientation is considered a crucial part of social interaction (Flaherty, 2003)
and this dimension is fundamental to understanding human agency:
Actors’ temporal orientations are shaped by situational exigencies, with some
situations calling for extensive focus on the present and others requiring an
extended temporal orientation. Agentic behavior is influenced by the
requirements of the interaction; as actors become more or less concerned with
the immediate moment versus long-term life goals, they employ different social
psychological processes and exhibit different forms of agency. (Hitlin & Elder,
2007, p. 171)
Given the research aims and purposes of the present study, agency is most usefully
conceptualised from the perspective of the philosophy of pragmatism and ecology
suggested by Emirbayer and Mische (1998). This is because the theory embeds the
temporal dimension of agency, identifies components of agency at the individual level,
and recognises the role of contexts, conditions and circumstances in enabling or
constraining agency.
Emirbayer and Mische (1998) define human agency as:
35
the temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structural
environments - the temporal-relational contexts of action - which, through the
interplay of habit, imagination, and judgment, both reproduces and transforms
those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing
historical situations. (p. 970)
In this definition, Emirbayer and Mische (1998) identify three constitutive
components of human agency - iteration, projectivity and practical evaluation – which
they refer to as a “chordal triad” (p. 970) which can be used to examine forms of action
“towards the past, the future and the present” (p. 971). These dimensions are seen to be
inherent in “any concrete empirical instance of action” of human agency to varying
degrees. Actions can be “more (or less) engaged with the past, more (or less) directed
toward the future, and more (or less) responsive to the present” (p. 971). They argue that
each of these analytical elements possesses “its own internal chordal structure” (p. 972).
Actions are constructed through ongoing temporal passage and emergent events, and
each dimension of agency “has itself a simultaneous internal orientation toward past,
future, and present, for all forms of agency are temporally embedded in the flow of
time” (p. 972). These features provide an insight into the nature of teacher agency and
their actions which the study aims to explore.
As mentioned earlier, the present study conceptualises agency according to the
philosophy of pragmatism and ecology, as elaborated in the works of Emirbayer and
Mische (1998), Biesta and Tedder (2006), Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson (2013b), and
Priestley et al. (2012). In this approach, agency is seen as a phenomenon that can be
achieved in specific contexts and under particular conditions and circumstances
(Priestley et al., 2013b). Agency is seen not as a capacity or a property residing in
individuals but is, rather, conceived of “as something that is achieved through
engagement with very specific contextual conditions” (Priestley et al., 2013b, p. 188).
In other words, agency is achieved and constructed under concrete ecological
conditions:
the concept of agency highlights that actors always act by means of their
environment rather than simply in their environment ... [T]he achievement of
agency will always result in the interplay of individual efforts, available
resources and contextual and structural factors as they come together in
36
particular and, in a sense, always unique situations. (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p.
137)
Hence, environmental contingencies are the medium through which actions
occur. Actors themselves interact with resources, structures and contexts in response to
a problematic situation. Agency “denotes a quality of the engagement of actors with
temporal-relational contexts for action, not a quality of the actors themselves” (Priestley
et al., 2013, p.1989). When humans exercise their agency under concrete situations, they
are reflexive and creative in response to the problem (Priestley et al., 2012). Individual
agency, however, can also be enabled or constrained by social structures (Priestley et
al., 2012). It is, therefore, critical to explore the relationship between social structure
and agency, which is further discussed.
3.2.2 Structure and agency
The relationship between structure and agency has long been a key problem
(Coburn, 2016; Rigby, Woulfin, & März, 2016; Sewell, 1992; Van Langenhove, 2017).
Block (2015) describes the structure-agency nexus as “a vexed and complicated one” (p.
18). Structure is a generic term that refers to the structuring properties in social systems
that either enable or constrain human action (Evans, 1987). Structure can also be viewed
as the “rules and resources which influence the production and reproduction of social
life” (Evans, 1987, p. 278). Hays (1994), however, cautions that the term social
structure, though ubiquitous, is ambiguous and misleading: “although the phrase social
structure tends to be treated as if its definition is consensual and no explication is
necessary, the actual use of the term varies widely” (p. 58). Social structures may refer
to institutions (Gusfield, 1984), material circumstances (Berger, 1981), political
instruments or power relations (Geertz, 1973), or cultures (Dietz & Burns, 1992).
Therefore, “its meaning (..) becomes dependent on the concept which it is set against”
(Hays, 1994, p. 57).
Van Langenhove (2017) identifies two competing approaches to the agency-
structure issue: dualism (Archer, 1995) and duality (Giddens, 1984). In the dualist
approach, structure and agency are seen as two separate and oppositional concepts.
Social structures are “emergent properties of individual actions of people” (Van
Langenhove, 2017, p. 1). In dualism, by contrast, structure and agency are both medium
and outcome of social actions, which are seen as two sides of the same coin (Van
Langenhove, 2017). In this approach, structure and agency presuppose each other
37
(Sewell, 1992). Structures shape individuals’ practices and, in turn, individuals’
practices constitute and reproduce structures (Sewell, 1992). At the same time, Van
Langenhove (2017) emphasises that the nature of the relationship between structure and
agency continues to be characterised by confusions that need to be resolved and that
there is still “little agreement on what structure exactly is and how it relates to agency”
(p. 2).
Despite these controversies and debates (Sewell, 1992; Van Langenhove, 2017),
the relationship between structure and agency has been a central topic in the social
sciences. Hays (1994) identifies three main features of social structure. First, structures
are the products of human beings, which produces certain forms of social structure.
Structures would not exist without their human actors’ involvement. Second, structures
can either enable or constrain human actors’ actions. Structures consist of rules, without
which there would be no structures. Rules serve as the basis and direction for conscious
and purposive action. Like the girders of a building, the function of structures is to hold
up and protect society from calamity. Human thought and actions are made possible
within structures. Third, there are different layers of structures, which are “more or less
hidden from everyday consciousness, more or less powerful in guiding human thought
and action, and more or less durable in their resistance to change”. He further states:
Agency explains the creation, recreation, and transformation of social structures;
agency is made possible by the enabling features of social structures at the same
time as it is limited within the bounds of structural constraint; and the capacity
of agents to affect social structures varies with the accessibility, power, and
durability of the structure in question. (p. 62)
People are agents in their daily practice. They are not mere automatons
“habitually following a precise and all-encompassing pattern dictated by social
structure” (Hays, 1994, p. 62). They make choices from an array of alternative actions
in a conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional manner. Depending on the
power relations and cultural context in which choices are made, agency takes places
between structural reproduction and structural transformation.
Structurally reproductive agency implies that people as agents continuously
create and recreate structures by the conscious or unconscious choices they make among
“an available set of structurally provided alternatives” (p. 63). Structurally
transformative agency refers to agents’ power to produce social change. In other words,
38
agents have the capacity to make choices that “have significant transformational
consequences in terms of the nature of social structures themselves” (p. 62). What is
common between the two types of agency is the role of human choice among an
available set of alternatives. Choice is related to agency because “it directs (…) to the
central point that is implied in all definitions of agency: alternative courses of action are
available, and the agent therefore could have acted otherwise” (p. 64). Therefore, the
relationship between structure and agency is mutually dependent despite their
antagonistic features.
In this study, policy is viewed as part of social structure (Barakos, 2016;
Coburn, 2016; Johnson & Johnson, 2015). The implementation of educational policy is
a fruitful topic through which to explore the relationship between social structure and
agency because this area embraces “manifold and complex structures, multiple
stakeholders, and ongoing need for improvement” (Coburn, 2016; Rigby et al., 2016, p.
296). According to Rigby et al. (2016), the essence of the structure-agency relationship
in educational policy implementation is typically sought in a focus on organisational
(macro) and classroom (micro) levels. This study aims to locate the micro level of
policy implementation in relation to the macro level.
In the field of LP, the structure-agency relationship is manifested in the tension
between the macro and micro levels (Baldauf, 2006; Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008).Yet,
despite extensive discussion in recent years, the relationship between structure and
agency in LP has been under-theorised (Bauldauf, 2005; Hamid & Nguyen, 2016;
Levinson, Sutton, & Winstead, 2009; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996).
The main aim of the current study is to explore individual teacher agency when
they translate policy for implementation into the classroom. In other words, it explores
how macro-level policies are implemented in the micro-context (Hamid & Nguyen,
2016). The theoretical framework that is used to explore the relationship between
structure and agency in this study is positioning theory which is now discussed in more
detail below.
3.3 Positioning Theory
This section elaborates on positioning theory, the conceptual framework for the
study. The section begins with an overview of the theory and its key constructs. This
overview is followed by a discussion of the concept of agency in positioning theory,
which is the major focus of the research.
39
3.3.1 Overview
Positioning theory, which originated in discursive psychology and social
constructivism (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999; Slocum & Harre, 2002), was
introduced into the social sciences by Davies and Harré (1990). Since its inception, the
theory has been advocated as a starting point for exploring different aspects of social
life (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999), and has been used as a theoretical framework for
much social discourse analysis (Van Langenhove, 2016). Positioning theory is widely
used in marketing, social psychology, and linguistics (Kroløkke, 2009). In marketing,
positioning concerns the employment of communication strategies to position a product
in the market, while in social psychology, it involves discussion of “how individuals
have multiple, fluid positions and how positions can and do change” (Kroløkke, 2009,
p. 764). In linguistics, positioning relates to how people position themselves and
navigate their positions.
Positioning theory emerged in the mid-1980s. Positioning theorists such as
Harré and Van Langenhove (1999) generally acknowledge Hollway (1984) as the first
to use the terms position and positioning in her exploration of gender difference,
subjectivity and change in discourse:
Discourses make available positions for subjects to take up. These positions are
in relation to other people. Like the subject and object of a sentence…women
and men are placed in relation to each other through the meanings which a
particular discourse makes available. (p. 236)
Positioning theory has since grown in popularity in fields such as international
studies (James, 2014), political studies (Moghaddam, Harré, & Lee, 2008; Moghaddam
& Harré, 2010), medicine (Phillips & Hayes, 2008), education (Sato, Walton-Fisette, &
Kim, 2017; Tait-McCutcheon, 2014), and language education (Kayi-Aydar, 2015;
Ollerhead, 2012). Lee (2010) reports that “positioning theory has matured conceptually
and has been applied to a wide range of important social phenomena” (p. 201).
Recently, its use has been extended “from the analysis of the dynamics of person-to-
person encounters to the unfolding of interactions between nation states” (Van
Langenhove, 2016, p. 65).
One of the noticeable merits of positioning theory is its replacement of role
theory (Van Langenhove, 2016). For many years, positioning theorists have criticised
the concept of role in the social sciences. They argue that role is a “coarse-grained,
40
fixed, and static” concept (Slocum & Van Langenhove, 2003, p. 126) that is assumed to
have a dominant long-term influence on people’s lives. In nature, both “role” and “job”
share a similar characteristic of long-lasting stability. Positioning, by contrast, “catches
the continuous shifts in how people perceive themselves and how others perceive them”
whereas roles attest to “predictability and stability” (Baert, 2012, p. 310). According to
Van Langenhove (2016), “roles are determinants and positions are determinables”; “a
role” is to “a position” as “colour” is to “red” (p. 65). In a similar vein, Redman and
Fawns (2010) compare positioning theory and role theory using the metaphor of climate
and weather: role theory is “more aligned to the idea of institutional climate” whereas
positioning theory is “more aligned to our understanding of the weather in that it is
changeable, more reflective of the moment, and not as reliably predictable as climate”
(p. 165).
In summary, positioning theory has come to be widely employed in a variety of
fields, including language education, where the dynamic construct of position is seen to
be more appropriate than the static and predictable concept of role. Key constructs of
positioning theory are presented in the following section.
3.3.2 Key constructs of positioning theory
This section discusses three core constructs of positioning theory: moral order,
rights and duties, and positioning triangles.
3.3.2.1 Moral order
In positioning theory, the concept of moral order is central to understanding
human actions. According to Van Langenhove (2017):
Social structures have a moral component; they contextualize everything that
people say or do in a framework of normative judgement that can be called
moral orders. (p. 4)
Moral orders comprise a system of obligations that shape the relations among
individuals. They can be used to evaluate the status of a particular action or practice
(Hitlin & Vaisey, 2010, p. 5). As Wuthnow (1987) puts it, moral orders define “what is
proper to do and reasonable to expect” (p. 14).
Van Langenhove (2017) identifies five categories of moral orders: cultural,
legal, institutional, conversational, and personal. Each comprises a cluster of rights and
duties for social encounters. The cultural moral order embraces “many rules, habits, and
prescriptions that people take for granted”, while the legal moral order comprises a set
41
of laws and legal rules that determine what people should do or should not do (p. 5).
The institutional moral order refers to the rules and regulations within an organisation,
the conversational moral order is created during individual interactions, and the personal
moral order relates to the internal dialogues in which people engage to determine what
action is right or wrong. Moral orders do not stand alone but co-exist and intertwine
(Hirvonen, 2016; Van Langenhove, 2017). They can be pre-given or co-constructed
during the encounter (Van Langenhove, 2017).
3.3.2.2 Rights and duties
Rights and duties are also central concepts in positioning theory (Harré &
Slocum, 2003; James, 2014). In the broadest sense, rights are defined as “anticipatory or
retrospective justifications for the propriety of demands or requests for action by
someone else” whereas duties refer to “anticipatory or retrospective expressions of
demands for action by oneself” (Harré & Slocum, 2003, p. 125). In some cases, duties
comprise obligations. Harré and Slocum (2003) suggest that claims to certain rights and
duties are components of a self-positioning move. Although people in a particular social
and material context take a certain repertoire of rights and duties for granted, they may
deny or challenge these rights and duties under other conditions (Moghaddam & Harré,
2010).
3.3.2.3 Positioning triangles
In positioning theory, positions, acts/actions and storylines are conceptualised as
mutually influential parts of a triangle (Slocum & Van Langenhove, 2003). If any
component changes, then all three change (Harré, 2012). Players are positioned through
acts within the context of storylines, and concomitantly the players’ positions influence
the interpretation of meaning of an action (Slocum & Van Langenhove, 2003). The
positioning triangle of position, storyline, and actions / acts is illustrated in Figure 3.2.
Each of these elements is elaborated below.
Position
Actions / Acts Storyline
Figure 3.2 Positioning Triangle
42
Positions
Position refers to “a cluster of rights and duties to perform certain actions” (Harré
& Moghaddam, 2003, p. 5). Positions can exist in the form of expectations, beliefs, and
presuppositions (Harré & Slocum, 2003). Participants may position themselves or may
be positioned by others. If a position is assigned, they may “acquiesce in such an
assignment, contest it or subvert it” (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999, p. 2). To position
oneself or others indicates what participants have or do not have the right or duty to say
and do, or not to say and do (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003; Harré & Slocum, 2003). Once
a particular position is adopted, an actor “sees the world from the vantage point of that
position” (Davies & Harré, 1999, p. 35). In other words, when teachers position
themselves or are positioned by others in a certain way, they carry obligations or
expectations about how they should behave, or constraints on what they may
meaningfully say or do. Although positions are relative and ephemeral (Harré &
Slocum, 2003), they are always located within moral orders (Davies & Harré, 1990).
Actions and acts
Positioning theory explores the meanings of actions through acts (Harré &
Slocum, 2003). An action is “a meaningful, intended performance” whereas an act is
“the social meaning of an action” ( Harré, 2012, p. 14). It is possible for a teacher actor
to claim that what he or she did was not an action, that it was not intended. Even if the
intention to do something is not contested, that teacher may claim that the meaning or
social force of the action was not as it had been supposed. A social behaviour embraces
an intended action performed by an agent and the social meanings it is given by the
agent and others (Harré, 2012). Thus through acts, actions are made intelligible and
relatively determinate because “acts are the meaning-full counterparts of actions” and
“the act is what is accomplished socially through a particular action” (Slocum & Van
Langenhove, 2004, p. 237).
When an individual takes up a position, it opens up possibilities for action.
Taking a position, however, can also mean that other options for action are closed down
(James, 2014). In daily life, people do not have an infinite reservoir of possible actions
from which to choose (Slocum & Van Langenhove, 2003).
Positioning theorists identify three categories of actions: “those one has done, is
doing or will do; those which one is permitted, allowed or encouraged to do; and those
which one is physically and temperamentally capable of doing” (Slocum & Van
43
Langenhove, 2003, p. 125). The second and third types may be interchangeable.
Positioning theory studies the relations between these three action domains. The focus is
on “the relation between what one has or believes one has or lacks a right to perform
and what one does, in the light of that belief” (Slocum & Van Langenhove, 2003, p.
125).
Storylines
A storyline provides the context within which an action is interpreted as an act
(Slocum & Van Langenhove, 2004). It describes what is going on, or what kind of
situation people are engaged in. In the triadic interaction, storylines contribute to
making sense out of sequences of actions and giving them meaning. Through storylines,
social acts can become significant to others (Tait-McCutcheon, 2014). Storylines enable
actions to be lived out or made sense of.
Table 3.1 based on Allen and Wiles (2013) provides a summary of the key constructs in
positioning theory.
Table 3.1
Summary of Key Positioning Elements
Positioning
Aspects Points to consider
element
How do we know whether one acts Systems of rights,
properly? obligations and duties to
Moral order
determine whether a
behaviour is right or wrong
What rights and duties does each Consider how talk of rights
Rights and duties element of the triad confer, and in and duties may indicate
whose favour? social conflict or change.
Self/other: positioning of self How do we position
(reflexive positioning) and others in ourselves and others; how
a given interaction. are those positions accepted
Positioning
or resisted; how do
self/other positions relate to
larger normative stories?
Different types such as general Wording of storylines may
Storylines
narrative forms, typical come from talk or
44
relationships, typical stories about “common sense”, common
oneself. phrases, what is expected to
happen next.
Get things done in the social world; The same words can have
position the speaker and others in multiple meanings,
storylines with rights and duties. interpretations, and social
force. Consider the ways
Acts
that positions are
constructed or expressed in
speech acts, and to what
ends.
How storylines, speech acts, and How positions change or
Positioning triad positioning are dynamics and stay the same throughout
mutually determined and across accounts.
(Source: Adapted from Allen & Wiles, 2013)
This section has discussed key constructs of positioning theory, which are used
for data collection instrument design (such as interviews) and for the data analysis and
interpretation. However, to understand how the positioning works, it is crucial to
explore the concept of positioning and its modes. The next section further discusses this
issue.
3.3.3 Modes of positioning
Positioning is defined as “an act by which someone has been positioned by
others or has positioned himself or herself” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 9). Some
typical positioning modes include self and other positioning, first- and second-order
positioning, performative and accountive positioning, moral and personal positioning,
and tacit and intentional positioning, as elaborated below.
Self and other positioning reflects the discursive practice of a positioning act.
When a person positions himself or herself, this act always implies a positioning of the
one to whom it is addressed (Van Langenhove & Harré, 1999). A positioning act can be
divided into first and second order positioning.
First-order positioning occurs “when a person locates themselves and others
within an essentially moral space by using several categories and storylines” (Van
Langenhove & Harré, 1999, p. 20). Most first-order positioning is tacit. People do not
45
always intentionally position themselves or others. When the first-order positioning
leads to an action, it is called performative positioning. The act (i.e, what is being said)
results in an action (what is actually done). Accountive positioning occurs when the
first-order positioning is questioned. In this sense, accountive positioning leads to the
second-order positioning which is always intentional. Van Langenhove and Harré
(1999) identify four types of intentional positioning: deliberate self-positioning, forced
self-positioning, deliberate positioning of others, and forced positioning of others (see
Table 3.2).
Table 3.2
Types of Intentional Positioning
Performative positioning Accountive positioning
Self-positioning Deliberate self-positioning Forced other positioning
Other-positioning Deliberate positioning of Forced positioning of
others others
(Source: Van Langenhove & Harré, 1999)
Deliberate self-positioning occurs when a person expresses his or her personal
identity, whereas in a forced other positioning, the position comes from external actors
rather than the person involved. Deliberate positioning of others refers to the way a
person deliberately positions someone else, with or without their presence at the
moment of speaking. In contrast, forced positioning of others takes places when external
actors deliberately position a person with or without his or her presence (Van
Langenhove & Harré, 1999).
A positioning act can be either moral or personal. Moral positioning occurs
when a person is positioned with “regard to the moral orders in which they perform
social actions” (Van Langenhove & Harré, 1999, p. 21). To understand this positioning
act, reference is needed to their roles with ascribed rights and duties and other
institutional aspects of social life. A moral positioning, however, can be shifted to a
personal positioning if it is challenged or questioned. Unlike moral positioning, the act
of personal positioning refers to a person’s individual particularities, attributes or life
experience rather than a generic role. The source of reference can be general (with
broad categories) or detailed and specific (with the elements of personal characteristics
or life-history). Moral and personal positioning always occur in an interactive
positioning act: “the more a person’s actions cannot be made intelligble by references to
46
roles, the more prominent personal positioning will be” (Van Langenhove & Harré,
1999, p. 23).
The discussion of various modes of positioning is essential for this study
because it allows one to explore how English primary teachers are positioned by others
(such as MOET, DOET, BOETs, or schools) and how the participant teachers position
themselves. By considering different positioning acts, teacher agency can be unveiled.
The next section further discusses the topic of agency in the light of positioning theory.
3.3.4 Agency and positioning theory
Positioning theory can be used to explore individual agency. The theory assumes
that people’s access to social actions is not equal. Therefore, some people are more
advantageously positioned than others. In many cases, people accept their rights and the
distribution of rights and duties, but in other cases these rights and duties can be
challenged (Davies & Harré, 1999). The following section discusses agency in the light
of positioning theory.
Agency is inherent in everyone. People may sense it, and choose to activate it
(Redman, 2013). A social structure which sets up the rules for human actors’ actions
can be viewed as a moral order. Within this condition, agents have “the power to either
create, adjust to or negate social structure and their moral implications” (Van
Langenhove, 2017, p. 3). This statement indicates the relationship between structure and
agency in positioning theory. On the one hand, structures envelop people with moral
orders that possibly constrain their actions at a given time and place. Human actors have
freedom to do what they wish as long as their actions fit “what the moral orders in play
allow them to do” (p. 8). On the other hand, these actors can exercise their agency to act
against certain moral orders and create new ones: “every time we do something, we
create a personal moral order” (p. 10). Therefore, human actors have power to not only
create structures but also resist the structure. Exploring one’s position enables the
relation of structure-agency to become visible:
The interplay between agency and structure can therefore be seen as related to
the positions people take at any time: there are the positions that are imposed by
the structure and the positions to go against what structures impose. Moreover,
people can sometimes be in a position to alter or even create structures. (p. 10)
In particular, analysis of the relationship focuses on “what people are expected
and supposed to do and on why they choose either to comply or resist what the
47
structures of society want or allow them to do” (p. 11). The relationship between
structure and agency in positioning theory is summarised as follows:
• Social structures are in essence moral orders that limit, enable, and influence
what people can and should do.
• These moral orders come in different forms, ranging from cultural spaces to
individual belief systems.
• The agency of people lies both in the possibility of resisting the moral orders in
play and in the possibility to create new moral orders.
• These possibilities to resist or create moral orders are related to the power
positions of people in their ongoing social interactions. (Van Langenhove, 2017,
p. 11)
Agency can also be manifested through a repositioning act, that is, an act by
which one positions oneself or is positioned by others. Positioning theorists identify two
stages: pre-positioning and actual positioning (Harré, Moghaddam, Cairnie, Rothbart, &
Sabat, 2009; Moghaddam & Harré, 2010).
In pre-positioning, commonly referred to as first-order positioning (as discussed
in Section 3.3.3 in this Chapter), certain qualities and attributes of skills, character traits,
temperament, or biographical facts are ascribed to the person in question. In this stage,
positioning authenticity is considered as a matter of fact although it may be positive or
negative (Harré et al., 2009). Actors may or may not accept assigned positions. A
repositioning act occurs when there is a position dispute. According to Dedaić (2013),
the positioning process is best understood by considering that “people constantly adopt
and defend their positions and accept or confront the positions of others” (p. 199).
Position conflicts lead to second phase or second-order positioning (see Section
3.3.3 in this Chapter). In this stage, “the person being positioned is assigned or refused a
cluster of rights and duties to perform certain kinds of acts, thus constraining what
someone, so positioned, can rightly do and say” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, pp. 9-10).
They start to question the authenticity of the first-order positioning act by challenging
“whether the assignment of duties or the claim to rights is legitimate or appropriate for
that person” (p. 14). A question about the authenticity of position is often “the root of
disputes, in which one of the parties denies someone a right on the grounds that there is
no such right, or refuses a duty on the grounds that there is no such duty” (p. 11).
48
Therefore, in some conditions, people can attempt to resist the pre-positioning and
reposition it by attempting to change the context of the action.
Both these positioning stages occur within a local moral order, that is, within the
framework of “a cluster of collectively located beliefs about what it is right and good to
do and say” (Moghaddam & Harré, 2010, p. 10). Understanding the relationship
between the two phases is important because the distinction underscores “how
important it is to look to the local context of discursive action, as seen from the actors’
perspective, in order to grasp how rights and duties are distributed” (Lee, 2010, p. 203).
Commonly, pre-positioning lays the ground for actual positioning. The first phase is
considered the initiation, justification or foundation in which a person is positioned with
an ascription of rights and duties with respect to performing the type of act in question.
In the second phase, assignments to positions - that is, assignments of rights and duties
to a person - depend on the previous positioning that comprises evaluative descriptions
of that person.
Through a repositioning act, actors demonstrate their agentic power to question,
challenge and negotiate their assigned positions. These actors also demonstrate the
capacity to restructure and recreate moral orders. Figure 3.3 depicts the relationship
between the two positioning phases.
First-order
positioning
Ascribe Question
Second-order
positioning
Figure 3.3 Repositioning Act

The discussion so far has aimed to establish a theoretical framework for the
study in the light of positioning theory. Accordingly, key constructs of positioning
theory, and the issue of agency in positioning theory have been presented. The section
that follows reviews empirical studies on teacher agency from the current literature.
49
3.4 Empirical Studies of Teacher Agency
Teacher agency has been empirically investigated in different contexts in the UK
(Campbell, 2012; Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2013a; Priestley et al., 2012), the
Netherlands (van Oers, 2015), China (Lai, Li, & Gong, 2016; Tao & Gao, 2017; Yang
& Clarke, 2018), the USA (Bridwell-Mitchell, 2015), and Vietnam (Hoang & Le, 2017;
Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Phan & Hamid, 2017). This section discusses two broad themes
in current research on teacher agency: teachers’ agentic actions and factors impacting
teacher agency.
In relation to agentic actions, agency is not simply a personal attribute that
teachers bring to their work (Biesta et al., 2015; Toom, Pyhältö, & Rust, 2015). Rather,
it is socially constructed in times of uncertainty, dilemmas, struggle, and conflict around
professional pedagogical practices (Toom et al., 2015). Some empirical studies show
that teacher agency is manifested through the way they make pedagogical choices and
decisions. For example, Priestley et al. (2012) examined how teachers enact the
curriculum through their day-to-day practices in the classroom context. They concluded
that “teacher agency is largely about repertoires for maneuver, or the possibilities for
different forms of action available to teachers at particular points in time” (p. 211). In
other words, teachers have freedom and choice to act or not to act depending on
contextual conditions, and their agency is temporal and changeable. Teacher agency is
considered crucial to their ability to act as change agents (Priestley et al., 2013a; Toom
et al., 2015).
In addition, research has shown that teachers are able to demonstrate their
agency power even in constrained environments. Teachers can shape and reshape a
language policy they are mandated to implement in their classroom (Li, 2010).
Robinson (2012) reports that his participant teachers in Australia could adapt and adopt
policy mandates in their teaching practice despite the control mechanisms in place.
Recently, some scholars have argued that structural constraints can serve as a medium
for teachers to achieve their agency. Hamid et al. (2014) found that teacher agency in
the context of Malaysia and Vietnam derived from structural constraints such as absence
of support mechanisms or unreasonable policy expectations. Hamid and Nguyen (2016)
also contend that English teachers in most of the Asian context performed their agentic
actions to meet both policy goals and learners’ needs. They suggest that teachers
50
exercised their agency as a consequence of the absence of planning at the macro-level,
which failed to take full account of policy implementation at the grassroots level.
Yang and Clarke (2018) investigated policy enactment in China from an activity
theory perspective. Their results showed that, in a constrained context, teachers
demonstrated their capacity for agency through their engagement with research and
reflection on teaching in ways that exceeded the reform intention. Similarly, Harris
(2017) explored how elementary school teachers in Japan implemented an English
policy initiative in an environment that was constrained by teachers’ limited experience
and training. The participant teachers adapted the mandated teaching approaches and
teaching content to suit their own teaching contexts. Their exercise of agency derived
from their students’ motivations, interests and abilities. Nguyen and Bui (2016)
investigated how a group of mountainous-based teachers in Vietnam agentfully
responded to the language policy. Their research showed that these rural participant
teachers demonstrated their agency by their resistance and questioning of the policy
mandates. Similarly, Hoang and Le (2017) studied the exercise of agency by a rural
teacher in Vietnam, which reveal that their participant teacher did not follow the policy
but adapted it in the classroom context. From these recent studies, it appears that
teachers in different conditions perform agentic actions towards language policy
implementation.
As for factors impacting teacher agency, there is evidence that agency is shaped
and reshaped by various sociocultural factors such as teaching contexts, teachers’
beliefs about teaching, teachers’ political or personal ideologies, their school cultures,
and their expectations of students (Burns, 2017; Stritikus, 2003; Van Lier, 2010). Lai et
al. (2016) studied 14 Chinese language teachers in cross-cultural teaching contexts.
Their findings indicated that teacher agency was shaped by teachers’ professional and
social positioning, school cultures, and individual resources. Teacher agency can also
be undermined by bureaucratic management and marketisation of education (Gao,
2018) and by gaps and conflicts between policy directives and local institutions
(Glasgow, 2017).
Kalaja, Barcelos and Rouhotie-Lyhty (2015) state that agency and beliefs are
interrelated, and this interrelationship “influences how they both evolve” (p. 209). They
argue that teachers’ beliefs about school conditions can constrain their agency and that
teachers’ exercise of agency occurs when their beliefs and school affordances are
51
aligned. In a recent two-year study, Biesta et al. (2015) explored how teachers’ beliefs
informed their perceptions, judgments and decision-making and stimulated their actions.
They focused on three types of teachers’ beliefs: beliefs about learners, beliefs about
teaching, and beliefs about educational purposes. They concluded that teachers’ beliefs
played a crucial role in their daily work. All the teachers, who were located in Scotland,
had a strong sense of responsibility toward their children and aimed to do their best for
them. However, they suggested that teachers’ beliefs alone were not sufficient to
activate their agency; collective development and considerations were also needed.
Other studies also report the impact of teachers’ beliefs, dispositions and experiences on
their choices and actions (Molina, 2017; Rugen, 2017; Tao & Gao, 2017; Zhang & Liu,
2014).
Overall, one noticeable contribution of these empirical studies is that teachers do
not passively follow the prescriptions imposed by policy makers but agentfully respond
to the policy mandates within their capacity and environmental conditions. In other
words, these studies confirm that English teachers can act as agents for the educational
change. Added to this merit, these studies also identify a variety of structural,
contextual, and personal factors that either afford or constrain teachers’ agency
enactment.
However, it can be noted that research on English teacher agency is, despite the
growing interest in recent years, still modest in the current LP literature. In a discussion,
Menken and Garcia (2010) emphasise that teacher agency in language policy is a
comparatively recent topic compared to the extensive literature on the concept in
general education. In addition, current studies seem to explore English teacher agency
through sociocultural perspectives rather than different theoretical perspectives. With
these shortcomings, calls have been made for further research to disentangle the
complexity and dynamics of teacher agency in different contexts (Biesta et al., 2015;
Toom et al., 2015) and to better theorise the concept from different theoretical
perspectives (Hamid & Nguyen, 2016; Priestley et al., 2012).
In the Vietnamese context, the topic of teacher agency still seems to be in its
infancy as most of empirical studies have appeared within the past few years.
Noticeably, research on English primary teacher agency appears to be even more
limited. Among the current literature, studies have mainly focused on high school
teachers (Nguyen & Bui, 2016) or university lecturers (Pham & Hamid, 2017).
52
Regarding English primary teachers, Hoang and Le’s (2017) study seems to be a
noticeable exception. However, this study explored only the case of one teacher in a
rural area, which cannot reflect the complexity of English primary teacher agency. The
paucity of research on primary teacher agency in Vietnam opens a fruitful avenue for
research, as in the present study.
In recent research, too, positioning theory has been seen as providing an
effective framework for analysing the phenomenon of agency in education (Kayi-
Aydar, 2018; Ketelaar, Beijaard, Boshuizen, & Den Brok, 2012; Tran & Vu, 2016,
2018; Whitsed & Volet, 2013). For example, Kayi-Aydar (2015) used positioning
theory to explore agency and identity negotiation among language pre-service teachers
in the USA, and found that the participants’ positional identities shaped their agency
and classroom practices. Ketelaar, Beijaard, Boshuizen, and Den Brok (2012)
investigated teachers’ positioning towards an educational innovation in relation to three
concepts: sense-making, agency, and ownership. They concluded that a high degree of
agency goes along with a high degree of ownership, but this was less the case for sense-
making. Tran and Vu (2018) used positioning theory to investigate agency in relation to
mobility among international students. They identified four types of agency in this
context: agency for becoming, needs-response agency, agency as struggle and
resistance, and collective agency for contestation.
Although positioning theory has not yet been widely deployed in empirical
studies, especially in the field of language education, it holds potential as a useful tool
for exploring the relationship “between what is possible and what is permitted”
(Moghaddam et al., 2008, p. 13) in relation to teachers’ agentic choices and decisions in
their classroom practice. It is for this reason that it is used as a theoretical framework to
explore teacher agency in the classroom implementation of language policy in this
study.
3.5 Summary
This chapter has reviewed relevant literature in the fields of language policy and
planning, concepts of agency, positioning theory and agency, and empirical studies of
teacher agency. The discussion of language policy and planning indicated that attention
has recently begun to be paid to individual agency in language policy implementation.
Agency, however, was shown to be a broad and abstract concept that has been
conceptualised in different ways. The conclusion from this review is that agency is not
53
simply a personal trait but is achieved through interaction with environmental resources.
In addition, agency and structure can be seen as two sides of one coin. The chapter also
discussed the key constructs of positioning theory and its relationship to the concept of
agency. A review of empirical studies on agency suggested that the concept remains
undertheorised, especially in the light of positioning theory. The dearth of current
literature on language teacher agency was identified as an important gap and motivation
for the present study.
The following chapter explains the methodology of the study and describes the
study design and methods of data collection and analysis.
54
Chapter 4
Methodology
4.1 Introduction
This chapter describes the methodology and methods employed in the current
study. Because I view research as a social rather than a linear process (Maxwell, 2013),
the research design can be seen as one that is reconstructed. This is in line with Freeman
(2009), who argues that the research process should involve a back-and-forth process:
as a researcher, you will develop a research plan that is based on the initial
version of your research questions. However, like an architect, you are likely to
go back to the drawing board many times as you get into your study (p. 29).
With this suggestion in mind, I constantly clarified my research intentions during the
exploration process. I began my study with two main research questions:
According to Cresswell (2009), a good research design framework should make explicit
two components: philosophical assumptions, and methods or procedures. This chapter is
therefore organised in two main sections: philosophical underpinnings, and research
methods. Figure 4.1 visualises the interconnections between worldviews, strategy of
inquiry, and research methods that provided the methodological framework for the
study.
Philosophical worldview Strategy of inquiry

(Social constructivism) (Qualitative case study)
Research
design
Research methods
(Semi-structured interviews,
Classroom observations)
Figure 4.1 Framework for Design (Creswell, 2009)
55
4.2 Philosophical worldviews
A worldview is defined as “a basic set of beliefs that guide action” (Guba, 1990,
p. 17). A worldview is understood as “a general orientation about the world and the
nature of research that a researcher holds” (Cresswell, 2009, p. 6). This study was
informed by the worldview of social constructivism. Social constructivism, according to
Patton (2004), views reality as a socially constructed entity. Individuals construct
meanings by interpreting what they are involved in or interact with as human beings.
Because subjects are seen as active agents, they can “construct meaning in different
ways for the same phenomenon” (Crotty, 1998, p. 9). In other words, constructed
meanings are subjective, varied, and multiple (Cresswell, 2009).
This worldview would allow me to achieve my research aim of understanding
English primary teachers’ enactment of agency from the perspective of how it is
constructed culturally and socially. In so doing, I relied on participants’ views of the
situation and phenomenon under investigation. In order to explore and unpack teacher
agency as a social phenomenon, I needed to enter into the teachers’ world and capture
their perspectives. This was accomplished by listening carefully to “what people say or
do in their life settings” via open-ended questioning, addressing “the processes of
interaction among individuals”, and focusing on specific contexts in which people live
and work in order to understand “the historical and cultural settings of the participants”
(Cresswell, 2009, p. 8).
4.3 Qualitative Approach
The philosophical assumptions inform the decision to adopt a quantitative,
qualitative or mixed approach. In the context of social constructivism, qualitative
research is appropriate because it enables the inquirer to examine a social or human
problem in its natural setting:
(…) qualitative research involves an interpretative, naturalistic approach to the
world. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural
settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the
meanings people bring to them. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3)
Similarly, according to Duff (2007), qualitative studies enable researchers to
explore “contextualised, naturalistic, holistic understandings and interpretations of
phenomena that occur in particular types of contexts” (p. 987). For this reason,
Cresswell (2012) suggests that qualitative research is particularly suitable for exploring
56
research problems about which little is known. Qualitative research has become
increasingly popular as a viable approach to investigating social phenomena in a range
of disciplines (Cresswell, 2007; Silverman, 2013), including applied linguistics, and,
according to Duff (2007), is now “increasingly accepted as an important way of
generating new knowledge and moving disciplines in innovative directions” ( Duff,
2007, p. 985).
Qualitative research is argued to be suitable for the current study, which aims to
explore teacher agency, due to two main reasons. First, qualitative research is
considered a promising approach to investigate new and uncharted topics (Cresswell,
2012; Dörnyei, 2007) and a useful way to make sense of highly complex situations or of
a highly complex situation (Dörnyei, 2007). In Section 1.5, Chapter 1, teacher agency in
language education is argued to be still in its infancy and little is known about how
English teachers exercise their agency to respond language policy. Therefore, the
qualitative approach is assumed to be suitable for the exploration of teacher agency.
Second, qualitative research enables me as a researcher to explore the perspectives of
insiders in a natural setting (Dörnyei, 2007; Duff, 2007). The study aims to identify
English primary teachers’ actual perspectives and practices within their own contexts.
Qualitative research, therefore, provides me a good opportunity to approach teachers
and explore their subjective experiences, feelings, and opinions towards the social
phenomenon-teacher agency in a particular context.
4.4 Multi-case Study Inquiry
The current project employed case study inquiry to explore the phenomenon of
teacher agency. Case study research has been widely used in applied linguistics across
different subfields, including classroom pedagogy, pragmatics, second language
acquisition and language policy (Duff, 2008, 2014). The term, however, is understood
in different ways, with more than 25 definitions having been reported in the literature
(VanWynsberghe & Khan, 2008). It is variously referred to as a research method (Yin,
2014), a methodology (Creswell, 2013; Duff, 2002), a strategy (Punch, 2009) or
research design (Merrium, 2014). VanWynsberghe and Khan (2008) propose “a more
encompassing definition” (p. 80) of case study as a transparadigmatic and
transdisciplinary heuristic. Despite this variability, case study has become a well-
established approach among qualitative researchers (Thomas, 2011).
57
This research project adopted Yin’s (2014) two-fold definition of case study. Its
scope and features are elaborated as follows:
1. A case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary
phenomenon in depth and within its real-world context especially when the
boundaries between phenomenon and context may not be clearly evident.
2. A case study inquiry copes with the technically distinctive situation in which
there will be many more variables of interest than data points and as one result
relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a
triangulating fashion, and as another result, benefits from the prior development
of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis.
(Yin, 2014, p. 16-17)
This comprehensive definition encompasses the elements of design, data
collection techniques and approaches to data analysis (Yin, 2014). Key phrases such as
contemporary phenomenon, real-world context, boundaries, triangulation and
theoretical development highlight the typical characteristics of case study. Case study
was employed in the current project for a number of reasons.
First, a multiple case study approach enabled me to generate an holistic, in-depth
understanding of the study phenomenon from different perspectives within its social
context (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011) using a relatively small sample. Duff (2014)
suggests that four to six cases are sufficient for doctoral research using the multi-case
type.
Second, case study involves thick descriptions and data triangulation (Duff,
2008). Thick description allows case profiles to be examined in detail, for instance, by
developing case histories of participants’ personal background, education, and
professional experience. Triangulation from multiple sources of data allows the same
phenomenon to be investigated from different angles. In this study, triangulation was
possible through the combination of data sources from semi-structured interviews,
classroom observations (with follow-up interviews), artefacts, and document analysis.
Third, exploratory case study can open up new areas for future research (Duff,
2008) . This kind of data-driven, hermeneutic or interpretive research has the potential
to contribute to theory building by generating or expanding current hypotheses and
developing new perspectives on processes or experiences. As Duff (2008) explains, a
case study “attempts to develop hypotheses, models and ultimately theories on the basis
58
of the findings from data” (p. 44). The approach therefore presented an opportunity to
contribute to the theorisation of the concept of teacher agency in the field of language
policy implementation and formation.
Finally, case study was appropriate for this project because it “depends upon
what the researcher wants to know” (Merriam, 2014, p. 45) or the “types of the research
questions” (Yin, 2014, p. 9). The first research question, starting with “how”, was
clearly relevant to a case study approach because the answer required an investigation
of the exercise of teachers’ agency in their teaching contexts that needed “to be traced
over time rather than through mere frequencies or incidence” (Yin, 2014, p. 10). The
purpose of the second question was to identify similarities and differences in teachers’
agency in three selected locales in Vietnam. Therefore, this study can be characterised
as an exploratory and descriptive inquiry.
4.5 Research Methods
The previous section presented an account of the study methodology. This section
describes the research sites, participant selection and recruitment, and methods of data
collection and analysis. The issues of researcher’s position, reliability and validity and
ethical considerations are also discussed.
4.5.1 Research site, participant selection and recruitment
It should be noted that all the names of participants, location, schools in this
study were pseudonyms for anonymity and ethnical reasons. The study was conducted
in a province, Nam Ninh, in Vietnam. Nam Ninh was selected as the research site for a
number of reasons. First, the region has three distinctive contexts (urban, rural, and
island) that could be explored. Second, Nam Ninh had been chosen in 2010 as one of 18
provinces to participate in the English primary pilot program (Document 5423/
BGDĐT). The pilot program was part of Project 2020 and aimed to trial the English
primary curriculum prior to its official implementation. Third, I was familiar with the
context because it is where I was born, grew up and worked. I also had regular contact
with the local Department of Education and Training, which I believed would facilitate
the recruitment process.
Nam Ninh is one of the three largest provinces in Vietnam. It is located about
100 kilometres from the capital. Administratively, the region comprises seven
metropolitan districts, six rural districts, and two island districts. In recent years, the
59
province has become a hub of tourism, commerce and industry. The provincial
authorities’ strategic development plan 2011-2020 has the following main goal:
Nam Ninh aims to become one of the leading provinces in the nation for
industry, commerce and tourism. The city also aims to maintain its sustainable
development and cultural values. (Decision 605 / QD-UBND)
To achieve this goal, education and training are seen as a priority for investment.
Specifically, the strategic development document talks about “improving the quality of
education and training by continuously innovating teaching methods, modernising the
school and infrastructure systems, and combining practice and theory” (Decision 605 /
QD-UBND).
Like many other provinces in Vietnam, the education system of Nam Ninh is
centralised and hierarchical, as shown in Figure 4.2.
DOET
BOET
7 urban 6 rural 2 island
Primary Schools
Figure 4.2 The local educational system

The DOET is responsible for managing the education system in the whole
region, while BOETs are in charge of each district. BOETs serve as mediators or
intermediaries between the DOET and schools (see Section 2.1, Chapter 2). At the
DOET level, one supervisor is responsible for overseeing English teaching and learning
at the elementary level. At the BOETs level, one English supervisor plays a similar role
in each district.
In relation to English education, the DOET is committed to actively participating
in the NFLP 2020. As Vu (2015) reported at a recent conference:
With regional and international integration, English has become a crucial asset
that each future citizen should possess. In the region, there has been a huge
demand for English teaching and learning in recent years. As an educational
stakeholder in the region, the DOET has actively participated in executing
60
Project 2020 in the hope that every primary student in Nam Ninh will learn
English well for a better future. (p. 20)
Table 4.1 shows the total number of English primary teachers in the province over the
period 2010 and 2015.
Table 4.1
English Primary Teachers in Nam Ninh
Numbers of Education Language
School year teachers (in competence
total) M.A B.A Dip C1 B2 B1
2010-2011 322 - 296 26 - - -

2011-2012 354 - 325 29 - 29 175
2012-2013 360 - 333 27 2 95 107
2013-2014 374 2 348 26 2 105 97
2014-2015 439 5 390 26 5 156 164
Source: Vu (2015)
As these figures show, the number of English primary teachers grew steadily
over the period, and the number of teachers who had achieved a CEFR language
proficiency level of B2 or above increased sharply. Overall, more than 74% of teachers
met the MOET language proficiency requirement (the current temporary mandate is
level B1) in the school year 2014-2015.
Purposive sampling (Bryman, 2012; Liamputtong, 2013) was used to select
schools and participants. This strategy is defined as “the deliberate selection of specific
individuals, events, or settings” (Liamputtong, 2013, p. 14). It involves selecting
information-rich cases to provide in-depth understanding (Liamputtong, 2013). The
sampling criteria in this study were teaching resources and facilities (for schools), and
motivation, availability, teaching experience, and previous in-service training (for
participants).
The recruitment process was facilitated by my pre-existing relationships. I aimed
to recruit DOET and BOET representatives, school principals, and English primary
teachers. Regarding DOET and BOET officials, I first emailed a DOET official, with
whom I had a good relationship, who was responsible for managing English education
at the primary level. I explained the aims and significance of my study, and the kinds of
participants I hoped to include. He replied that the DOET was interested in my project,
61
and I was subsequently provided with a letter of support (see Appendix A2). With the
DOET letter, I contacted the district BOET supervisors in three regions (urban, rural,
and island), explained the project to them and requested their assistance, both as
potential interviewees and with recruitment of other participants. They all responded
positively. Ultimately, all of the DOET and BOET representatives volunteered to help
me to locate appropriate schools and all agreed to be interviewed.
With assistance from DOET and BOET, I carefully studied a list of potential
schools and selected two from each context. I emailed the principals of these schools
and provided them with information about the project. All these principals replied and
agreed that their school could participate if it was selected. In the end, I selected An
Hong school (urban), An Dong school (rural), and An Thanh school (island) because
they best met the criteria for site selection (infrastructure, teaching facilities and
resources, and location). An Hong is an affluent school located in the city centre. An
Dong is less well-equipped and was being renovated at the time of my visits. An Thanh
was poorly-equipped as compared to other research sites. This research site was also
special because it combined junior high school and primary school levels in one school.
Further information about each school is reported in Chapters 6, 7 and 8. All school
principals gave permission for me to conduct fieldwork in their schools and agreed to
participate in an interview. Table 4.2 summarises the schools’ profiles.
Table 4.2
Profiles of the Participating Schools
English Textbooks No. of
School Location Resources
taught students
Grade 1-2 UK 1700
(optional) English
An Hong Urban Well-equipped Grade 3-5 program
(compulsory) Tieng Anh
4, 5
Moderately- Grade 3-5 Tieng Anh 750
An Dong Rural
equipped (compulsory) 3, 4, 5
An Grade 3-5 Tieng Anh 200
Island Poorly-equipped
Thanh (optional) 3,4,5
62
Finally, six English primary teachers (two from each of the schools) agreed to
participate in the study. I approached each teacher in person and discussed the project
with them. As well as ascertaining their willingness to participate, I also sought to take
this opportunity to develop rapport with them. Somewhat uncomfortable at first, they
‘warmed up’ during the initial meeting when they learned that I was a teacher trainer
and had some experience in teaching English at the primary level. They suggested a
mutual exchange: they agreed to participate in my research and I, in return, would help
them to improve their professional skills. I readily agreed.
Their demographic characteristics are presented in Table 4.3. All names are
pseudonyms.
Table 4.3
Teachers’ Demographic Profiles
Teacher Location Age Gender Teaching Qualification
experience
Tam Urban 27 Female 5 years Master
Thanh Urban 35 Female 7 years Bachelor
Lan Rural 41 Female <15 years Bachelor
Loc Rural 38 Female <5 years Bachelor
Hong Island 39 Female <10 years Bachelor
Hai Island 40 Male <10 years Bachelor
4.5.2 Data collection methods

To achieve the research aims, I employed three main sources of data: semi-
structured interviews, classroom observations (with follow-up interviews) and
documentation. This section describes these methods of data collection in detail.
4.5.2.1 Semi-structured interviews
Semi-structured interviewing is widely employed by qualitative researchers (Bryman,
2012; Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009; O'Reilly, 2012; Punch, 2009; Richards, 2003, 2009;
Ritchie, Lewis, & Elam, 2005; Stake, 2010; Yin, 2011, 2012, 2013). In case study
research, interviews are seen as one of the most important sources of evidence (Yin,
2014). This study used semi-structured interviews because of their flexibility, clear
focus, and cross-comparability (Bryan, 2012). Because the teachers were asked a series
of similar questions, it was possible to use an interview guide (Bryan, 2012), which
63
consisted of “a small subset of topics - those that are considered relevant to a given
interview” (Yin, 2010, p. 139).
There is no fixed format for an interview guide (King & Horrocks, 2010).
Flexibility is seen as a fundamental component of qualitative interviewing because it
allows the researcher to “explore the perspectives of the participant on the topics under
investigation” (King & Horrocks, 2010, p. 35) and generate new ideas on the topic
(Merriam, 2014). An interview guide may follow one of two styles: full question form
(i.e., written in complete sentences) or using only short phrases or single words to
characterise the topics (King & Horrocks, 2010). I followed the first style because I
believed it was more suitable for an inexperienced researcher like me and gave me more
structure for the development of the interview.
In this study, I developed three sets of interview guides, which were used for
DOET and BOET supervisors, school leaders, and English primary teachers (see
Appendix B 1-3). The interviews guides were formulated on the basis of a variety of
sources, including the current literature, research questions, and the researcher’s
personal experience (King & Horrocks, 2010). In addition, Merriam (2014) emphasizes
that “questions are at the heart of interviewing, and to collect meaningful data a
researcher must ask good questions” (p. 104). To develop my questions, I drew on the
six question types identified by Patton (2004) as most widely used in qualitative
research: background/demographic, experience/behaviour, opinion/value, feeling,
knowledge, and sensory.
To generate the interview questions, I initially studied the research aims,
literature, positioning theory for guiding questions. Afterwards, I discussed my ideas
with my supervisors to assess their relevance to the research aims. I then generated the
questions in English, and these were revised several times in relation to word choice and
clarity. These questions were then translated into Vietnamese. To ensure the language
was clear, I asked some of my Vietnamese friends to comment on the Vietnamese
version. I considered all their suggestions and made necessary changes to address any
ambiguities or sources of confusion. The interview questions were also piloted with an
English primary teacher from Vietnam with whom I was acquainted. The purpose of the
pilot was to see if the questions were relevant to the research aims, whether the
language was clear, and if any unforeseen problems of understanding arose. The pilot
interview was conducted in Vietnamese via Skype and lasted about 60 minutes. Overall,
64
the interview went well and appeared likely to generate the desired outcomes. The
participant reported that the questions were clear and she had no trouble understanding
their meaning. However, I felt that she gave short answers and that she was too shy to
answer some questions relating to her personal viewpoints. To address these concerns in
the actual interviews, I used prompts and probing questions to help participants expand
on their responses, and ensured that good rapport was maintained so they felt
comfortable responding to personal questions.
4.5.2.2 Classroom observations
Along with semi-structured interviews, classroom observation is widely
recognised as an important data collection method in qualitative research (Hennink,
Hutter, & Bailey, 2010; Dörnyei, 2007). This tool is defined as “the systematic, detailed
observation of behavior and talk; watching and recording what people do and say”
(Mays & Pope, 1995, p. 182). Classroom observation provides the researcher with
“thick description of the social setting, the activities and the people studied” (Hennink et
al., 2010, p. 170), offers “additional information about the topic being studied” (Yin,
2014, p. 114), and provides “direct information rather than self-report accounts”
(Dörnyei, 2007, p.178).
Observation is known as a common research method in education (Cohen,
Manion, & Morrison, 2013). More specifically, observation is widely recognized as an
important complementary instrument of collecting the data (alongside with other tools
such as in-depth interviews) in qualitative research to understand the events or
phenomenon from diverse perspectives (Hennink, Hutter & Bailey, 2011). The method
is defined as “the systematic, detailed observation of behavior and talk; watching and
recording what people do and say” (Mays & Pope, 1995; 182). It is accepted that
observations provide the researcher with “thick description of the social setting, the
activities and the people studied” (Hennink, Hutter, & Bailey, 2011, p.170). For the case
study, observation provides “additional information about the topic being studied” (Yin,
2013, p. 114). Because case study researchers explore phenomenon in its real-world
settings (Yin, 2013), observation is argued to be relevant for collecting the case
evidence. Simpson and Tuson (2003) point out observations enable the researcher to
systematically look and note people, events, behaviours, actions, settings, artifacts and
routines in natural contexts. Other benefits of observations are to provide a reliable
check on the differences between what people actually do and what people have said
65
(Robson, 2002), or to help the researcher have a fresh look at the daily behaviours or
practices (Cooper & Schindler, 2001). The data collected from observations are “live”
from naturally occurring social situations (Cohen, Manion, Morrison, 2013) because the
investigator can “look directly what is taking place in situ rather than rely on second-
hand accounts” (Cohen, Manion, Morrison, 2013, p.456).
Regarding data collection activities, Yin (2013) classifies them into two types
either formal or less formal ones. For the former, instruments are developed as part of
the case study protocol while in the latter they are made throughout the fieldworks. In
addition, Cohen, Manion, Morrison (2013) divide observations into three kinds
including structured, semi-structured and unstructured. However, Simpson and Tuson
(2003) state that “observation is highly flexible form of data collection” (p.17), so
researchers can be accessible to “interactions in a social context and to yield systematic
records of these in many forms and contexts, to complement other kinds of data (p.17).
In addition, Dörnyei (2007) suggests that there are different ways for classroom
observations- structured, unstructured, participant, and non-participation observations.
For the current study, I employed semi-structured and non-participation
observations. Given the document analysis (see Chapter 5), I developed an observation
sheet for four language policy components including textbook use, teaching content,
teaching methods, and formative assessment (see Appendix B4). I would use these notes
for the follow-up interviews with the participant teachers. Each teacher was observed
four times. The schedule was flexible, depended on the teachers’ arrangements. When I
came to observe the class, I chose to sit at the back of the class so that I would not
interfere with classroom activities and interactions.
I believed that the data collected from ‘real life’ observations in naturally
occurring social situations (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2013) provided insight into
classroom realities, that is, the context in which the teachers were implementing the
language policy.
4.5.2.3 Documentation
Documentary information is suitable for inclusion in every case study (Yin,
2014). This kind of information comes in a variety of forms. According to Bryan
(2012), the term “documents” embraces a wide range of sources such as letters, diaries,
autobiographies, newspapers, magazines, photographs, and legal documents. Similarly,
Yin (2014) lists emails, other personal documents, agendas, announcements, and news
66
clippings. Scott (1990, cited in Bryan, 2012) classifies documents into three main types:
personal documents (produced by individuals, such as diaries, letters or emails), official
documents from state sources (legal documents) and documents from private sources
(produced by companies or organisations, such as annual reports, advertisements, and
press releases).
The current study used official legal documents from national sources (language
policy statements, curriculum guidelines, textbooks, instructions and decrees) and other
documents from provincial and district levels (instructions, or syllabus guidelines) (see
Section 4.5.3).
4.5.3 Data collection procedures
The study was conducted in three phases, from May, 2015 to January, 2016. The
data collection procedures in each phase are presented in Figure 4.3.
Phase 1 Policy documents collection

(May-July, 2015)
Phase 2 - Interviews (DOET +
(Sep- Oct, 2015) BOETs)
- Interviews (school
Phase 3 - Interviews (English

primary teachers)
(October 2015- January 2016)
- Classroom observations
-Others (tests, teachers’
reports)
Figure 4.3 Data Collection Procedures

In Phase 1 (May-July, 2015), I mainly collected policy documents at the macro
level from different sources. Because NFLP 2020 was implemented nationally, most of
its official documents were published on national websites or in the mass media (such as
newspapers). I mainly looked for documents from the NFLP 2020 website
(https://dean2020.edu.vn), which contained notices, decisions and guidelines on the
67
language policy. Another reliable source was an official website on Vietnamese law,
where all the legal documents from different fields were uploaded
(https://thuvienphapluat.vn). Thus I had no difficulty locating relevant policy
documents. While most of the legal documents were in Vietnamese, some were
available in English. For the documents in Vietnamese, I adopted some translation
techniques as discussed in Section 3.5.5 in this Chapter for the translation equivalence.
In relation to the current research purposes, two policy documents were particularly
important: Decree 1400, which concerned NFLP 2020, and the English Primary
Curriculum, which described the English program (see in Chapter 5 for the detailed
analysis of policy documents). The two important documents were both available in
Vietnamese and in English, which could be obtained from the website
https://thuvienphapluat.vn. Table 4.4 provides a summary of the policy documents I
collected.
Table 4.4
Macro-level Policy Documents
Policy document Year Main content
Decree 1400 2008 Policy goals, solutions, and master implementation
plans.
Decision 3321 2010 Official announcement of a pilot English primary
curriculum
English primary curriculum 2010 Guidelines on English primary program including
principles, goals and objectives, content, teaching
methodology, assessment, resources and materials
(Grades 3 - 5)
Directive 5893/BGDDT- 2011 Guidelines on teaching resources and facilities for
CSVCTBTH English primary teaching
Directive 7119/BGDDT- 2012 Updated guidance on teaching resources and facilities
CSVCTBTH
Directive 4329 2013 Instruction on textbook selection and use in primary
schools
Directive 7842/BGDDT- 2013 Guidelines on teaching resources and facilities
CSVCTBTH
Instruction 3032/BGDDT-GDTH 2013 Guidelines on summative assessment, including test
formats and test item development
Circular 30/2014/TT-BGDDT 2014 Guidelines on formative assessment at primary level.
Circular 31/2015-TT-BGDDT 2015 Guidelines and criteria for textbook evaluation and
selection
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Phase 2 began as soon as I received ethical approval from the university. I
immediately contacted the DOET and BOET representatives and school leaders via
email and negotiated the interview schedules with them. Each interview with these
stakeholders lasted between 45 and 60 minutes. The interviews were conducted at a
location of the interviewee’s choosing. The DOET representative chose a café near his
office because he felt more comfortable holding the discussion outdoors. The BOET
representatives and school leaders felt comfortable in their offices. All participants
preferred that the interviews be conducted in Vietnamese. With their consent, the
interviews were digitally recorded.
I had also intended to collect policy documents from this meso level during this
phase, but found – somewhat unexpectedly – that few documents existed. In the case of
the DOET, I was able to collect a few policy-related documents, but the BOET and
school representatives had issued no documents in relation to language policy
implementation for the local context. Instead, as the BOET representatives revealed,
they acted only as mediators between the DOET and the schools; their responsibilities
were to transfer the DOET mandates to the regional schools for implementation and to
supervise the schools’ enactment of the policy requirements. Table 4.5 summarises the
data types at the meso level.
Table 4.5
Meso-level Data Collection
Participants Time Interview Documents
duration(min)
Conference proceedings
Sept hosted by DOET,
DOET supervisor 2015 90 Documents about teaching
facilities and resources
Urban Syllabus documents,
BOET Rural Sept 45-60 test format guidelines
supervisor Island 2015
Urban
School Rural Oct 45-60 None
leaders Island 2015
69
Phase 3, which lasted from October 2015 to January, 2016, mainly involved
working with the English primary teachers in the three contexts. Each teacher was
interviewed four times. I believed that multiple interviews would encourage the teachers
to speak more freely about their agency enactment and classroom realities as they
became familiar with me. I conducted the first interview prior to the classroom
observations. This interview was considered to be the main in-depth interview with the
teachers and a major source of data. The main purpose of this interview was to explore
the teachers’ backgrounds and overall views on the language policy and teaching
curriculum.
After the first interview, I discussed the schedule for classroom observations
with them, with a view to observing each teacher during four lessons on different days
of the week. I explained that after each observation, I would also do a follow-up
interview where the teachers could talk further about what they did in their lessons.
When I came to observe the class for the first time, all the teachers spent time
introducing me to the students. Although the students appeared curious at first, they
became accustomed to seeing me in subsequent sessions. To avoid possible distraction,
I chose to sit at the back of the room. During the observations, I took notes on what I
thought would be worthwhile issues to discuss with the teachers. All the classroom
observations were audio-recorded, with the teachers’ permission.
After each classroom observation, I arranged the follow-up interview with the
teacher. Because of their tight teaching schedule, I could not conduct these interviews
with them immediately after the observation. Instead, I arranged to interview them
within a week, depending on their availability. To create a friendly atmosphere, I
conducted the interviews as a discussion about their classroom practices. In this way, I
believed, the teachers would be likely to share their genuine concerns and perspectives
with me.
The interviews with the teachers were conducted in locations that were
convenient to them. I contacted them in advance and asked them to suggest a venue.
Some chose the staff room in the school (Hai, island teacher, and Thanh, urban teacher).
Others preferred to be interviewed at home (Hong, island teacher, and Lan, rural
teacher). Loc (rural teacher) and Tam (urban teacher), however, were interviewed in a
local café.
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4.5.4 Data analysis procedures
In qualitative research, there is no universally accepted approach to data analysis
(Cresswell, 2012). In broad terms, “qualitative data analysis is a search for general
statements about relationship and underlying themes” (Marshall & Rossman, 2006,
p.154). In this study, data analysis was an ongoing and iterative process (Cresswell,
2012). I employed the constant comparative method, whereby data collection, data
analysis and report writing are part of an interrelated and simultaneous process
(Cresswell, 2007). Preliminary data analysis, therefore, occurred during data collection.
Data management is the first step in the analysis procedure. As Patton (1980)
notes:
The data generated by qualitative methods are voluminous. I have found no way
of preparing students for the sheer massive volumes of information with which
they will find themselves confronted when data collection has ended. Sitting
down to make sense out of pages of interviews and whole files of field notes can
be overwhelming. (p. 2297)
I was aware of the need to “winnow” the data (Cresswell, 2007). This means that
not all information is used as data and should be removed. As Wolcott (2009) puts it,
“the critical task in qualitative research is not to accumulate all the data you can, but to
“can” (get rid of) most of the data you accumulate” (p. 39). He advises that the
winnowing process should be performed continuously. Therefore, I regularly winnowed
the data to maintain the research focus and keep it manageable.
Following Cresswell's (2012) advice that researchers should begin by exploring
the general sense of the data, I read the transcripts several times without coding. My
main purpose was to immerse myself in the detail and try to get a sense of the interview
as a whole prior to breaking it into segments. While I read through the data, I wrote
memos on the ideas and concepts that came to mind and appeared important. Following
this stage, the coding process began.
Coding is defined as “the process of segmenting and labelling text to form
descriptions and broad themes in the data” (Cresswell, 2012, p. 243). The coding
outcomes serve as devices to retrieve data efficiently (Miles & Huberman, 1994). To
facilitate the coding process, I used a set of pre-determined codes (a priori categories)
that were derived from the literature and positioning theory.
71
In particular, I started to code the data deductively using pre-determined
categories drawn from positioning theory (see Section 3.3, Chapter 3 for the detailed
discussion on positioning theory). These categorisations included position, rights,
duties, actions, storylines (contexts), factors, and moral orders (see Section 3.3.2,
Chapter 3 for these constructs). Cresswell (2007), however, cautions against relying on
a priori codes and encourages researchers “to be open to additional codes emerging
during the analysis” (p. 152). Therefore, I also used open codes that emerged “from the
data through the process of coding itself” (Hall & Hall, 2008, p. 259). I named these
codes “unique” because I believed they would provide me with valuable stories about
the study topic.
For the document analysis, I followed Coffey’s (2014) advice regarding the
intertextuality of documents, that is, documents themselves refer to or are connected
with other documents. Therefore, while I mainly worked with two primary policy
documents (Decree 1400 and the English Primary Curriculum document), other related
documents such as directives, instructions and circulars that were issued by MOET
during the policy enactment were also included to elaborate the research aims.
The interviews were analysed in three stages. First, I read the transcripts many
times to get familiar with the data. I then identified the first-positioning act which
occurs “when a person locates themselves and others within an essentially moral space
by using several categories and storylines” (Van Langenhove & Harré, 1999, p. 20) (see
Section 3.3.2, Chapter 3). In this study, the first-positioning act was understood as the
way the English primary teachers chose to conform to language policy mandates. Once
the first-positioning act was identified, I considered its context (i.e., storylines), where
the positioning took place, actions and choices that the teachers made, and factors that
impacted their actions or choices.
Second, I considered the data again and identified the second-order positioning
act. This kind of positioning occurred when the first-order positioning was challenged.
Within the second-order positioning, as in the first stage, I considered its context (i.e.,
storylines), where the positioning took place, actions and choices that the teachers
made, and factors that impacted their actions or choices.
Third, I revisited the first-order positioning and second-order positioning for
teacher agency. I followed the ideas of agency in positioning theory as discussed in
Section 3.3.4, Chapter 3 to interpret teacher agency. I paid particular attention to the
72
relationship between structure and agency and positioning modes (see Section 3.3.3 -
3.3.4, Chapter 3). Teacher agency emerged when there were conflicts or misalignments
between the policy mandates (i.e, structural orders, see Section 3.2.2, Chapter 3) and
what teachers meaningfully said and did (Langenhove & Harré, 1999). An example of
the analysis process is presented in Table 4.6. In this example, the teachers responded to
the textbook use mandates through their two positioning acts which were previously
discussed in the first and second stage.
Table 4.6
A Sample of Data Analysis
Stage Positioning Key constructs Teachers’ responses
modes
At the beginning of the school year, I was given a
No rights for
set of textbook. (Hong, I-I-02)
textbook
Contexts The school expected us to implement the textbook
selection
(Hai, I-I-0)
I did not intend to teach beyond the textbooks (Hai,
I-I-0)
I thought that the MOET, DOET, and BOET
mandated us to follow the textbook (Hai, U-I-01)
Implement
Textbook implementers
First-order positioning
Actions / Within 30 and 35 minutes, I think it is enough to

1 Acts cover all the required teaching content in the
textbook (Hong, I-I-03).
I tried to complete the content in the textbook
(Hong, I-I-03)
If I don’t teach in the textbook, I may be criticised
Obligations
Factors (Hong, I-I-03)
I chose to cover all the teaching content in the
textbook, and do all the exercises (Hai, I-I-01)
I had one bad experience with DOET who
criticised me for teaching something outside the
textbook (Hai, I-I-02).
Supervision
The documents must reflect the same as the
textbook sequence (Hong, I-I-03)
Textbooks do Textbook content is overloaded (Hong, I-I-02)
not cater Students got bored if only taught in the textbook
Contexts students’ needs (Hong, I-I-03)
and teaching Pictures in the textbooks are sometimes not
purposes appropriate (Hai, I-I-02)
Second-order positioning
2 I used some external postcards or real objects that I

Textbook adapters
Actions/ could find in the class (Hong, I-I-02)

acts Adapt I myself draw some additional pictures on the
board (Hai, I-I-03)
I had some handouts (Hai, I-I-03)
I found that my students were able to follow the
Students teaching flow more easily. They were more
motivation and engaged in the lesson. (Hong, I-I-01)
Factors learning My students felt excited and learned more quickly
facilitation than by looking at the pictures in the textbook.
(Hai, I-I-02)
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4.5.5 Language and translation
This study was conducted in Vietnamese and reported in English. Language
differences, therefore, should be considered, especially the issue of equivalence in
translation (Van Nes, Abma, Jonsson, & Deeg, 2010). This section discusses the
language used for data collection, transcription and analysis, and quote representation.
4.5.5.1 Language for data collection, transcription and analysis
As previously discussed, all research participants were Vietnamese. Except for
the English teachers and a few BOET representatives, participants only spoke
Vietnamese. I was aware that participants’ lack of English language proficiency might
prevent them from fully sharing their experiences (Koulouriotis, 2011). In contrast, the
use of participants’ first language enabled them to freely display their sense of self and
worldview (Lu & Gatua, 2014; Shimpuku & Norr, 2012). I offered participants the
choice of which language they preferred for the interview, and all chose to speak
Vietnamese.
I transcribed all the recorded interviews verbatim in Vietnamese to familiarise
myself with the data and maintain participants’ subjective experiences and worldviews.
For the coding process, while I did the analysis in Vietnamese, I used English to label
all the codes, categories, and memos. According to Van Nes et al. (2010), “with
participants and the main researcher speaking the same language, no language
differences are present in data gathering, transcription and during the first analyses” (p.
315). Therefore, language differences were not a problem at this stage, except for quote
translation, which is discussed below
3.5.5.2 Translation of quotes
In qualitative research, quotes from participants are commonly used. The
translation of these quotes, however, presents a challenge in a bilingual research project.
If the translation is not done well, the research findings can be ambiguous or suspect
(Maneesriwongul & Dixon, 2004).
To ensure the quality of translation, it is advisable that the translator’s
autobiography, expertise, and language competence be carefully considered (Birbili,
2000; Bracken & Barona, 1991). In this study, I myself acted as translator (Temple &
Young, 2004). There were several reasons for my decision. First, I had experience in
translation between Vietnamese and English and vice versa. I used to work as a
translator for five years. I was also responsible for teaching a course on practical
74
translation to university students in Vietnam. Therefore, I grasped basic translation
theories and principles. Second, I was familiar with the study context, participants and
research aims, which facilitated the work of translation. I supported the view that if the
translator was out of context, she/he may distort the participants’ original meanings
(Van Nes et al., 2010). When I translated the quotes, I always attempted to give
adequate thought, reflection, and attention to the original message to ensure meaning
equivalence between the two languages (Van Nes et al., 2010).
I also employed the technique of back-translation to ensure the adequacy and
appropriateness of my translation. Back translation is a popular technique to maintain
meaning equivalence in translation. Once all the quotes were translated into English, I
asked one of my colleagues (who was also a lecturer in translation at my university in
Vietnam) to do the back translation. It turned out that there were some disagreements
between my version and her suggestions, especially in relation to concepts “for which
specific culturally bound words were used by the participants” (Van Nes et al., 2010, p.
315). In back-translation, however, it is possible to come to an agreement about the
translation (Maneesriwongul & Dixon, 2004). Therefore, for this project, all the
language differences were discussed and negotiated to produce the final versions of the
quotes. Where it was impossible to find lexical equivalence between the two languages,
the meaning of the message rather than the lexis or sentence structure was taken into
account (Bashiruddin, 2013).
Once the back translation had been completed, I had another friend, who was a
native English speaker, read all the quotes and comment on the language
appropriateness and clarity. I carefully considered her suggestions and made any
adjustments I considered necessary. The final English version was presented in this
report.
4.5.6 Researcher’s position
I was aware that researchers bring their background, perspectives, beliefs,
values, and assumptions into the research process (Hennink, Hutter & Bailey, 2010). In
this section, I discuss the issue of my own reflexivity or positioning (Merriam, 2014),
which is defined as “the process of reflecting critically on the self as researcher, the
human as instrument” (Lincoln & Guba, 2000, p. 183) or “a process that involves
conscious self-reflection on the part of researchers to make explicit their potential
influence on the research process” (Hennink et al., 2010, p. 19). In qualitative inquiry, it
75
is advisable that the researcher’s position be clearly stated from the outset. More
specifically, researchers are expected to identify personal experiences, dispositions, and
orientations that might interfere with the processes of data collection and interpretation
(Creswell, 2013; Merriam, 2014). In this way, “the reader understands the researcher’s
position, and any biases or assumptions that impact the inquiry”(Creswell, 2013, p. 251)
and the researcher’s integrity is apparent (Liamputtong, 2013).
My personal and professional background as an English lecturer, teacher trainer,
and scholar enabled me to view the phenomenon under study from an emic, or insider
perspective. As an English teacher, I was firmly of the belief that teachers were key
implementers of the new policy. They were not passive recipients of the policy who
faithfully followed and implemented its mandates. Instead, they could creatively
respond to the policy based on their sense-making and interpretation. I did not see
teachers as empty vessels. They had their own power, beliefs, assumptions and agency
to make decisions or choices based on current conditions, rules, and structures.
Therefore, teachers’ voices and classroom lives had to be made known for effective
policy implementation.
As a teacher trainer, I brought to the study my expertise and professional
knowledge about language education issues, teaching methodology, instructional
strategies, curriculum and material development, and professional training. I had
completed a one-year cascade teacher training program on English primary teaching
presented by the British Council (Hanoi, Vietnam) and Ministry of Education and
Training (Vietnam). This training course qualified me to be an English primary trainer
and curriculum developer of English primary teaching programs. Therefore, I was quite
familiar with the language teaching practices and innovative methods required by
MOET and the Provincial Department of Education and Training (DOET) for the
elementary level. As well, I had delivered a number of in-service training projects to
English primary teachers in some provinces, including the province under investigation
here. My training experience with English primary teachers offered me an insight into
the teachers’ world and perspectives, including their thinking, attitudes, beliefs, and
expectations.
As an apprentice researcher, I approached the English primary policy from a
stance of skepticism and critique rather than immediate advocacy. In a centralised and
hierarchical education system, it was taken for granted that the top-down actors initiated
76
the policy, which trickled down to lower levels for translation and implementation.
Therefore, teachers, who were viewed as bottom-up actors, had no opportunity for
involvement in policy formation. I did not, however, view the implementation process
as linear, because dynamic responses were possible from the bottom-up. Accordingly, I
acknowledged a possible bias in my emphasis on the role of teachers in effective policy
implementation. However, this form of ‘bias’ was not just personal, but echoed recent
work in the research literature (Heineke, 2015; Talmy, 2010).
In summary, my personal perspectives and experience both enabled and
constrained me in this research. There was potential strength in my understanding of the
context and the nature of the phenomenon under investigation. The potential downside
was that I might bring my bias, personal views, and subjectivity to the study. I aimed to
minimise the latter effect via the strategies discussed in the following section.
4.5.7 Validity and reliability in case study research
It is widely accepted that any empirical research needs to have attributes such as
truth value, applicability, consistency and neutrality (Guba & Lincoln, 1981).
Qualitative case study is no exception. However, some scholars argue that, in qualitative
inquiry, researchers themselves are the instruments of data collection and analysis
(Golafshani, 2003; Patton, 2004). Therefore, the reliability and validity of a study rely
on the researcher’s skills in these processes (Golafshani, 2003; Patton, 2004; Thyer,
2001).
Reliability refers to “the absence of random error” (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010, p.
715). Yin (2014) indicates that the goal of reliability is “to minimize the errors and
biases in a study” (p.49). This kind of test allows future investigators, if they follow
similar procedures to those used in the previous case study, to generate the same
findings or conclusions. To enhance reliability, this study followed Yin’s (2014)
suggested strategy of using case study protocol and developing case study database as
methods to maintain the reliability.
The case study protocol, which encompasses guides on instruments, procedures
and general rules, helps researchers to focus on the topic of the study (Yin, 2014).
Preparation of the protocol also allows researchers to identify, and therefore avoid,
potential difficulties in practice. For a multiple case study, the protocol is essential to
ensure reliability (Yin, 2014). In this project, a protocol was developed with three main
77
sections: an overview of the case study, procedures for data collection, and guide for the
case study report (see Appendix A4).
Regarding the database, I organised two folders for data storage in the computer.
One was for the macro-and meso-level data, which included policy documents and
interviews from DOET, BOETs, and school principals. The second, for the English
primary teachers, contained interviews, and classroom observations audios. I used the
software package NVivo 11 to deal with the collected data. Such a computer program
was assumed to be ideal for storing, accommodating, displaying and coding a large
amount of qualitative data (including transcripts and documents), but it obviously
“cannot do the analysis” (Punch, 2009, p. 229); rather, in this study it served as a tool to
manage the large amount of data (Merriam, 2014).
Validity refers to the credibility and accuracy of findings (Thyer, 2001). In this
study, validity is critical because it ensures the integrity of a qualitative case study. A
variety of approaches, frameworks, criteria and guidelines have been proposed to ensure
the integrity of case study inquiry (Creswell, 2013; Merriam, 2014; Stake, 1995) such as
construct validity, internal validity, external validity. This study particularly maintained
construct validity as elaborated below.
Construct validity refers to “the extent to which a study investigates what it
claims to investigate” (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010a, p. 712). In the case of this study, the
main constuct is agency. This kind of validity refers to the use of correct operational
measures for the concepts to be explored (Yin, 2014). To ensure construct validity in the
current study, two strategies were employed: the use of multiple sources of evidence, or
triangulation; and a draft case report reviewed by participants or academics (Gibbert &
Ruigrok, 2010b; Thyer, 2001; Yin, 2014).
Triangulation refers to the use of several different sources of evidence to
corroborate the data and evolving themes (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2010; Liamputtong,
2013; Merriam, 2014; Padgett, 2008; Patton, 2014; Yin, 2013). Merriam (2014)
contends that triangulation enables the researcher to compare and crosscheck the
collected data from multiple sources. The combination of several protocols also enables
the study “to gain the needed confirmation, to increase credence in the interpretation,
and to demonstrate commonality of an assertion” (Stake, 1995, p.112). Triangulation is
considered to be one of the most powerful strategies to ensure validity, and reliability
from an interpretive-constructivist perspective (Liamputtong, 2013; Merriam, 2014).
The literature identifies different types of triangulation used in qualitative research,
78
including data, investigator, theoretical and methodological triangulation (Liamputtong,
2013; Merriam, 2014; Padgett, 2008; Patton, 2014; Yin, 2013). As described in the
previous section, this study employed three core techniques of data collection - semi-
structured interview, observation and documentation. Therefore, data triangulation was
used as one of the tools to validate and corroborate the findings via “converging lines of
inquiry” (Yin, 2014, p.120). With the convergence of evidence from different sources,
the case study’s findings were “supported by more than a single source of evidence” (p.
121). Therefore, data triangulation contributed to ensuring “the construct validity” (Yin,
2014, p.121) in this the case study.
Another strategy to enhance construct validity was the review of a draft case
report. Reviewers may be peers, informants, or participants in the study (Yin, 2014). In
this study, the draft report was sent to the study participants for comment and feedback.
The participant teachers were invited to participate in member checking. They could
give suggestions or express their viewpoints on the draft that was sent to them. The
report was also presented at two conferences in the field. The responses provided useful
insights that informed the final report. Challenges from the participants were addressed
by searching for further evidence. As Yin (2014) notes, however, researchers do not
need to respond to all the comments or suggestions made about the draft. They are also
entitled to their own interpretations of the evidence.
To clarify, Table 4.7 presents the strategies used to maintain the validity and
reliability of the study at different stages.
Table 4.7
Strategies for Validity and Reliability
Research Employed
Tests Strategy Action taken
phase in practice
Same data collection procedure
Use case study Data followed for each case; consistent
√
protocol collection set of initial questions used in each
interview
Reliability
Interview transcripts, observation
Develop case study Data
transcripts, field notes, documents √
database collection
are put into database
Use of interviews, class
Use multiple Data
observations, documentary √
sources of evidence collection
evidence
Have key
Construct Drafts are reviewed by key
informants review
validity Composition informants before official √
draft case study
publication
report
Adapted from Yin (2014)
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4.6 Ethical Considerations
This study was granted Ethics approval from the New South Wales Human
Research Ethics Advisory Panel of the University of New South Wales, Australia
(Number HC 15 031) (see Appendix A3). It strictly abode ethics regulations in terms of
participants’ recruitment, privacy and anonymity, confidentiality, and safety during the
data collection and analysis, and data storage. Orb, Eisenhauer, & Wynaden (2001,
p.93) explain that “[A]ny research that includes people requires an awareness of the
ethical issues that may be derived from such interactions”. This section discusses the
ethical issues related to the current study.
The term “ethics” comes from the Greek word ethos meaning “character”
(Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006). Research ethics is defined as “a set of moral principles
that aims to prevent research participants from being harmed by the researcher and the
research process” (Liamputtong, 2013, p. 36). They are considered a core aspect of any
research project (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006; King & Horrocks, 2010; Liamputtong,
2012; O'Reilly, 2012; Orb et al., 2001). In qualitative studies, ethical issues are
particularly important. Qualitative researchers often work closely with participants for
extended periods of time and, in trying to understand their participants’ worlds, they
inevitably become part of them. In entering the worlds of others, the significant ethical
responsibilities - considering participants as individuals, respecting their right to
withdraw, and protecting them from any possible harm during their participation - must
be clearly recognised (Croker, 2009).
Although no single code of ethics is represented in the current literature, ethical
codes are widely acknowledged to include autonomy and informed consent, privacy,
confidentiality and anonymity, and risk and harm (Hammersley & Traianou, 2012;
Israel & Hay, 2006; Liamputtong, 2012; Orb et al., 2001). These were the central ethical
issues relevant to the present study.
3.5.8.1 Autonomy and informed consent
Respecting participants’ autonomy refers to individual freedom and personal
sovereignty (Miller, 2009). Participants have the right to make choices, take action, or
hold certain views based on their personal perspectives, values or capacities (Faden &
Beauchamp, 1986). Hammersley and Traianou (2012) argue that “only if research meets
these conditions has people’s autonomy been respected, and that this is essential for it to
be ethical” (p.75).
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To protect participants’ autonomy, I obtained their informed consent prior to
conducting the project. I met them either in person (for teachers) or via email (for other
stakeholders) to explain the research aims and purposes, data collection procedures, and
possible risks and harms. I also emphasised that they were free to express their views or
withdraw from the study without penalty if they felt uncomfortable or insecure. Should
they agree to participate in the study, they were asked to sign an informed consent form
(see Appendix A1).
3.5.8.2 Privacy, confidentiality and anonymity
Participants also have the right to “maintain secrets” (Israel & Hay, 2006, p. 78).
Therefore, I took the responsibility of ensuring that their private information was kept
private (Liamputtong, 2013). Isael and Hay (2006) warn:
Researchers who break confidence might not only make it more difficult for
themselves to continue researching but, by damaging the possibility that
potential participants will trust researchers, might also disrupt the work of other
social scientists. (p. 78)
In this study, I attempted to maintain my participants’ privacy, confidentiality
and anonymity by using pseudonyms for all persons, schools, and locations. Their
responses were only used for research purposes. If other potential uses arise in future,
the participants will be contacted for their permission.
3.5.8.3 Risk and harm
One of the core ethical issues in qualitative research is the potential for harmful
consequences from the actions of the researchers (Hammersley & Traianou, 2012).
Harm refers to “the thwarting, setting back, or defeating of an interest” (Feinberg, 1984,
p. 33). Hammersley and Traianou (2012, p.61) identify five main categories of harm:
physical injury, psychological damage, material damage, damage to reputation or status,
and damage to a project in which people are engaged with some group or organisation.
A responsible researcher should also try to “avoid imposing even the risk of harm on
others” (Israel & Hay, 2006, p. 97). I sought to ensure that no threats would occur to
my participants’ physical, emotional and social wellbeing during each of the research
stages - recruitment, data collection, and data analysis and publishing – as discussed
below.
Participant recruitment is an initial stage in the data collection process that
raises potential ethical issues (Hennink et al., 2010). In the current study, I ensured that
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the whole process of recruiting participants was completely voluntary, secure and
respectful. At the beginning, I disseminated information about the project (including
research aims and significance) to potential participants, who were primary English
teachers in Vietnam, through word-of-mouth and via gatekeepers (Liamputtong, 2013).
There was no possibility of physical harm to participants at this stage, but other forms of
risk, such as embarrassment, were possible. The involvement of stakeholders and
gatekeepers in the recruitment process could have led potential participants to feel
intimidated because of the unequal power relationship between managers and teachers.
To minimise this risk, I only asked stakeholders or gatekeepers to develop a pool of
potential participants who had expressed their interest in the study. From these lists, I
approached the teachers via email, phone or in person, provided them with information
about the research aims, purposes and significance, and invited them to participate in
the project. Those who agreed were given a written consent form which they were asked
to read carefully. If they were uncertain about anything, they could contact me for
clarification. Participants were repeatedly assured that their participation was
completely voluntary. Once they had read and understood the information in the form,
they were asked to sign it to indicate their acceptance.
Data collection in this study involved two sources of evidence that were directly
related to human participation - interviews and classroom observations. As the quality
of social interaction between researcher and participants can facilitate or inhibit the
quality of data collection, I sought to develop credibility, rapport and trust with
participants. At the beginning of each interview, I greeted the participant warmly and
described the research aims, purposes and significance, and how the data would be
collected and recorded. The recording device was placed in a location where its
presence would be non-distracting.
During the interview, I listened attentively to participants’ experiences and
responses. The interview protocol indicated that if sensitive issues arose that made
participants feel distressed or uncomfortable, the interview would be terminated. In
practice, this situation did not arise. In classroom observations, unobtrusive methods
(Liamputtong, 2013) were used to minimise potential discomfort. As previously
discussed, I chose to sit at the back of all the classrooms for the observations.
Another potential concern was the amount of time participants were being asked
to give to the project. I sought to address this in several ways. First, participants were
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fully informed about the importance of the research and its (and their) potential
contribution to the successful implementation of the national language policy. Second, I
put effort into ensuring that participants were provided with a friendly, intimate, reliable
and stress-free environment during the interview process. Third, I emphasised that they
could withdraw their participation at any time without penalty if they felt
uncomfortable, intruded upon or insecure.
Data analysis and publishing. Prior to data analysis, transcripts and texts were
anonymised by removing all identifiable information about the participants.
Anonymisation, according to Hennink, Hutter and Bailey (2010), involves the removal
of “not only any information that may identify a participant (i.e., name, place,
profession) but also any text that may indirectly do so” (p. 76). Participants’ names were
replaced with pseudonyms. Data confidentiality was also maintained during the analysis
and dissemination stages. All collected data were encrypted and securely saved in the
researcher’s password-protected personal computer. No one but the researcher and his
supervisors could access these data sources. The data were not used for other purposes.
For additional security, the password was changed every three months. To protect
against loss, the data were backed up on a flash drive, which was only to be used if the
data in the computer was lost. This device was only used by the researcher and was
stored in a secure private locked drawer. Anonymity was maintained when the study’s
findings were presented and published.
4.7 Summary
The chapter has explained the methodology that underpinned the current study.
It argued that a qualitative approach was a promising method to explore the social
phenomenon ‘teacher agency’ because it was an effective approach to explore the little-
known concept. Qualitative research was also an ideal approach to get insights into the
perspectives of the insiders. This chapter also elaborated the research design and
research questions. The research settings and participants were described and the data
sources and analysis procedures were explained. The chapter also addressed factors that
may influence the credibility and quality of the research, including validity and
reliability, language and translation, researcher’s positioning and ethical considerations.
The following chapters present the findings from the data analysis. Chapter 5
sets out the broader policy context in Vietnam at the macro-and meso- levels. The
primary aim of this chapter is to explore how English primary teachers are positioned at
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these levels, which constitutes a level of analysis for the subsequent finding chapters. In
particular, Chapter 6 describes the analyses of the first case- urban teachers’ response to
the policy mandates. Chapter 7 and 8, respectively, present the findings for the cases of
rural and island teachers.
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Chapter 5
Positioning Teachers in the Policy
5.1 Introduction
The chapter examines how the English primary teachers in this study are situated
in their teaching locations through the lens of positioning theory. Its primary focus is to
analyse the local moral order through which the agency of these English primary
teachers is operated. The term, local moral order, refers to the framework of rights,
duties, and obligations within which individuals operate (Moghaddam, Hanley & Harre,
2003) (see Chapter 3). The exploration of local moral order is crucial to understand
teacher actions because, as Redman (2013) indicates, “the local moral order can guide
how people act and interact, with each other, and can indicate what values will influence
the daily choice they make about their practices” (p.116). The chapter begins with an
overview of the policy goals, positioning teachers at the policy-making level (i.e.,
MOET) and the mediating levels (i.e., DOET, BOETs and schools), and ends with the
summary of key chapter findings.
5.2 An Overview of Data Analysis
As previously discussed (see Section 3.1, Chapter 3), language policy (LP) is
multi-layered with the involvement of different actors (Johnson & Johnson, 2015). LP
scholars use diverse terms to indicate these multiple levels of policy such as macro,
meso, and micro, top-down and bottom-up, explicit and implicit, overt and covert (R. B
Baldauf, 2006; R.B Baldauf & Kaplan, 2003; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996). In
Vietnam, LP is created and negotiated through different layers including the MOET
(acting at macro level), DOETs and BOETs (acting at meso level or as intermediaries),
schools and classrooms (acting at micro level). In particular, LP in Vietnam follows a
top-down approach in which the MOET (central body) disseminates their policy-making
documents to DOETs (provincial body) for translation, interpretation, and supervision
(Decree, 1400). DOETs then transfer these documents to BOETs (district body) for
further translation (if it is needed) to suit the local contexts before BOETs’ transferring
them to schools for implementation. This chapter focuses first on data analysis at the
level of the MOET to explore how teachers are positioned in the macro policy
documents. The analysis then triangulates with other major stakeholders including
DOET, BOETs, and schools (of the province under investigation) to examine how these
actors translate and interpret the teacher positioning from the MOET.
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At the macro level (i.e, the MOET), the data sources for this study came from
the policy-related documents such as decisions, circulars, instructions, and curricula. At
the mediating levels (i.e, the DOET, BOETs, and schools), the data comprised the
documents of translated policy including guidelines, instructions, and decisions, and a
60-to- 90-minute interview with four English supervisors (one from the DOET, the
other three from the selected BOET contexts under investigation: urban, rural, and
island regions), and three school leaders of three contexts. The role of the DOET
supervisor was to mediate the policy between the MOET and the BOETs, and to
supervise its enactment at the schools in the entire researched province. The
responsibilities of the BOET supervisors were to mediate the policy between the DOET
and the local schools. The aim of exploring teacher positioning among these
stakeholders (from the macro, the MOET, to micro level, the schools) was to establish a
sense of the structural framework of rights, duties, and obligations within which teacher
agency operated. The following diagram (Figure 5.1) conceptualises the hierarchical
system and data types:
Level Stakeholders Data types
Macro MOET decisions, circulars,

instructions, and curricula
Province DOET
Meso guidelines, instructions, and
decisions, and 60-90- minute
interviews
District
BOET1 BOET2 BOET3
(Urban) (Rural) (Island)
School leader 1 School leader 2 School leader 3

Micro (Urban) (Rural) (Island)
60 -minute interviews
Figure 5.1. Data Types from Different Stakeholders

The analysis began with the MOET documents using the key constructs of
positioning theory: teacher duties, teacher obligations, and teacher rights to identify how
teachers are positioned at this macro level in relation to the policy implementation.
These pre-identified categories were then triangulated with the data analysis from the
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DOET, BOETs and schools to examine the similarities and differences in the
interpretation and translation of teacher positioning from the MOET.
The next sections present the main findings from the analysis of these data
accounts. All the translations of policy documents from Vietnamese into English
throughout the thesis were carried out by the researcher (see Section 4.5.5, Chapter 4 for
the discussion). An overview of the policy goals is introduced first.
5.3 An Overview of the Policy Goals
The MOET is a representative of the macro level, where language policy and
planning takes place. At this level, two important policy documents, namely Decree
1400, or the NFLP 2020, and the English Primary Curriculum are analysed to identify
the language policy goals in general, and curriculum objectives at the elementary level,
more specifically.
As previously discussed in Chapter 2, in 2008, the government in Vietnam
promulgated the policy NFLP 2020 (also known as Decree 1400 or Project 2020). The
intended outcome of NFLP 2020 is to provide Vietnamese graduates of all educational
levels with “a good command of foreign language” (Decree 1400, 2008) so that they
can confidently enter global and regional markets for competition. The over-arching
goal of the policy is singled out in the following statement:
by 2020, most young Vietnamese graduates of professional secondary schools,
colleges and universities will have a good command of foreign language which
enables them to independently and confidently communicate, study and work in
a multilingual and multicultural environment of integration; to turn foreign
languages into a strength of Vietnamese to serve national industrialization and
modernization. (Decree 1400)
Although the language policy (Decree 1400) does not explicitly articulate
pedagogical issues, the relationship between the language policy and planning and
pedagogy is manifested through the reformed language curriculum in the national
education system. At the primary level, the English curriculum clearly stipulates broad
outlines of the curriculum goals as follows:
Teaching English to primary students aims to develop their communicative
language competence through four language skills including speaking, listening,
writing, and reading. This is considered an important starting point to shape and
foster students with lifelong learning skills, working competence and social
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communication skills in the future. English primary teaching also lays the
foundation for learning other foreign languages. (English Primary Curriculum
2010, p.2)
The above excerpt indicates that the teaching of English at the primary level is
intended to achieve four core aims: (a) to equip students with basic communicative
competence, (b) to provide students with initial lifelong learning skills, (c) to create a
basic foundation for successful foreign language learning in the future, and (d) to foster
students’ abilities to communicate their thoughts confidently, creatively, and
independently. These aims are believed to help students become prospective global
citizens in the era of the internationalisation (English Primary Curriculum, 2010). In
addition, the English primary curriculum further elaborates its objectives as indicated in
the following:
-Be able to handle very familiar conversations through four language skills, with
the emphasis on listening and speaking.
-Be able to grasp basic linguistic knowledge of English including pronunciation,
vocabulary and grammar.
-Be able to know basically English native speaking cultures, peoples and
countries.
-Be able to develop positive attitudes toward English language and Vietnamese.
-Be able to develop effective skills for English learning and other languages in
the future.
(English Primary Curriculum, 2010, p.3)
As observed from the above quote, primary students are expected to develop
their oral skill rather than written one. This expectation is proposed to attain the
communication goal as stated in the policy. In addition, the curriculum objectives
expect primary students to grasp basic knowledge of English speaking cultures, and in
anticipating that their English learning will lay a good foundation for learning other
foreign languages.
The intended English primary curriculum also explicitly states the proficiency
level for primary graduates: “upon completion, primary students must achieve A1 on
the Common European Framework of Reference” (English Primary Curriculum 2010,
p.3). In addition, the policy specifies performance objectives for each grade: third
graders should obtain A1.1, A 1.2 for the fourth, and A 1. 3 for the fifth graders.
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Language and curriculum, as previously mentioned, are considered to be the
major strategic goals of the policy. Towards achieving these goals, English primary
teachers are positioned as policy implementers with certain duties, obligations, and
rights as presented in the following section.
5.4 Positioning English Primary Teachers as Policy Implementers
English primary teachers are deliberately and explicitly positioned as the
implementers of the NFLP 2020 and the language curriculum by the MOET and this
assigned position is clearly stipulated also in the policy views of other stakeholders. For
example, the DOET representative interviewed for the research strongly expressed an
expectation that teachers must accomplish all the duties and obligations stipulated in the
policy documents, as a way of ensuring proper implementation of the NFLP 2020:
It is teachers’ responsibility to fulfil their duties as indicated in the policy
documents [from the MOET]. Teachers also have to abide by all the regulations
or directives in the fulfilment of their teaching roles. (DOET supervisor)
As revealed by further analysis of the policy documents, teacher positioning as
policy implementers by both the MOET and other stakeholders embraces expectations
about a number of teachers’ duties, obligations, and rights as now discussed.
5.4.1 Teacher Duties
At the MOET level, curriculum developers expect teachers to adopt
communicative language teaching (CLT) as a ‘backbone’ teaching approach. Adoption
of this approach is expected to bring about competence in English language
communication for primary students so that they can “express their thoughts freely,
confidently, and creatively” (English primary curriculum, 2010, p. 2). In particular, the
policy documents highlight a learner-centred classroom in which teachers take a
facilitative role, and students are “the subjects of the learning process”:
At the primary level, the main teaching approach is Communicative Language
Teaching. In CLT classrooms, students are considered the subjects of the
learning process and teachers serve in their roles as organizers, facilitators,
guides, and monitors in the language classrooms. (English Primary Curriculum,
2010, p.6)
A closer look at the documents reveals that although the policy explicitly
mandates the adoption of CLT in the classrooms, such terms as CLT or learner-
centeredness seem to be taken for granted by policy makers and curriculum developers
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without any further definitions, descriptions, and clarifications. Similarly, there is no
detailed description or demonstration of the roles of teachers and students in the class
that teachers could follow in a relevant way. In this manner, these key terms are
seemingly used arbitrarily in the policy documents, without expansion on their meaning
for classroom implementation. Therefore, it is expected that at the provincial or district
level, the English supervisors should spell out for these terms and requirements for
teachers to implement in their classrooms.
At the meso level, teachers are also expected to employ CLT as prescribed in the
MOET documents. Yet, in the Vietnamese province under investigation the documents
analysed showed that there are no further instructions or explanations about CLT or
how the roles of teachers and students are to be implemented. The analysis of the
interview with four English supervisors, suggests some reasons for this absence. The
DOET representative stated that his professional background is in music education, but
he is assigned to manage a cluster of three subjects in the province including English,
fine arts and music, and technology. As he stated in the interview:
As I was not an expert, there were some difficulties for me [to accomplish my
role]. I was so busy with many responsibilities that I did not have time to devote
to my professional development. I did not have time to update my teaching
methods or to meet and discuss with teachers [on their teaching]. If I was
assigned to do only one role, I would accomplish well. (DOET supervisor)
In addition, the supervisor also shared the tensions he encountered as a
supervisor at the DOET level, including his sense of work overload:
My position as a DOET supervisor is likened to a multi-functional knife. I am
responsible for a wide range of tasks from the supervision and inspection to the
meeting preparation and other logistics. Many tasks even have no relation to my
current position. But I still have to accomplish them all. (DOET supervisor)
The DOET supervisor positioned himself as one whose duty is to receive policy
directives from the MOET and then directly transfer them to the lower level (BOETs)
for implementation without further translation or interpretation. His interpretation of his
role is worth pondering further. His description of his work as “a multi-functional knife”
raises the question of his capacity to accomplish his responsibilities well. Other
stakeholders from the BOETs and schools share the similar story. Among them, only
the island BOET supervisor was formerly an English junior high school teacher.
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However, he had also no act of interpreting the CLT principles for the teachers in the
region because of his perceived responsibilities: “I followed the directions and
instructions from the DOET,” and his assumptions: “the teachers would adopt what they
had been previously trained in the professional development workshops”.
It can be observed also that the stakeholders’ lack of training in language
teaching and their large workload, place them in a challenging position as those who
must translate and interpret the central policy concepts of CLT in a way that would
facilitate provincial and regional teachers to implement their roles in communicative
language classes. Without clear guidance and instructions from these stakeholders, it is
likely that provincial teachers will interpret CLT practices depending on their expertise
and competence, which may lead to many different ways of CLT implementation in the
classroom. In addition, the provincial teachers may not be able to receive appropriate
and timely assistance from these stakeholders, whose duty is to provide them
professional support. This situation creates a disconnection in the structures intended to
support policy implementation from one level to another. It also raises a possible
concern about the assigned position as English supervisors without holding an expertise
in the field in the researched province.
5.4.2 Teacher Obligations
The analysis of the MOET policy documents highlighted four emergent
categories that indicated what English primary teachers were obliged to accomplish in
response to the language policy. These are textbook and resource use, teaching contents,
teaching methods, and assessment. These categories were then triangulated with the
data from other stakeholders (i.e., DOET, BOETs, and school leaders) to identify any
similarities or differences in the policy translation process at the mediating level.
5.4.2.1 Obligations of Textbook and Resource Use
From MOET perspectives, there are no specific regulations provided about how
textbook and resources should be used in the class. Rather, the policy describes the
obligations in a quite general manner using expressions, such as “teaching materials and
equipment including textbooks, resources, audio devices, and other teaching aids must
be matched with the topics / themes in the syllabus” (English Primary Curriculum,
2010, p.6-7). This kind of general statement is abstract and lacking in detail in
identifying how teachers are obliged to use textbooks and resources in their classrooms.
The only other guidelines on this issue are contained in a directive 4329/BGDĐT–
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GDTH (signed on 27th, June 2013), which provides a list of MOET-approved textbooks
to be selected for teaching. The document also mandates the DOETs throughout the
nation:
- to inspect all kinds of textbooks that are in current use in primary schools in the
province and to correct the wrongdoings against this directive.
- to ensure that from the school year 2013-2014, textbooks that are not on the
MOET-approved list are not allowed to be used for teaching in schools.
(Directive 4329)
According to this document, it appears that the MOET holds an entitlement to
examine, evaluate, and recommend the textbooks for teaching and learning at the
elementary level. However, in 2015, the MOET promulgated another document,
namely; a circular 31 /2015-TT-BGDDT, which states the 44 criteria for textbook
evaluation. The aims of this legal document are “to direct publishers, institutions, and
individuals to compile textbooks which are conform to the curriculum”, and “to support
educational administrators, teachers, pupils, and parents in the selection of textbooks for
teaching and learning purposes” (Article 1.3 and 1.4). Two possible implications can be
drawn from this document. First, the gap between two documents might cause
difficulties in relation to implementation because they are contradictory. Second,
teachers themselves are eligible to develop, evaluate or select the appropriate textbooks
for their teaching using the suggested criteria.
However, from the DOET, BOET, and school perspectives, the teachers’
entitlements of textbook evaluation and selection are seemingly stripped off. In the
school year 2016-2017, the DOET issued an instruction 1563/HD-SGD&ĐT which
proposed a list of DOET-approved textbooks to be used in the province. Six sets of
textbooks from different publishers were recommended including: Tieng Anh 3,4,5
(published by Educational Publishing House), Family and Friends, Let’s Go (Oxford
University Press), UK English Programme (VP Box Publisher), Smart Start (Hochiminh
Pedagogical University Publisher), and Let’s Learn English (published by Educational
Publishing House) (see Section 2.2, Chapter 2 for the discussion of the textbooks). The
DOET representative also confirmed in an interview that the DOET did not impose their
authoritative power on textbook selection. Instead, the instruction was transferred to
BOETs for their execution. The analysis of interviews with BOET supervisors showed
that rural and island BOET stakeholders selected Tieng Anh 3,4,5 (published by
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Educational Publishing House) for district teachers. Their decisions were “to guarantee
the uniformity and to facilitate the management” (rural BOET supervisor), and “to
maintain the continuum of the English textbooks at the junior secondary level” (island
BOET supervisor). Exception was for the urban context where the BOET representative
and school leaders collaborated to select the textbooks for their teachers. Two sets of
textbooks were selected: UK English Programme (for Grade 3), and Tieng Anh 4, 5 (for
Grade 4 and 5). The main reason for this selection was that VP Box Publisher had a
very close relationship with the school leaders and this publisher significantly supported
the urban school in terms of teaching facilities and teacher professional development.
Tieng Anh 4 and 5 textbooks were used in this school to ensure the continuity in the
educational system when students transit to junior high school in the future.
It appears that in the three researched contexts (i.e., urban, rural, and island) the
textbook that was chosen either by the school leaders or BOET representatives becomes
a form of mandated or prescriptive ‘de facto’ curriculum, despite the expectation that
teachers will also be more creative in seeking out other content.
Centring on the expectations about textbook and resource use, the DOET,
BOETs, and school stakeholders had no detailed instructions for teachers on how these
materials were to be used in the classroom. Instead, they expressed their views through
interviews. Overall, these stakeholders held different, even contradictory expectations
on the textbook and resource use. Regarding the textbook use, while the DOET
representative stated “in principle, teachers have to teach the contents in the textbook”,
all the BOET supervisors indicated that the teachers might not teach all the contents
depending on their students: “I tell teachers that they do not have to teach all the
contents if their students are not good enough” (rural BOET supervisor), or “depending
on students’ capacities, teachers can decide how much they should teach in the class”
(urban BOET supervisor). However, it was noted that at the school level, only the urban
school leader supported teachers to exploit the textbooks depending on the students’
capacities. Rural and island school leaders expected their teachers to follow the contents
in the textbook.
Turning to the resource use, the analysis showed that all the stakeholders
(BOETs and school leaders) stated in the interview that they encouraged their teachers
to use external resources, yet in certain conditions such as irrelevance or bad qualities of
the textbook provided resources. For instance:
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If teaching resources are not relevant, teachers can replace them with others.
They can collect, draw, and use external resources to meet their teaching goals
and students’ interests. (island BOET supervisor)
I always encourage teachers to use external resources if the quality of textbook
pictures is not good. (rural BOET supervisor)
It could be seen that as there were no official statements or documents on
textbook and resource use, there existed different ideas among the stakeholders on this
topic. These ideas were expressed in the forms of sentiments and personal preferences.
Some ideas even became conflicted. Therefore, it could be assumed that the researched
teachers may get confused of what they were allowed or forbidden when they executed
textbook and resource policy because of the conflicting perspectives and expectations
among their stakeholders in the different levels (DOET, BOETs, and school leaders).
5.4.2.2 Obligations of Teaching Contents
An examination of the MOET curriculum documents was also carried out to
identify the kind of teaching obligations created by the contents. The curriculum
developers claimed that the English primary curriculum was theme-based and includes
familiar topics for students to develop their communicative competence. According to
the current primary curriculum documents, there were four themes:
-Me and my friends
-Me and my schools
-Me and my family
-Me and the world around
These themes are recycled in each grade so that primary students’ communication
skills can be reinforced.
The curriculum developers also emphasized a number of principles on which the
curriculum was developed. Among these principles, students’ communicative
competence and the flexibility of curriculum for different contexts were explicitly stated
as follows:
- to develop primary learners’ English language capacities through four language
skills with the focus on listening and speaking and through linguistics knowledge
including pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
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- to ensure the flexibility of the curriculum to cater diverse needs of English
learning and teaching in different regions, and localities.
(English Primary Curriculum, 2010, p. 2-3)
It could be drawn from the macro perspectives that teachers were expected to
focus on two core language skills including speaking and listening. This expectation
aimed to increase students’ language competence as desired in the language policy and
curriculum document. In addition, as the current curriculum ensured that teachers were
provided with a certain level of flexibility to adjust different teaching contexts, one may
infer that teachers are granted entitlements to adjust their teaching practices (in terms of
teaching contents, or pedagogies) to their specific contexts throughout the nation.
However, the policy documents at the macro level did not provide any detailed
explanations or guidelines on the degree of flexibility. This lack of clarifications
implied that the meso actors (such as DOET and BOETs) should facilitate the teachers
in the region for execution by translating “the flexibility” from the MOET document.
Considering meso actors (i.e. DOET and BOETs), the data reveals that very few
documents on teaching contents were made at this level. Rather, their perspectives on
the issue were mainly explored through oral interviews. Regarding the documents, the
DOET was solely responsible for making guidelines, which were then transferred to
BOETs and schools for the supervision and execution. At the DOET, only one
document on teaching contents, that is, teaching syllabus, was found. Following is an
extract of the teaching syllabus, Grade 5, made by the DOET as a guideline for
provincial teachers (see Table 4.8):
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Table 4.8. A Sample of Teaching Syllabus (Grade 5)
(Term 1)
Period Lesson Teaching contents Other notes
Unit 1: What is your address?
1 Lesson 1 1.Look, listen, and repeat
2.Point and say
3.Let’s talk
2 4.Listen and complete
5.Read and recognize
6.Let’s sing
3 Lesson 2 1.Look, listen, and repeat
2.Point and say
3.Let’s talk
4 4.Listen and complete
5.Write about you
6.Let’s play
…… ….. …… ……
As illustrated in the above table, the syllabus seemed to be general. Teaching

contents were expressed in the form of units, lessons, and tasks, which exactly matched
with the titles in the textbook. Given this document, teachers had to abide and ensure
that their implementation was on a right track in terms of teaching periods, lessons, and
teaching contents. The flexibility stated in the teaching syllabus documents was seen
through teaching periods and teaching contents. In urban and rural areas, where there
were four teaching periods a week, teachers were mandated to fully follow the syllabus.
However, in remoted, or island areas, where there were only two teaching periods a
week, teachers were expected to only cover the first three sections of the lesson, which
are primarily about vocabulary, structures and grammar. Yet, there was no explicit
explanation or directive about the focus on speaking and listening. It was also noted that
the framework was an important component to teachers because educational
administrators (DOET, BOETs, and school leaders) might use it to monitor their
teaching process.
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The analysis of interview data with other stakeholders from DOET, BOETs, and
school leaders showed different perspectives on teaching contents. For instance, the
DOET representative expected teachers to follow the teaching syllabus. When asked
what teachers could do if they encountered content overloaded, the DOET
representative responded:
As previously said, in principle, teachers should accomplish all the teaching
contents and objectives as prescribed in the syllabus. However, I myself
discovered some challenges in relation to overloaded contents. In fact, I also
advised teachers that they should give priority to teach all the contents first. And
during their teaching they could focus more on the contents that they think more
important. (DOET supervisor)
However, the interview analysis with BOET supervisors showed their
conflicting expectations. For example, the rural supervisor claimed she herself
encouraged teachers to be flexible as stated:
I was very flexible with teachers. When I inspected their teaching practices, I
found that they all tended to teach all the contents. They rarely left out teaching
contents because they were afraid of violating the regulations. However, I told
them that they did not need to teach all the contents depending on their students.
(rural BOET supervisor)
In a similar vein, the urban supervisor allowed the school leaders to be
responsible and accountable to teaching contents. Unlike the rural and urban contexts,
the island supervisor expected teachers to cover main teaching contents to ensure the
teaching progress while they possibly left out “additional practices, games, or fun time
to reduce the time burden on teachers” (island BOET supervisor). However, at the
school level, except the urban school leader who allowed their teachers to be flexible
with teaching contents depending on students’ capacities, the other two school leaders
(i.e. rural and island) expected their teachers to follow the teaching syllabus so that the
violations of the regulations might be avoided.
To sum up, it can be seen that while the MOET policy documents on teaching
contents seemed to be general and abstract, the translated documents from meso actors
were slant. Their expectations were orally expressed. However, there existed conflicts
among stakeholders of different levels, which possibly caused teachers difficulties when
they were mandated to execute the policy.
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5.4.2.3 Obligations of Teaching Methods
The MOET document analysis indicates two components of teaching methods
including communicative activities and teaching techniques, and language instruction.
Regarding the former, the policy document expects teachers to “regard learners
as main learning subjects and teachers as organizers, guiders, and facilitators of teaching
activities” (English Primary Curriculum, 2010, p.6). However, no further guidelines on
key constructs such as “learning subjects”, “organizers”, or “facilitators” were made to
provide teachers with convergent understandings of these terms. As for communicative
activities, teachers were expected (a) to employ child-friendly and interactive activities,
(b) to diversify their teaching activities through individual, pair, or group work to
engage students, and (c) to provide meaningful and interesting contents to students in
the classroom to increase their motivations and provide them with opportunities to
develop their communication skills. In particular, the policy document explicitly
explained that:
English primary teaching has to be implemented in a communicative and diverse
learning environment with interactive activities such as games, songs, role-plays,
story-telling, quizzes, and painting. Teaching and learning have to be conducted
through individuals, pairs and groups. Communicative activities have to focus
on the themes and topics in the curriculum and they must be meaningful and
interesting to students. (English Primary Curriculum, 2010, p.5)
As for teaching techniques, the policy documents stated general expectations: (a)
students should be given opportunities for creativity, and autonomy in learning under
the guidance of teachers, and (b) teachers are mandated to create interesting and
meaningful contexts or situations for students to learn English in an active and
meaningful environment.
Regarding the latter (i.e., language use), the policy documents only stated that
“teachers should create an optimal environment for learners to use English in the class”
(English Primary Curriculum, 2010, p.3) without further elaboration on how and to
what extent Vietnamese or English should be used.
In summary, the MOET documents on teaching methods were stated in a general
manner and thus lacked specifications. This shortcoming may lead to various
understandings among teachers in different contexts. Therefore, it could be expected
that meso stakeholders (at the DOET and BOET level) should facilitate provincial
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teachers by translating and interpreting the policy documents so that they could execute
their responsibilities toward the desired goal in the policy documents.
Yet, exploring the perspectives from other stakeholders (DOET, BOETs, and school
leaders), the expectation of translation and interpretation on teaching methods was not
addressed. In one DOET document, 1563/HD-SGD&ĐT (signed on 11th July 2016),
teaching methods were stated as follows:
to innovate teaching methods which focus more on learners, to encourage
teachers to employ communicative activities in the class, to create opportunities
for students to practice their language, and to diversify teaching and learning
activities so as to increase learners’ language competence. (1563/HD-SGD&ĐT)
teachers are encouraged to use English in the class. Vietnamese (L1) should be
used minimum and only in difficult teaching situations (...), and to actively use
fun activities such as role-play, songs, games, and story-telling to make learning
environments child-friendly. (1563/HD-SGD&ĐT)
It could be seen that the DOET did not elaborate teaching methods in details for
provincial teachers. The DOET instruction tended to reiterate from the MOET
document about teachers, students, communicative activities, and language use. This
DOET document was transferred to BOET supervisors, who then delivered them to
different local schools in the region without further translation or interpretation.
Therefore, it can be inferred that teachers may respond communicative approaches
differently in their situated context given their expertise and competence from their
training and professional developments.
Because of the scarcity of documents on teaching methods from the meso level,
their perspectives on the issue were explored through interviews. Overall, the
stakeholders from DOET, BOETs, and school leaders assumed that teachers should
know how to teach because of their previous education and regular professional
developments. For example, the DOET representative stated:
When teachers graduated from their universities, they obviously had received
appropriate pedagogical knowledge and skills to become teachers. In other
words, teachers were assumed to know how to follow procedures to teach
language skills and knowledge. Besides, periodic professional training sessions
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provided by the MOET and DOET have also equipped English teachers with the
updates on teaching methods and skills. (DOET supervisor)
In addition, when asked how communicative activities were implemented, all the
meso stakeholders and school leaders claimed that they themselves encouraged teachers
to create an interesting lesson with many interactive activities. For example, the DOET
supervisor responded:
I always encourage teachers to step out of their routine boxes to be creative,
innovative, and flexible. An effective teacher will never follow the same
teaching procedure. I myself favour a teacher who could handle unexpected
situations well from the lesson plan. Good teachers will spend their time and
passion preparing for the lesson and know how to make their teaching active and
interesting through diverse communicative activities. (DOET supervisor)
Similar to the DOET views, all the BOET supervisors claimed that they
themselves expected teachers to be flexible and creative with their teaching methods
provided that their decisions and choices worked well with the students in in the class.
Teachers are expected to employ innovative and updated teaching methods to
optimize their teaching practices. Teachers are encouraged to combine different
teaching methods to achieve their teaching aims and satisfy their students’
needs. (urban BOET supervisor)
Even in the island area, the BOET supervisor also expected their teachers to be
creative in their teaching as reflected:
Teachers were allowed to be flexible with their teaching methods provided that
they conveyed the mandated pool of knowledge and catered diverse students’
needs and capacities (…). Actually, there was no document guiding teachers on
this issue. Yet, we often advised teachers to follow such a way when we came to
observe their teaching practices. (island BOET supervisor)
The expectation on teaching methods was no difference to the school leaders in
three selected contexts when they revealed these following statements: “Teaching
innovation is an urgent need at our school because it leads to good teaching outcomes”
(urban school leader), “we highly appreciate teachers’ creativity for teaching” (rural
school leader), and “we strongly encourage teachers to use innovative teaching methods
to motivate students”. (island school leader).
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As for language use, all the stakeholders from DOET, BOETs and schools
expressed their expectations and encouragement that English should be used for giving
instructions and managing the class because it was a language class. They also
emphasized that using English for instruction was not a requirement for teachers and
their decisions of whether to use it or not depended on their capacities, students, and
teaching contexts. The following statement could be quoted as a typical view on the
language use among these stakeholders.
Teachers are not required to use English in the class but they are encouraged to
do so. Teachers’ use of English in the class depends on their students’ abilities.
If I observe teachers’ classes, I still favour those who use English during their
teaching. (DOET supervisor)
In summary, a critical consideration on teaching practices among the DOET,
BOETs, and school stakeholders revealed some issues. First, contradictory to one’s
expectation, that is, the roles of mediating actors were to translate and interpret the
policy documents to facilitate the implementation, these actors did not perform their
expected roles. The data accounts showed that there were very few document
publications or explicit guidance on how to teach. Second, what was common among
these stakeholders was that they expressed their views in the forms of personal
preferences rather than in the form of official declarations. This claim could be seen
through the stakeholders’ use of phrases like “I always encouraged”, “we encourage”,
“we expect” or “I myself favoured”. It could be inferred from these considerations that
they would cause possible confusions and difficulties to teachers when they
implemented the language policy in their situated teaching contexts.
5.4.2.4 Obligations of Assessment
At the macro level, the MOET policy documents expected teachers to employ
assessments which were in close conformity to the stated curriculum objectives on the
four language skills. Teachers were expected to use two forms of assessments,
formative and summative, to track their students’ progress in communicative language
competence over the school year:
Students’ learning outcomes are reflected through two modes: summative and
formative assessments. Formative assessments include teachers’ observations
and comments on students’ learning progress during the year. Summative
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assessments should be diverse and consist of speaking and writing. (English
Primary Curriculum, 2010, p.14)
However, there were no detailed guidelines or instructions on formative
assessment from the MOET. Regarding summative assessment, the MOET issued
instruction 3032/BGDĐT–GDTH on test aims, test requirements, test contents, numbers
of test questions, and marking guides. According to this instruction, the test embraced
the four language skills with different rating weights as prescribed:
Test design should follow this test sample to ensure that both linguistic
knowledge and language skills, especially listening and speaking could be
measured. Of the four language skills, listening must occupy 50%, writing-
reading 40%, and speaking 10% of the total mark. (Instruction 3032/ BGDĐT–
GDTH)
It can be seen from the MOET statement that the summative assessment (i.e., the
end-of-semester test) emphasized listening and writing and reading, which together
occupied 90% of the total marking weight. Speaking was however, under-represented
which seemed to conflict with the expected objectives in the primary curriculum that
teachers would focus on speaking skills in their teaching practices (see section 4.3).
At the mediating level, in regard to summative assessment, the DOET, BOETs
and school leaders expected teachers to follow the MOET document, 3032/BGDĐT–
GDTH. There was no translation or interpretation of the document from this level,
which meant that the document 3032 / BGDĐT–GDTH was directly transferred to
teachers for execution. Towards the implementation, it was noted that while the DOET
allowed teachers to develop and design tests provided that they followed the test
formats and instructions suggested by the MOET, the BOETs reacted in a different
manner. In particular, the BOET representatives of urban and island areas were
responsible for compiling the test designs while the BOET supervisor in the rural region
allowed their teachers to design the test.
As for formative assessment, teachers were obliged to attend to Circular 30
/2014/TT-BGDĐT. Accordingly, teachers were expected “to observe, monitor, discuss,
evaluate, and comment on students’ learning progress; and to guide, consult, and
encourage students so as to well develop their competence, manners and qualities”
(Circular 30 /2014/TT-BGDĐT). This circular was commonly used to evaluate and
assess students’ learning of other general subjects such as Maths, and Vietnamese. The
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DOET representative noted that as English was a compulsory subject in the curriculum,
teachers were required to implement the requirements of this circular. Therefore, as for
other subjects, English teachers were required to keep portfolios on learners’ assessment
to trace their students’ progress. This perspective was also reflected among the BOET
representatives and school leaders as exemplified in this extract:
For formative assessment, we don’t have any guideline documents. As far as I
am concerned, there are some workshops on this topic run by DOET for the
local teachers and administrators. However, the DOET has no guiding
documents, too. Therefore, we let teachers to follow the examples of other
general subjects on formative assessments. (rural BOET supervisor)
It could be seen that there were no other detailed instructions provided to assist
English teachers to conduct formative assessment at the meso level (DOET and
BOETs). This situation could potentially cause confusion in implementation of
formative assessment for teachers, especially if they did not receive sufficient training
on this component.
5.4.3 Teacher Rights
The policy suggested that the MOET granted teachers a number of entitlements
to accomplish their duty and obligations, such as sufficient teaching resources,
professional development, professional support from regional English experts and
educational managers, and small class sizes:
-Educational managers and teachers must receive training workshops on
syllabus, teaching methods, and textbook use.
-Each province and district must have an English expert to support teachers
-Teachers must be provided with opportunities to participate in professional
development sessions within their area.
-The class size must not exceed 35.
-English language environment must be provided so that students could practice
and use their language (through English clubs, contests, plays and drama).
Regarding teaching resources, the MOET had also issued two directive
documents 5893/BGDĐT-CSVCTBTH (dated 06 Sep, 2011), and 7110/BGDĐT-
CSVCTBTH (dated 24 Oct, 2012) to provide guidance and lists of resources and
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equipment to be furnished by schools. According to these documents, teachers were to
be equipped with two kinds of teaching resources including:
Common teaching resources: Cassette, amplifier, loudspeaker, micro, television,
disk reader, computer, projector, interactive pictures, flashcards, characters in
textbooks, letters set, and CD.
Specialised teaching resources: teachers console panel, students’ cabin, and
other connection devices.
(Document 5893 and 7110)
However, the data analysis of meso levels (DOET and BOETs) showed that
these rights seem to be totally unaddressed. Regarding resources, the DOET
representative affirmed that this institution was responsible for receiving finance from
the MOET and allocating it to schools. The DOET representative also declared that that
the provision of teaching resources and equipment was very limited because of budget
and finance constraints. In the interviews, the DOET representative revealed that only
five schools (of 227 primary schools in the province), on average, were provided with
the stated teaching resources annually.
Budgets for teaching resources are very humble. The DOET receives a certain
quota of teaching resources and has to allocate them to different schools. Of 227
primary schools, on average, only five schools are selected to receive these
resources annually (…) Priorities are given to the schools in under-resourced
conditions. The DOET encourages schools to call parents for socialization
capital to upgrade teaching resources. (DOET supervisor)
The DOET representative also stated that a majority of primary schools in the
province were short of well-equipped classrooms and essential teaching devices such as
loudspeakers, and cassette players. The lack of equipment was because “it costs much
more to buy resources for English as compared to other subjects in the curriculum”
(DOET supervisor). Considering the BOET perspectives, all the BOET supervisors
claimed that their agencies had no budgets for school resources: “our institution was not
provided financial supports for resources” (island BOET supervisor”, or “we didn’t
have any resources that could help teachers. Therefore, teachers needed to seek the
resources by themselves” (rural BOET supervisor). At the school level, except the urban
context, where the school could receive financial assistances from parents for resources
and teaching facilities, the school in the rural and island areas struggled with their
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limited resources: “we did not have enough classrooms for general education, let alone
for English education. The lack of teaching facilities was also a common issue for a
school in the rural areas like us” (rural school leader).
Regarding teachers’ professional development opportunities, all the BOET
supervisors claimed that they relied on the DOET because they did not have budgets for
the professional development component. Yet, in the interview, the DOET
representative admitted that English primary teachers’ access to professional
development opportunities was limited, especially for those in isolated areas, due to
financial constraints. Instead, annual professional development workshops relied totally
on two main providers (a) the commercial international textbook publishers such as
Oxford, Cambridge or Macmillan, and (b) the MOET under the support of the NFLP
2020:
The DOET has a mediating role in providing professional training workshops to
teachers. The NFLP 2020 has implemented its own programs. Besides, the
DOET has collaborated with some international commercial textbook publishers
to provide teachers with professional training. Publishers are very enthusiastic in
doing this and providing good experts to work with teachers. (DOET supervisor)
Even when the DOET organized a professional workshop to provide teachers
with opportunities to observe teaching models from selected best English teachers in the
province, not all the teachers were given equal accessed. The DOET estimated that, on
average, “only 150 – 200 English teachers would be able to participate in this
professional activity”. Besides, the DOET stated that they understood that “very few
teachers from under-resourced regions would be able to participate in professional
development workshops organized in the city areas”. Yet, the DOET had no other
alternative but to ask them to travel to the city centre for participation with teachers’
own budgets. At the school levels, only the urban administrator claimed that they
organized regular professional development sessions at their school and invited trainers
to deliver specialised teaching issues for their teachers. While the rural and island
school leader could not afford these sessions, they indicated that they were willing to
support their teachers for participating in any professional development opportunities.
As for professional consultations, it was claimed by MOET that teachers had the
right to feed back their problems or raise their concerns about policy enactment. In the
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interview, the DOET representative indicated that teachers’ feedback had to follow a so-
called “fixed mechanism”, as stated in the following excerpt:
Teachers have to send their feedback to the team leader at school. If the team
leader cannot solve the problem satisfactorily, they should send it again to the
school leaders. In case, no answers are made, this feedback should go to the
BOET and then DOET. If both these levels fail to deal with it, the problem will
be reported to the MOET. (DOET supervisor)
However, this teachers’ right seemed to be constrained when the DOET
supervisor admitted that only 35% of the BOET English experts in the province had a
background in language education. The majority took on their position without adequate
training in English primary teaching. Therefore, they had difficulty dealing with
teachers’ problems and complaints as shown in this excerpt:
There are cases in which teachers’ feedback is not fully addressed because their
BOET English experts don’t have sufficient knowledge in teaching methods.
Their backgrounds are from general education such as literature or maths. In this
situation, teachers often consult the DOET assistants as their final resort. (DOET
supervisor)
It can be observed that there is a gap between the MOET and its meso level
(DOET and BOET) in response to teachers’ rights. While the MOET’s stated aim was
to provide teachers with sufficient entitlements including training and retraining,
teaching resources, and professional consultations, the rights of teachers in the
researched province were not fully met due to a number of DOET and BOET
constraints. The implication was that provincial teachers may struggle in the ways
alluded to in the above discussion to implement the language policy.
5.5 Summary
This chapter has discussed the local moral order in which teachers’ agentic
actions are expected to be operated, by identifying teachers’ positioning at the MOET,
DOET and BOET level. Several major themes can be summarised from this analysis as
shown in Appendix D.
At the macro level (i.e. the MOET), teachers are explicitly expected to adopt a
CLT approach in their teaching with a number of obligations including textbook and
resource use, teaching content, teaching methods, and assessment. To accomplish these
obligations, it is implied that teachers will be provided with sufficient professional
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support and other entitlements. Yet, it is noticeable that these duties and obligations are
prescribed in general terms in the policy documents.
At the meso-level (i.e, the DOET), teachers seem to be expected to follow all the
duties and obligations as prescribed in the policy to ensure its proper implementation.
Nevertheless, there are some issues that should receive particular attention at this level.
First, the policy supervisor of the DOET and BOETs is not an English primary teacher
or have limited knowledge of primary education, which suggests there could be
difficulties in translating, interpreting, and supervising the policy. Second, there are few
policy documents at the meso level within the province under investigation that are
translated or interpreted for implementation in situated English language teaching
contexts. Therefore, most of the policy documents are transferred directly and without
mediation to different levels in the system (from DOET to BOETs, and from BOETs to
schools) for execution. Third, the perspectives of DOET, BOETs, and even school
leaders on policy supervision is mainly expressed in terms of personal expectations,
preferences, and favours. These are made known to teachers in an oral manner rather
than as an official declaration in policy documents. Fourth, although the MOET pledges
to provide teachers with sufficient professional development and teaching resources,
these rights are not well addressed at the mediating level because of its budget
constraints. Not all the provincial teachers have equal rights to access professional
developments which are centralised and managed by DOET.
Having outlined aspects of the local moral order, in the three subsequent
chapters I illustrate how teachers of three typical regions in the investigated province
(i.e, urban, rural, and remote) exercise their agency to respond to the language policy.
More specifically, Chapter 6 presents the case of urban teachers, Chapter 7 presents the
case of rural teachers and Chapter 8 presents the case of isolated island teachers.
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Chapter 6
Urban Teachers’ Responses
6.1 Introduction
This chapter reports urban teachers’ responses to the language policy they were
required to implement in their classrooms within the framework of positioning theory. It
draws on the four main components (textbook and resource use, teaching content,
teaching methods and assessment) of the teachers’ positioning in the policy documents
(see Chapter 5) to explore the participants’ responses at the classroom level. The chapter
first presents an overview of the research site, participants, data types and analysis. It
then documents and analyses the teachers’ responses to the four categories of the
language policy.
6.2 The Research Site
The research site is an urban school, An Hong, located in the city centre.
Established in 1970, the school is a well-respected and popular destination, with over
1,700 students and 100 teachers. There are eight English teachers at the school. Four
characteristics distinguish this school from the other (rural and island) research sites in
the study: its prospective development, teaching resources and facilities, students, and
teachers’ professional development.
In relation to development, the school’s goal is to become a leading educational
institution at primary level in the province. In an interview, the principal commented:
“We are strongly committed to offering the best educational service in the region. We
also try to remain an exemplar in innovative teaching and management”.
The school is one of the very few primary schools in the region to have its own
website, which contains information about its activities and strategic development plans.
In 2015, the school’s prospective development was manifested on the website through
statements of its vision, mission, and values:
Vision: Strive to become an advanced, modern, and child-friendly school
with premium quality teaching and child-care, contributing to
national education.
Mission: Educate children to become excellent citizens with core qualities
and attributes of mind and physical strength to confidently enter
an integrated world.
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Values: Provide a firm foundation for students to be successful in their
future lives. Learning always goes with practice to optimise
students’ potential.
Regarding teaching resources and facilities, in interview, the principal revealed
that her school had received financial support from local authorities, commercial
companies and parents:
Financial support comes from different sources. One of the main sources is from
the DOET, which the school receives annually. Another is sponsorship from
commercial companies that have strong relations with the school. And the other
is from students’ parents. The parents are aware of the importance of learning
English, so they are willing to contribute financial support to the promotion of
English learning at the school.
Table 6.1 provides an overview of the resources and facilities in the school at the time
the fieldwork was conducted, as indicated on the school website.
Table 6.1
Teaching Resources and Facilities
Type Quantity
Teaching resources 12 sets/Grade
Television 30
Loudspeakers 45
Cassette player 15
Video/CD player 01
Projector 45
Photocopier 01
Clearly, An Hong had a wide range of audio-visual equipment to support the

school’s teaching and learning activities. There was also a language function room,
where language teachers held their monthly professional discussions. The room had
pictures on the walls and contained several cabinets with language books and teachers’
dossiers.
The school comprised four modern four-storey buildings arranged in a square
around a yard. Because it was next to one of the busiest main streets in the city centre,
its gate was closed at all times for security. The 60 classrooms distributed across the
four buildings were all well-lit, well-ventilated and clean. Four rows of desks faced the
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board, each shared by two students. Most classrooms were equipped with a projector, a
loudspeaker, several fans, and a drawer for storing teaching resources. From my
observations, the classrooms provided an enriching and stimulating learning
environment for the students, with many colourful pictures and mottoes on the wall.
At An Hong school, English was considered one of the strategic subjects and
was introduced as an elective as early as Grade 1 and 2. Because of its status, English
received special attention from the school leaders. They frequently organised extra-
curricular activities such as English clubs and competitions. One of the activities I
attended during my visit was an English festival, which was held once a semester. In
this competition, students from different grades sang, acted and told stories in English.
It seemed to me to provide a great opportunity for students to demonstrate their English
abilities.
Teachers’ professional development was emphasised in An Hong school. In
interview, the principal stated that the school strongly encouraged teachers to advance
their pedagogical skills. As a well-respected and popular school in the region, An Hong
had received many offers for collaboration from commercial publishers, English
language centres and other educational providers. It appeared that the school had made
good use of these opportunities for their teachers’ professional development.
Currently, the school maintained a close relationship with VP Box, a
commercial company for the English program UK English (commonly known as
Phonics). The school was allowed to implement the company’s programs for Grades 1,
2 and 3 for a tuition fee of 80.000 VND (about five US dollars) per student a month. At
the same time, the VP Box company frequently sent expert trainers to impart
pedagogical skills to the teachers. As well as VP Box, other local educational providers
also sent experts, including native speakers, to conduct small workshops at the school as
part of their educational collaboration and commercial promotion.
6.3 Participants
Two of the eight English teachers at the school, Thanh and Tam, agreed to
participate in the study. Tam was still single and appeared to be quite energetic. In
contrast, Thanh was married with two small children. They both lived in the
metropolitan area, which was not far from their workplace. Tam had five years of
teaching experience at the school while Thanh had been working there for seven years.
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Despite their long professional history, they were still on a short-term labour
contract. This issue seemed to demotivate them somewhat because, as short-term
contract teachers, they were assigned more duties than those who were permanently
employed. Yet, their salaries were much lower. Tam indicated that she was planning to
relocate to another school, where she had the opportunity to obtain a permanent
position, even though she loved working in this school. The other teacher, Thanh felt
insecure and unfairly treated since her long career of devoted service could come to an
end at any time.
Both teachers seemed to be well-trained. Tam had a Master’s degree in English
education while Thanh had a Bachelor degree in English language studies. Despite their
sound educational background, these two teachers were not officially trained to be
primary teachers when they started their teaching careers. Thanh graduated from a
private university in English studies while Tam was trained to teach high school
students.
To compensate for their deficits in teaching English to primary students, these
two teachers had opportunities to participate in a number of professional training
workshops offered by different stakeholders (such as MOET, DOET, publishers or
language centres). They also frequently participated in on-site PD activities on language
competence and teaching skills offered by some educational providers having good
relations with the school. These training experiences seemed to have familiarised them
with the principles of English primary teaching and improved their language
proficiency. The participant teachers reported that their English competence now
exceeded the MOET’s language requirements (i.e., B1) for English primary teachers.
Thanh achieved B1 while Tam received a C1 certificate on the CEFR.
In the region, Tam and Thanh were currently well known to many other
provincial English teachers. They were participating in some DOET professional
projects and were often selected to demonstrate their teaching skills to provincial
colleagues. They were also selected to lead professional activities organised by BOET.
At school, the participant teachers were responsible for teaching English in
different grades. Tam had taught Grade 3 students using the textbook “UK English
Program” (NXB Bach khoa, 2014) for four years. At the time of the study, she was
assigned to teach English to Grade 5 students employing the textbook “Tieng Anh 5”
(NXB Giao duc, 2013). She had 22 teaching periods a week (each teaching period lasted
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35-40 minutes). Thanh had been teaching English to Grade 4 and 5 students with the
textbook “Tieng Anh 4” and “Tieng Anh 5” (NXB Giao duc, 2013) since the
introduction of Project 2020 in her school in 2010. Thanh was assigned to teach 23
periods a week.
Outside school, these teachers seemed to lead busy lives as they both had part-
time jobs. Tam was currently working for a language centre almost every weekday
night. She did not arrive home until after 10 pm. In a similar vein, Thanh taught some
extra classes at home. Furthermore, as a housewife with two small children, Thanh
reported that leisure time for her was quite rare. Table 6.2 summarises the teachers’
socio-demographic characteristics.
Table 6.2
Socio-demographic Characteristics of the Participants
Participants
Characteristic Tam Thanh
Gender Female Female
Age 27 35
Teaching experience 5 years 7 years
Grades Grade 3 and 5 Grade 4 and 5
Textbooks UK English Program, Tieng Tieng Anh 4, 5
Anh 5
Qualifications Master Bachelor
PD participation Varied Varied
Language proficiency C1 B2
6.4 Summary of Data Types and Analysis

The data sources in this and the following two chapters comprise interviews,
classroom observations, and field notes. Of these, the interviews were the main data
source. These were labelled from U-I-0 to U-I-04 (U=urban), as summarised in Table
6.3
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Table 6.3
Interview Data Sources

Data
Interview ID Date Length
(min)
Interview 0 U-I-0 09/10/ 2015 95
Interview 1 U-I-01 13/10/2015 35
Tam Interview 2 U-I-02 15/10/2015 45
Interview 3 U-I-03 20/10/2015 56
Interview 4 U-I-04 23/ 10 / 2015 27
Interview 0 U-I-0 07/10/2015 97
Interview 1 U-I-01 14/10/2015 25
Thanh Interview 2 U-I-02 16/10/2015 38
Interview 3 U-I-03 21/10/2015 41
Interview 4 U-I-04 23/10/2015 38
In this chapter, I particularly focused on four policy components namely,
textbook and resource use, teaching content, teaching methods, and assessment. My
analysis focus came from the outcomes of Chapter 5- Positioning teachers in the policy,
in which English primary teachers were expected (by the policy makers and meso
actors- DOET and BOET experts) to give priorities to: using the available contents in
the textbook (textbook component), developing speaking skill (teaching content), using
child-friendly activities in the class (teaching methods), and formative assessment
(assessment). Therefore, I paid attention to these expectations to see how teachers
agentically responded to them.
The data analysis followed the procedures that were described in Chapter 4.
Emergent positions came from the combination of my data analysis and the current
literature. I first used the key constructs of positioning theory including positions, rights,
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duties and obligations to identify teacher positions. I then considered current studies on
teachers’ roles when they were obliged to implement the government language policy.
For example, Heineke (2015) identified teachers as implementers, resisters, and
negotiators or Li (2010) concluded that teachers acted as policy-makers.
Table 6.4 summarises the key findings. As shown in the table, the teachers
positioned themselves in different ways in response to the four components of the
language policy. Each positioning act was determined by a number of related factors.
These categories and sub-categories are elaborated in the following sections.

Table 6.4
Summary of Key Findings
Category Sub-category Factors
No rights
Teachers as implementers Time constraints
Textbook and Test orientation
resource use Students’ motivations
Teachers as adapters Learning facilitation
Teachers’ passions and
commitment
Test orientation
Teachers as resisters Time constraints
Test orientation
Teaching content
Teachers as negotiators Time constraints
Overloaded contents
Students’ motivations
Teachers as implementers Parental and school expectations
Teachers’ passions
Students’ outcomes
Teaching methods
Teachers as resisters Physical classroom setting
Professional support
Training experience
Assessments Teachers as implementers Students’ benefits
Test reliability
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Teachers as negotiators Work burden
6.5 Textbooks and Resource Use

In relation to textbooks and resource use, the teachers adopted two overall
positioning acts. In the first, and predominant position they saw themselves as
conformists, that is, as implementers of the textbooks they were required to use in the
classroom. For various reasons, however, at times they also repositioned themselves as
adapters of the textbook. These two positions and the factors that drove them are
explained in this section.
6.5.1 Teachers as textbook implementers
The interview and observational data showed that the teachers mostly adopted
the position of textbook implementers. At An Hong school, two sets of textbooks were
used. The first one was Tieng Anh 4, and 5 published by Educational Publishing House
which belongs to the MOET. The second set was UK English Programme (published by
VP Box Publisher). Tieng Anh 4 and 5 were taught for 4th and 5th Graders while UK
English Programme was taught for Grade 1-3. All these textbooks were selected by
BOET and school leaders, which meant that the teachers were not involved in the
textbook selection. In interview, the two urban teachers emphasised that they strictly
followed the textbook and saw it as the main guide for their teaching. For example:
I always cling to the textbook and remain loyal to what was stated in this
teaching material. I cover all the tasks and activities and ensure my students
understand and grasp the contents well. (Thanh, U-I-0)
Generally speaking, I try to follow the textbook and cover all the things in the
textbook. (Tam, U-I-0)
As can be seen, Thanh and Tam seemed to locate themselves within the local
moral order - to follow the textbook. As a result, they constructed their responsibilities
in ways that were appropriate for this moral setting. Tam stated: “I give priority to
covering the textbook content” (Tam, U-I-01), and “I respect what is prescribed in the
textbook and try to teach it all” (Tam, U-I-03). Similarly, Thanh reported: “The main
content is from the textbook” (Thanh, U-I-02), “In general, I use the textbook inputs”
(Thanh, U-I-04), and “I should teach from the textbook first before thinking of doing
something else” (Thanh, U-I-02).
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The teachers’ reliance on the textbook was further confirmed through the
classroom observations. Table 6.5 provides a summary of the activities that demonstrate
the teachers’ typical use of the textbook across four observed lessons. Overall, Thanh
and Tam followed a similar pattern in their teaching: begin with a warm-up activity,
introduce the lesson, ask students to open the book, and then follow the task sequence as
prescribed in the textbook. For example, in a lesson on vocabulary and structure, after a
lead-in activity, Tam required her students to look at the pictures in the textbook
carefully and answer questions generated by her. Following this activity, Tam herself
looked at the book again and read the task aloud to draw her students’ attention to it.
She then covered the task and its input as sequenced in the textbook. Thanh often started
her lesson with a question: “What lesson will we learn today?”. Following her students’
responses, she asked them to open the book to the targeted lesson. The whole class then
looked at the lesson title and read it aloud. Step by step, Thanh dealt with each task as
prescribed in the textbook sequence until the class was over. From their statements and
classroom practices, it was apparent that the two urban teachers perceived the textbook
to be the core teaching source they must follow.
Table 6.5
Urban Teachers’ Reliance on the Textbook
Activity Teachers
Tam Thanh
Follow the task sequence x x
Ask students to look at the textbook x x
Use the resources provided in the textbook x x
On
further analysis, the interview data revealed a number of factors that explained why they
positioned themselves as textbook implementers. First, they did not perceive that they
had the right to teach differently from the textbook. They stated that, as teachers, their
responsibility was to cover all of the textbook content:
I thought I had to use these activities because they were prescribed. If I shorten
them or leave them out, I might violate the regulations. (Thanh, U-I-02)
There are some regulations that I have to follow. One of them is to follow the
textbook content and convey it to my students. (Tam- U-I-03)
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A further comment by Tam suggested that, in relation to the textbook, she did
not believe her voice would be heard by other stakeholders in the educational system.
She reported an occasion on which she and her colleagues had approached a Ministry
representative to suggest some changes in the textbook:
We commented that the current textbooks were overwhelming and asked them if
they had any solution for this problem. The [MOET] representative responded
that, before textbooks were officially in use, they had been carefully piloted and
modified. They asked why we complained about these problems to them. (Tam,
U-I-01)
This excerpt showed that Tam and her colleagues felt themselves to be
positioned by the MOET to accept the textbooks as a standard source and implement
them without questioning.
Second, time was perceived to be a major factor in the way the teachers self-
positioned as textbook implementers. The teachers complained that they had insufficient
time in a lesson to teach beyond the textbook:
My concern is the time. You see, there are a lot of things that I have to teach in
the lesson. If I use additional resources, I’m afraid I would run out of my
teaching time. (Thanh, U-I-01)
Due to the time limits, I just give priority to conveying what is to be taught in
the class. If the contents are simple and the time is available, I might consider
using external resources. (Tam, U-I-0)
Limited time for lesson preparation was another concern:
Honestly, I could make additional resources such as pictures for my lesson. But
the thing is that I don’t have time. It might take me one or two hours to prepare
the materials. My working schedule is full. In the daytime, I spend most of my
time at school. In the evening, I am in the language centre for extra work. (Tam,
U-I-0)
In some cases, I expected to prepare some teaching objects for my students. But
I did not have spare time for this preparation because of my part-time job
commitments. Therefore, I decided to use the resources provided in the
textbook. (Thanh, U-I-02)
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Third, the textbook was considered to be the main resource to prepare their
students for the test requirements demanded by the school. Thus, it was not surprising
that the teachers chose to prioritise this material:
I chose to teach everything in the textbook. If I did not, I was afraid that my
students might not do well in the test. Other teachers would use the textbook
content for the final test. What would happen if they used the inputs that I had
missed teaching to the students in the class?. (Tam, U-I-0)
Normally, the test items come from the textbook. If the students are hard-
working enough, they will do well in the test. (Thanh, U-I-02)
The data discussed so far indicate that the predominant teacher positioning in
relation to textbooks was as textbook implementers and that several factors influenced
this self-position. It was evident that the two teachers sensed their duty of following the
textbook in their classroom practices as a consequence of a moral positioning act. They
located themselves with the moral space and attempted to act as conformists to the
policy mandates. With their compliance, their agency seemed to remain dormant.
Closer inspection of the interview and classroom observation data, however,
revealed an emergent teacher positioning act - teachers as textbook adapters.
6.5.2 Teachers as textbook adapters
Despite the multiple factors influencing the teachers’ decision to follow the
textbook, they were also critical of these resources:
Sometimes I found my students were puzzled by the pictures in the textbooks
because these pictures were not related to the teaching content. When the
students looked at them, they couldn’t understand what the pictures were about.
(Tam, U-I-01)
In my personal evaluation, these [textbook] resources are not as good as I had
expected. I expected that the [events in] pictures should be familiar and
appropriate to the children so that they could enjoy them. (Thanh, U-I-02)
As a result, the teachers were sometimes driven to make their own adaptations in
ways they thought would help their students. The classroom observations showed that
the teachers extended the activities provided in the textbook by using a number of
adaptation strategies. Table 6.6 summarises these adaptive strategies and the frequency
with which they occurred across the four observed lessons.
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As can be seen, Tam seemed to be more active in using external resources. In
every lesson that I observed, she always had some objects (such as teddy bears, national
flags or small toys) to show her students before, during or after the lesson. Her wide
personal collection of teaching objects seemed to brighten up the class atmosphere.
Thanh used online resources such as songs or video clips. She also prepared handouts
(quizzes or word puzzles) for her students to work on. During the class, she seemed to
be flexible in her use of the textbook. She often chose to focus more certain items in the
textbook. For example, if there were seven words to be taught, she did not allocate equal
time to each; rather, she taught some words in more detail than others. These actions
evidenced how, on occasion, these teachers demonstrated their agency by modifying
and extending the inputs or activities prescribed in the textbook.
Table 6.6
Urban Teachers’ Adaptive Strategies
Activity Frequency
Tam Thanh
Handouts 6 4
Adding inputs 5 4
External resources 11 8
Skipping the tasks 3 2
Modifying the pictures 3 2
The factors that shaped the teachers’ acts as textbook adapters emerged in
interview. One typical factor was related to students’ motivation. The teachers believed
that the children were “fond of pictures, visual aids and objects” (Thanh, U-I-02) and
that, through these resources, they could help the students to “stimulate their curiosity,
discoveries, and imaginations” (Tam, U-I-01). Another reason was to facilitate more
effective learning: the teachers adapted the textbook to suit their teaching purposes and
to respond to their students’ needs:
When the resources within a lesson were simple or inappropriate, I would
prepare some external resources to help my students understand the teaching
content and practise it better. (Thanh, U-I-02)
When I used [puppets], my students were so excited. They also became more
involved in the lesson. (Tam, U-I-02)
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The teachers’ passion and commitment to teaching sometimes prompted them to
take action as textbook adapters. Thanh decided to buy some online software with her
own money because of its possible value to her students:
[I bought this software] because I found it useful for my teaching. There are
many interesting activities for my students to enjoy with this kind of software.
(Thanh, U-I-02)
It can be inferred that the teachers’ investment in their students’ motivation,
their desire to facilitate learning and their own commitment to teaching served from
time to time as incentives for them to show agency that moved them beyond the
position of textbook implementers. Tam explained in the interview: “I believed that
these resources [flags] would help my students to visualise, identify and remember
nations and nationalities” (Tam, U-I-01).
Overall, the analysis in this section indicates that the two urban teachers
positioned themselves predominantly as implementers of the textbook and its resources.
This self-positioning related to their perceptions of a lack of rights, time constraints and
test orientation. Accordingly, for the most part, they followed the prescribed textbooks
closely. Other factors – student motivation, learning facilitation, and their own
investment in teaching - enabled them at times to self-reposition as adaptive
implementers. These factors were strong enough on occasion to over-ride the
dominance of the textbook and to enable them to make some agentive decisions that
they saw as benefitting their students and their own teaching.
6.6 Teaching Content
In relation to teaching content, the analysis showed that the teachers deliberately
positioned themselves as resisters to the development of speaking skills and chose to be
implementers of linguistic content. However, their self-positioning view toward the
speaking skills was reshaped when they took into account their students’
communicative competence expectations. This section discusses the teachers’ position
and reposition in relation to teaching content and the factors that impacted on them.
The two urban teachers’ self-positioning as resisters to the development of
speaking skills was evident from analysis of the interview and observational data. In the
urban context, the participant teachers were mandated to follow a teaching syllabus
transferred to them from the BOET, who did not elaborate on what teaching content was
to be emphasized. At school, when asked if their leaders imposed any further
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requirements or expectations on the teaching content, Tam and Thanh responded that
they were expected to follow the prescriptions without explicit clarifications on what
teaching content should be focussed. However, Tam reported that the school leaders
once told the group of English teachers that “content quantities were not as important as
its quality” (Tam, U-I-01). Therefore, Tam perceived that the school gave a way for the
school English teachers to make flexible decisions in what to teach provided that they
ensured the teaching quality. In interviews, Tam gave a clear-cut affirmation that she
chose to focus on “vocabulary”, “structures”, and “grammar” (Tam, U-I-02, U-I-04).
Tam’s typical statement was echoed in the following:
Of the four language skills, I decided to focus on the reading skill because it
contained many new words and structures that might be helpful for my students
to do the test. I ignored the speaking because it did not serve the test purpose.
(Tam, U-I-0)
Resembling Tam, Thanh tended to undervalue the speaking skills in her
practices despite her embracement of this language skill.
Although I don’t dare to leave out the speaking activity, I go through it very
quickly to make sure I have covered it. I prefer to focus on the review of the
structures and vocabulary. (Thanh, U-I-01)
The teachers’ statements suggest that their speaking’s avoidance was to shift the
time allocated for speaking to the linguistic content, which, as they believed, was
important for their students. The classroom observations supported this mutation. Table
6.7 summarises the content that both teachers prioritised across all four observed
lessons. As can be seen, all the language skills were oriented to vocabulary and phrases.
For speaking skills, Tam deliberately omitted the speaking section and replaced it with a
game on vocabulary. Thanh was observed to hurry through the speaking task. She
merely called a couple of students to speak aloud some simple sentences using the
vocabulary and structures from the previous tasks. For other language skills, much
emphasis was also placed on the vocabulary presentation and practices. In a writing
lesson, after a warm-up activity, Tam posed some guiding questions for her students to
respond. The class therewith generated a list of useful vocabulary and phrases to be
used for a short passage writing. Thanh’s approach was almost similar when she taught
the listening section. She asked her students to look at the pictures in the textbook and
generated the vocabulary or key phrases from this textbook activity. Thanh also seemed
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to underscore vocabulary pronunciation as she spent much time practicing with her
students on this language aspect.
The teachers’ statements and classroom evidence, therefore, suggest that the two
teachers focused on linguistic content rather than on the development of speaking skills.
Table 6.7
Urban Teachers’ Teaching Content Focus
Furt Task Content focus
her analysis Tam Thanh
of the Vocabulary, structure, grammar and Linguistics Linguistics
interviews pronunciation
identified Listening Key Key words/phrases
two key words/phrases
factors that Speaking Replace with Revise structures
shaped the games on and vocabulary
teachers’ vocabulary
resistance to
Reading Vocabulary, Vocabulary,
investing in
structures structures
developing
Writing Vocabulary, Vocabulary,
the
structures structures
students’
speaking skills - test orientation and time constraints. As for the former, it seemed that
both the participants were pressured with the test results, which washbacked their
teaching content orientation. In the school, the culminative test, according to Tam, was
used to “evaluate not only the students but also the teachers” (Tam, U-I-03). This
teacher further reflected:
Of course, I expect my students to receive good marks so that I am not criticised.
During the lessons, I try to reinforce my students with vocabulary, structures and
grammar. For speaking, I tend to go through it quickly because it is not for the
test. (Tam, U-I-03)
Like Tam, Thanh was also conscious of the test content as she commented:
I know that the test often contains a lot of vocabulary. Therefore, when I teach
my students, I am very mindful of helping them to remember vocabulary well.
(Thanh, U-I-02)
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Regarding the time constraints, Tam and Thanh perceived that they had to
wrestle with a large amount of teaching content. With the teaching time frame between
30 and 35 minutes was, to their perception, insufficient to complete the lesson.
Consequently, they had to make decisions on what content to focus more or less in
practice. As they sensed the speaking was not emphasised in the test, they tended to
ignore this language skill.
The reason I did not teach it [speaking] was that there is a lot of content
[vocabulary and structures] that I have to cover in a period. The large class size
also prevents me from letting my students speak in class because it is really
time-consuming. I was afraid that I couldn’t cover all the content well if I let
them speak. (Tam, U-I-0)
Because there are so many new words and structures, I avoid giving the students
opportunities to speak. Rather, I spend time doing the drills. (Thanh, U-I-02)
It appears that Thanh and Tam showed themselves to be test-oriented. As the
imposed curriculum was heavy with content, they decided to prioritise teaching items to
achieve pre-determined goals. In other words, these participants deliberately
disregarded the speaking skill and underscored linguistic knowledge for the testing
purposes instead. Their pedagogical decisions on the teaching content reflected that
once the policy prescriptions were brought into the classroom, the teachers themselves
made sense and reinterpreted them for their enactment. Their interpretation and
implementation, however, did not apparently reflect the policy intentions, which
focused more on speaking and listening for students’ communicative competence
development (see Section 5.4.2.2, Chapter 5). Rather, their interpretation seemed to be
governed by their personal expectations-test orientation and structural order-time
constraints.
As the interviews continued, however, the participant teachers repositioned
themselves as negotiators who wished to develop their students’ speaking skills in their
practice. In particular, it seemed that Tam and Thanh were cognisant of the needs to
foster their students’ speaking skills development. They both agreed that learning
foreign language learning should be accompanied with the speaking ability. They,
therefore, expressed their desires and intentions for this language skills as follows:
I really want my students to apply what they have learnt to real life. Above all, I
expect them to develop their speaking skill. My students should have the
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opportunity to talk about the familiar topics that they have learnt. With this kind
of practice, they would become confident. (Tam, U-I-01)
When I teach vocabulary, I expect my students not only to understand it but also
to practise it. I want them to produce their own language with their acquired
vocabulary in the end. (Thanh, U-I-03)
It appears from the above statements that the two urban teachers became
conscious of their students’ communicative competence which reshaped their initial
self-position as resisters of teaching the speaking skills. They tended to exhibit their
visionary teaching goal in which the speaking was included.
The analyses in this section described the teachers’ position and reposition in
relation to teaching content. The data show that, while they positioned themselves as
focusing on linguistic content because of their perceptions and priorities, they
reconstructed themselves as negotiators who wished to teach speaking skills. Their self-
repositioning occurred when they reconsidered their students’ needs and contextual
conditions. By navigating the position and making use of their rights, it could be
inferred that these teachers exercised their agency in response to the teaching content
policy.
6.7 Teaching Methods
The analysis identified two distinct positions in relation to teaching methods -
teachers as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities, and teachers as resisters
of child-friendly teaching activities. This section provides insight into these positions
and the different factors that impacted on them.
6.7.1 Teachers as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities
Analysis of the interview and observational data showed that the teachers
predominantly self-positioned as implementers of using child-friendly teaching
activities for their young students. In interviews, the two urban teachers perceived the
importance of English as a subject at school. Tam stated that the school leaders
considered English one of the key subjects to “bring about the school reputation” (Tam,
U-I-02). Thanh added that as the school strived to be “one of the leading examples in
English teaching and learning in the province” (Thanh, U-I-03). Therefore, they both
felt that their leaders were willing to support them with basic teaching facilities and
resources such as projectors, CD players, flashcards, and puppets for their teaching
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practices on request. In addition, they were frequently encouraged to make their daily
lessons interesting and child-friendly to cater to students’ needs.
Parental involvement also appeared to place pressures on these teachers to
activate their agency on investing their time and energy into teaching methods. In
interviews, Tam stated that the school enabled parents to communicate with the school
leaders through email. Therefore, parents would send their feedback on their children’s
learning progress to the school leaders who might then question the teachers for an
explanation. Tam commented that “parents seemed to be so powerful” (Tam, U-I-04).
Thanh narrated a story in which a parent took a photo of the lesson of a colleague in the
school and complained to the school leaders that the wrong content was being taught:
“the parent accused that colleague of being unqualified to teach his son” (Thanh, U-I-
03).
In such working context, Tam felt “very pressured and competitive” because she
had to strive for her good teaching quality (Tam, U-I-0). She further explained that she
aimed to “create a good professional reputation” among students, parents, and school
leaders (Tam, U-I-0). In her classroom practices, Tam revealed that she had used
various child-friendly activities.
I inspire my students with diverse activities that I have collected from different
sources. Thanks to these activities, my students can enjoy, interact and learn in a
relaxing environment. (Tam, U-I-0)
Like Tam, Thanh also aimed to achieve a good status in her workplace. She
reported that she was “aware of enhancing the teaching and learning quality in the
classroom” (Thanh, U-I-04). She further reflected:
I employ a wide range of activities such as role-play, games, singing, and groups
or pairs. I think these activities increase the quality of teaching and learning in
the class. (Thanh, U-I-04)
The teachers’ claims for their utilisation of child-friendly activities in their
practice were supported by the observational evidence. Table 6.8 summarises the
frequency with which both teachers employed child-friendly activities in all four
observed lessons. Tam tended to start her lessons with a small game to review the
previous lesson’s vocabulary. Her students seemed to be accustomed to this activity
because she did not need to explain the rule to them. During the lesson, she was seen to
employ some games (i.e., slapping board, hot seat, guessing) to cheer up the students
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and reinforce what they had learnt. In addition, group work and pair work were seen to
frequently employed in her classes. Similarly, Thanh set forth her class with a song as a
warm-up activity. The song, which seemed to be downloaded from YouTube, was lively
with lots of physical movements. She asked all her students to stand up, sing and mimic
the movement in the video clip. In addition, she was also observed to use pair work
frequently, allowing two students seated near each other to work together for almost
every classroom activity. Noticeably, in a situation that introduced new structures, she
created a context and let her students act on it. This activity seemed to work well
because her students appeared to be engaged in the activity. These observations show
that the teachers incorporated child-friendly activities in the class.
Table 6.8
Urban Teachers’ Child-friendly Strategies
Activity Frequency Arrangement
Tam Thanh Tam Thanh

Songs 10 12 Before /during/after the Before/after the lesson
lesson
Games 12 9 All lessons All lessons
Group work 15 10 All lessons All lessons
Pair work 11 15 All lessons All lessons
Role-plays - 2 - Pronunciation, writing
Others 2 - Drawing/colouring -
pictures – writing,
vocabulary
Further analysis of the subsequent interviews revealed that the teachers
positioned themselves as implementers of child-friendly activities due to their students’
motivations, their own passion, and professional development benefits, which are to be
explained in turn.
First, the participant teachers showed that they acted for their students’ needs.
Tam seemed to be put herself in her students’ shoes when she expressed her personal
views towards teaching English to primary students. She considered her students as
small children who loved playing rather than genuinely learning the language. She
observed that the students became more excited and more active with her use of child-
friendly techniques. She felt as if her students were always waiting for her lessons to
“have a chance to play, sing, and dance” because they did not have such good playing
time in other general subjects (Tam, U-I-02). If her teaching was like lecturing, the
students would easily lose their attention. She explained:
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I know my students well. They are small children and get bored easily. Their
faces look unhappy if they are required to look at the textbook all the time.
(Tam, U-I-03)
Similar to Tam, Thanh perceived herself as a teacher of children. She
commented that her children were “both naughty and disobedient” (Thanh, U-I-01) and
they easily lost their concentration in the class. She also believed that an effective
teacher should know how to cater to students’ needs.
My students really love role-playing, even the shy ones. Therefore, I often
choose some students to do the role-play to brighten up the class. (Thanh, U-I-
04)
In practice, Thanh and Tam stated that they enriched their child-friendly
activities by resorting to different sources, including websites, peer observations,
teachers’ guides, professional workshops, and even their personal talents. Thanh, for
instance, stated that she frequently used her singing and chanting skills to “help my
students reinforce their vocabulary” (Thanh, U-I-04). She also referred to teachers’
guide material as a useful source for classroom activities. Similarly, Tam observed her
colleagues and learnt from them practical teaching techniques. She then adjusted them
to suit her students. In addition, she tended to use her drawing alibility to arouse her
students’ curiosity: “I can draw some separate parts of an animal or object on the board
and then ask my students to guess what they are” (Tam, U-I-03).
It appears from the above evidence that the teachers’ self-positioning as
implementers of using child-friendly activities derived from their perceptions of being
the teachers of children. Placing themselves in the children world, these teachers
seemed to be aware of their students’ needs and expectations. With the school support
and encouragement, they constantly employed different activities for their classroom
practices, which reflected their sense of responsibilities to act for their children’s
benefits.
Second, the teachers’ passion and inner desires seemed to strongly motivate
them to be implementers of child-friendly activities. Thanh perceived herself as a risk-
taker and creative teacher. She told one of her teaching experiences that brought out her
success and reputation among the regional teacher community. As she observed that
many of her colleagues found it challenging to teach a section on pronunciation, she
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decided to challenge herself by voluntarily presenting a demonstration on this language
aspect in the school. In interview, she reflected how she had prepared for the lesson:
I had studied different teaching materials and considered how these materials
suggest teaching pronunciation and I had learned a lot from them. I had also
tried out some techniques that I thought would be good for my students and
reflected on them (…) I was able to combine different techniques to teach my
students pronunciation: singing, reciting poems, games and chanting. (Thanh, U-
I-03)
Her lesson was so impressive that she was selected to give a demonstration to
other provincial English primary teachers in a series of professional workshops
organised by DOET. She commented that her risk-taking and bravery were finally paid
off. She was now well-known and confident with this language aspect.
The other teacher, Tam was engrossed in teaching vocabulary and language
structures with which she became conscious of the lesson preparation:
I spend time thinking of ways of making the lesson interesting and engage my
students. I believe that vocabulary should be taught in context. Therefore, I have
to create contexts for my students. As these contexts must be meaningful enough
to arouse my students’ interests, I devote a lot of my time to initiating the ideas.
I also employ games to maintain their attention. (Tam, U-I-01)
Tam further reflected that without her passion, she probably felt weary with
overloaded teaching content, which might undermine her teaching devotion. Despite her
tight working schedule both at school and at private language center (see Section 6.3 for
the participant information), she still aimed to spend time investing into the exploitation
of activities for her students.
It seems that the teachers’ inner compulsion could spur their agentic capacities.
Thanh bravely came out of her comfort zone by challenging herself to teach the section
which her colleagues did not expect to cover. With her passion, she became creative and
devoted to seeking activities from different sources for the lesson. Similarly, with
passion, Tam overcame her personal constraints to make her lessons meaningful to her
students.
The interview analysis also revealed another component that possibly
contributed to their exercise of agency- teacher professional development. It seemed
that both Tam and Thanh had opportunities to access many PD activities offered by
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DOET. Tam, in particular, expressed that she herself felt lucky to have participated in a
number of professional development workshops offered by different providers such as
DOET, and other commercial educational providers. She stated:
These opportunities [professional development workshops] made me familiar
with English primary teaching and develop my self-confidence on how to work
with primary students and how to design a good lesson for them. (Tam, U-I-03)
Thanh expressed that she had gained much professional knowledge and teaching
skills from these PD opportunities and “I think I am confident enough with dealing
different teaching tasks” (Thanh, U-I-03). However, Thanh still expressed her desire for
more PD activities:
I believe that PD is important for me. It is never enough. If I don’t regularly
refresh my knowledge and skills, they will become outdated. I expect to
maintain my continuous PD activities. (Thanh, U-I-04)
The discussion so far has been about teachers’ self-positioning as implementers
of child-friendly teaching activities. In this first-order position, the participant teachers
appear to interact with different moral orders- school, themselves, and students.
However, these moral orders seem to be in harmony rather than in conflict. On one
hand, the teachers acted as conformists to the school expectations- to use child-friendly
activities to make the lesson interesting and meaningful to primary students. One the
other hand, their inner desires and teaching image as English teachers of the children
were also catered. Therefore, it could be stated that the teachers’ moral positioning was
convergent with their personal values. With this harmony, these teachers seem to
exercise their agency in a positive manner, which give them opportunities to
demonstrate their capacities, devotions, knowledge and skills without much constraint.
It is also noted that in this self-position, the two urban teachers acknowledged the
benefits that they gained from PD activities, which laid a firm foundation for them to
enact their agentic power effectively.
However, the interviews with the teachers also revealed some factors that may
threaten the teachers’ position as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities
which included school colleagues and parental pressures. Regarding the former, Tam
felt that her school colleagues did not want to share their experience with her. She
narrated an experience when she approached one of the colleagues when this person
returned from a professional development workshop: “She [her colleague] did not want
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to share her gained knowledge and skills. She said that she did not gain anything from
the workshop and had nothing to share with me. However, I was sure that she must have
kept the skills for her own” (Tam, U-I-0). Thanh was also concerned about the
colleagues. She revealed that “within the school community, if someone was
outstanding, she or he could be hated by others” (Thanh, U-I-02).
In addition, while parental pressures may encourage the teachers’ agency in the
way they devoted to the lesson, this factor also constrained their employment of child-
friendly teaching activities in a free manner. For example, Tam expressed that she
aimed to cater to the parents’ needs by “making the class interesting” despite her
unwillingness (Tam, U-I-02). Similarly, Thanh employed child-friendly activities in the
class to “avoid possible problems with parents” (Thanh, U-I-03). Their acts revealed
that they performed their moral positioning to please the parents’ expectations and for
problem avoidance rather than for their personal positioning which came from their own
needs.
Thus far, the discussion in the section shows that despite their positive agency
manifested in the first-order positioning as implementers of child-friendly teaching
activities, this position is subject to be repositioned. Further evidence on the teachers’
position navigation is to be presented in the following section.
6.7.2 Teachers as resisters of child-friendly teaching activities
Further analysis of the interview showed that the participant teachers, at times,
repositioned themselves as resisters in using child-friendly activities in their practices.
Their repositioning was attributed to different factors- teachers’ exhaustion, students,
physical classroom settings, and class size.
First, Tam and Thanh both narrated that their exhaustion possibly deterred them
from using child-friendly activities in the classroom contexts. The weariness might
come from different sources: overloaded teaching work, part-time work, low salary, and
job insecurity. For instance, Tam reported that she had, on average, 22 teaching periods
a week without adding up other additional tasks assigned from the school leaders such
as a road safeguard for school students or an acolyte for some school events. In some
occasion, she was asked to look after the students during the lunch time, which had no
relation to English teaching. Therefore, she conceded that she felt lack of energy,
especially when she had to cope with her mixed and crowded classes.
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Sometimes I feel exhausted and I just let the class go on in a disciplined manner.
I do not want to have interactive activities because I don’t have sufficient energy
to enthuse them. (Tam, U-I-03)
Tam also admitted that as her current salary was insufficient to cover her life,
she was concomitantly undertaking a teaching position for a private language center
after the school hours. As a result, she felt she did not have time and energy for creative
teaching despite her interests because “creativity takes time” (Tam, U-I-02).
Akin to Tam, Thanh shouldered a heavy teaching workload with 23 teaching
periods a week, which, to her perception, was impossible to conduct child-friendly
activities all the time. Thanh divulged that she had once suffered from depression as an
effect of her long-lasting overwork and stress. She then felt uncomfortable of using
games in her practices because of their chaos and hubbub.
I felt tired and I did not have enough energy to manage the class well. When the
game activities were over, I lost my voice in putting the class under control.
(Thanh, U-I-04)
In addition, Thanh was concerned about her job stability, which was likely to
undermine her working enthusiasm and devotion “I felt that I was an outcast at the
school” (Thanh, U-I-01).
Second, students’ characteristics possibly impacted the teachers’ employment of
child-friendly activities.
Some are so active while some are so silent. Some are so keen while some are
not. Some receive good care from the family while some are ignored. (Tam, U-
OI)
Some students are so stubborn and uncooperative. They don’t want to learn
English. (Thanh, U-I-0)
The teachers’ statements characterise their current teaching conditions in
relation to the selection of teaching methods. They other-position their students as those
with mixed abilities. In this situation, they decided to diversify their teaching
techniques, believing that their pedagogical decisions would cater to their students’
various capacities and needs. As Tam elaborated: “I had to do it that way [not use
communicative activities] because in this class many students did not like the writing.
They did not remember vocabulary and structures” (Tam, U-I-04). Similarly, Thanh
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commented: “With the mixed class, I have to make sure that even the weakest students
can understand” (Thanh, U-I-02). She further elaborated:
In fact, there are many teaching methods or techniques available. Therefore,
which ones should be employed depends on the students so that even the bad
ones can understand. (Thanh, U-I-04)
From the teachers’ accounts, it can be inferred that the two urban teachers were
arguing for the employment of other teaching techniques beyond the child-friendly
activities. In other words, they became conflicted with their first-order self-position as
the teachers of using child-friendly activities in practices and repositioned themselves as
resisters in relation to their employment of these teaching activities.
Third, class size and physical classroom settings were another constrained
factor. Currently, Tam and Thanh had to teach in big classes with 40-50 students, which
caused them much difficulty in implementing child-friendly activities. Therefore, these
teachers asked for the right to teach in smaller classes:
We also complained about the problem [crowded classes] to the school leaders.
They told us that it was a common issue for every school [including theirs].
Therefore, we had to accept the reality and find solutions for it. We were really
disappointed. (Tam, U-I-03)
In addition, physical classroom setting was another potential obstacle to the
implementation of these kinds of activities.
The English class, which is shared with other subjects such as Mathematics and
Literature, is arranged in rows. If I want to implement team work, I have to ask
my students to move their seats. This kind of work is time-consuming and
chaotic. (Thanh, U-I-04)
I sometimes have to give up on my idea for a group activity. You see, the space
is limited and the children are always excited and careless. What happens if one
of them accidentally stumbles and falls on the floor?. (Tam, U-I-03)
These comments indicate that the teachers decided to employ non-child friendly
activities instead to save time and keep better control over the class. The classroom
observations further supported this repositioning act. During the four classroom
observations, these teachers were noted to employ different traditional teaching
techniques rather than child-friendly ones. For example, when introducing new words,
Tam spoke them aloud as a model and the whole class repeated them after her several
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times. She translated whenever she felt her students did not understand the content. Tam
also often used reading in silence. The students were asked to read the textbook silently
and underline all the words or phrases that they did not understand before she explained
them. This activity kept the class quiet and highly focused. Similarly, Thanh’s typical
activities were translation, repetition and memorisation. In a lesson on structures, she
asked the whole class to read aloud in chorus the dialogue in the textbook. She then
picked out the targeted structures in the dialogue and asked her students to repeat them.
Afterwards, she translated these structures into Vietnamese and asked her students to
memorise them. The students were then required to write these models in their
notebooks. Thus the evidence shows that Tam and Thanh utilised a variety of non-child-
friendly activities, as well as child-friendly ones, in their practice
The analysis in this section has portrayed the teachers’ positions in relation to
teaching methods: as implementers, and resisters. In the first order self-position as
implementers, the teachers’ positions seemed to be strongly shaped by parental and
school expectations. In this first-order position, they sought to implement the mandates
of the local moral order. At times, however, they challenged their position as
implementers and self-repositioned as resisters of using child-friendly activities. By
stepping out of their zone of enactment, the teachers demonstrated their agentic power
to act for their goals by making their own pedagogical choices.
6.8 Assessments
Analysis of the data pool showed that the participants self-positioned as strong
implementers of formative assessment and as negotiators of summative assessment.
This section presents these two positions and the factors that impacted on them.
Analysis of the interview and observational data generated strong evidence that
the teachers positioned themselves as implementers of formative assessment. Akin to
other districts, the urban teachers were required to implement Circular 30 as the form of
formative assessment without detailed clarification from the BOET. Therefore, Tam and
Thanh had to make sense of the formative mandates by themselves. In interviews, they
perceived their duty of both writing students’ progress reports and giving oral feedback
as the way they responded to the mandates. In addition, these two teachers seemed
enthusiastic with their use of formative techniques. Their perceptions of formative
assessment were revealed in these excerpts:
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In every lesson that I teach, I always monitor my students’ learning progress by
looking at their memorisation, application and communication. I take a few
notes about the students who I think need help. (Tam, U-I-03)
I always keep in mind that I should pay attention to the weak students. I try to
involve them in every lesson. If they do well, I ask the class to clap hands as
praise. And they become more confident with my words of encouragement.
(Thanh, U-I-01)
In addition, Tam stated that she felt “inspired to motivate the students” (Tam, U-
I-03) as she was demanding and perfectionist. Likewise, Thanh blissfully narrated one
of her formative initiations and believed that it was her creativity. She divided the class
into smaller groups and assigned a leader to each group, who acted on her behalf to
“observe and comment on the group members” (Thanh, U-I-02).
The classroom observations further supported the teachers’ position as
implementers of formative assessment in their practice. Table 6.9 summarises the
formative assessment techniques that they used across the four observed lessons. Tam
regularly used encouraging words with her students, such as “You are nearly correct,
nearly correct,” “Well done,” “Very good,” “Clap hands,” or “Hi-five”. She also used
peer techniques, including peer corrections and comments as a form of formative
assessment. For example, if one student pronounced a new word incorrectly, she called
on another student to say it correctly. Her students seemed to be familiar with this
activity as they could do it without any further explanation from the teacher. Similar to
Tam, Thanh also used divergent formative techniques to encourage and monitor her
students’ progress. Her typical actions included peer comments, or words of praise and
encouragement. She also seemed to be open to her students’ responses regardless of
whether they were right or wrong. When she encountered an incorrect answer, she
helped the student to self-correct the error. Her solutions seemed to work well because it
created a safe learning environment for her students to express their ideas. Tam’s and
Thanh’s actions indicated that they sensed their duty to the mandate for formative
assessment in their daily classroom practices.
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Table 6.9
Urban Teachers’ Formative Assessment Strategies
Activity Tam Thanh
Encouraging comments x x
Peer corrections/comments x x
Students’ self-assessments x -
Teachers’ observations/monitoring x x
Further analysis of the interview data showed that the teachers’ self-position as
implementers of formative assessment was due to their training support and their
perceived benefits to students. In relation to the former- training support, the two urban
teachers had participated in a PD session offered by one of the private commercial
publishers, who had a close relation with the school. The workshop was organised at the
school, which enabled Tam and Thanh to gain some hands-on strategies on formative
assessment for their teaching practice. For example, Tam commented:
Through the training workshops held in my school, I have gained some insight
into using formative assessment in my teaching. (Tam, U-I-04)
Similarly, Thanh revealed that she would benefit from PD activities that she had
opportunities to participate in.
We were lucky to attend the workshops on how to conduct assessments in the
light of Circular 30. Thanks to these workshops, we could grasp some practical
techniques through demonstrations. (Thanh, U-I-0)
It appears that the teachers’ training experience provided them with practical
knowledge to make sense of the formative assessment mandates as not only in a written
form but also in oral feedback. Their interpretation seemed to be different as opposed to
the rural and island counterparts.
As for the latter factor- students’ benefits, both Tam and Thanh demonstrated
that they acted for their students’ sake. Tam seemed to be devoted to her students’
progress monitoring when she had a notebook to note down the students that possibly
needed more assistance. Thanh stated that she was always keeping an eye on weak
students and gave them timely comments as a way to encourage them. Overall, these
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participants well perceived the usefulness of their formative technique employment for
their students as follows.
When I implemented these techniques [formative assessments], I found my
students were more active, empowered and excited. The students also became
more responsible for their learning. (Tam, U-I-0)
When I kept encouraging the students, I could see that they became more
confident and responsible. They also became more engaged in the lesson.
(Thanh, U-I-03)
Nonetheless, as the discussion continued, the teachers shared their concerns that
potentially threatened their self-position as executers of formative assessment mandates.
In their perception, the crowded class was a hindrance that deferred them to distribute
the oral feedbacks to all the students equally. Thanh reflected:
Class size is a typical problem in my school. I expect there should be fewer than
20 students in a class. More than 40 students makes it hard for me to keep track
of them all. (Thanh, U-I-04)
Akin to Thanh, Tam was also concerned about the big class:
It is impossible for me to give proper attention to all the students in such a big
class. I know many weak students who don’t receive support from me. (Tam, U-
I-03)
These teachers further indicated that the crowded class size made them worn out
when they were required to write a big volume of paper work. Tam reported:
I felt really overwhelmed with the report documents. Frankly speaking, I was
worn out with a big pile of documents that I had to write comments on. (Tam, U-
I-02)
Thanh stated that it was difficult for her to recall all the students that she was
currently teaching. Therefore, she tended to give general comments on their progress for
the safety. She reflected:
It was really hard for me to give accurate evaluations on all the students. I
couldn’t remember their faces and their names if they made no special
impression on me. Many students shared the same name, which confused me.
Therefore, for safety, I just gave the evaluations in a general way. (Thanh, U-I-
04)
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These excerpts illustrate the challenges teachers encountered when they
implemented formative techniques in the classroom. In this situation, the teachers’
agency was contingent on the interaction between their perceived self-position in
relation to their rights and duties and their imposed self-position as those who had to
conduct formative assessments under less-than-ideal conditions. On one hand, Tam and
Thanh made agentic efforts to perform their duty. On the other hand, they voiced their
rights in relation to class size and workload.
As for summative assessment, like other teachers in the province, the urban
teachers were mandated to follow the test format transferred to them by BOET.
However, in the region, BOET was responsible for finalising the test. The teachers like
Tam and Thanh were expected to develop the test in conformity to the test format and
sent their test to BOET, who was responsible to developing the term test given on the
test bank sent from all the primary schools in the district. While the participant teachers
reported that they implemented the mandates, they appeared to challenge this position
and re-positioned themselves as negotiators for the testing. The imposed self-position
was reflected in the interviews:
The district BOET is responsible for compiling the test. The test is then
delivered to every school in the area. (Tam, U-I-02)
According to regulations, the students have to do the test at the end of the
semester. Each school will develop suggested tests and send them to the BOET
office. This body will then use them as the test bank and produce an official test
for the whole region. (Thanh, U-I-0)
It could be surmised from this that the teachers’ constructed responsibility was
to implement the imposed mandate - that is, the summative test. A closer look at the
sample test (see Appendix C1), however, indicated that the teachers did not blindly
follow the mandate. The test had three parts. Part 1 concerned listening, with five
subsections. Part 2 concerned reading comprehension, with two subsections. Part 3
covered writing, with two subsections. The speaking section was covered in Part IV. In
interview, Thanh and Tam expressed critical opinions about the current test:
I was not happy that the test only focused on reading and vocabulary. It was said
that students would have the opportunity to demonstrate their communicative
competence, but the test did not test all speaking sections because of time and
student population. (Tam, U-I-0)
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As parents don’t see their children’s daily learning, they don’t know how their
children actually learn in the class. What they care about is their children’s test
results. If the students get good marks, their parents are happy, without knowing
whether the results genuinely reflected the children’s abilities. (Thanh, U-I-03)
These excerpts show that the teachers demonstrated critical–evaluative skills in
relation to the obligations. Tam was concerned about the reliability of the test, as she
believed that the results may not accurately reflect her students’ language competence.
In her view, speaking was undervalued. They only had opportunities to cover Section 1
and 3 because of time constraints and large student population. Similarly, Thanh
believed that students’ learning should be seen as a process rather than a product. As a
result, these teachers proposed their own solutions:
The test should be communicative, comprising four language skills. Currently, it
seems that the test focuses a lot on vocabulary. Every section is on vocabulary.
(Tam, U-I-0)
Assessment should be ongoing and continuous. It is a process. It is the teachers
who know the students’ progress the best. (Thanh, U-I-03)
These reflections demonstrated the teachers’ agentic power. They did not
passively follow the imposed obligations but were able to reason and negotiate the
mandate to comply with their contextual conditions and their own expectations.
This section has explored the two teachers’ positions in relation to assessment
policy - teachers as implementers and teachers as negotiators. In the first order position
as implementers, the teachers responded to the mandate - to implement both kinds of
assessment (formative and summative). When they took some contextual variables into
account, however, they began to question the authenticity of the first order position. As
a result, they navigated their position as negotiators within their own agenda to suit their
expectations. Through this navigation, the teachers demonstrated their agentic capacity.
6.9 Summary
This chapter has described and analysed the two urban teachers’ responses to the
four language policy components. Two data sources (i.e., interviews and classroom
observations) were used for the analysis. The findings provide some nuanced
understandings of the teachers’ agentic power in the urban context. The participants
adopted different positions that allowed them to navigate under particular conditions.
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They exercised their agentic power through the ways in which they thought, negotiated
and acted for their pedagogical aims.
Since agency is contextually bound, it is necessary to explore how teachers in
other contexts performed their positioning acts and demonstrated their agentic power.
Chapter 7 presents findings from the case study of rural teachers.
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Chapter 7
Rural Teachers’ Responses
7.1 Introduction
This chapter presents findings from analysis of the two rural teachers’ responses
towards the language policy, using the framework of positioning theory. The four
components drawn from the policy documents (see Chapter 5) are used as the
organising principle in the discussion of how the participants translated the language
policy in the classroom context. The chapter begins with an overview of the research
site, participants and sources of data. The key findings are discussed under the four
categories of the language policy.
The research site was a primary school, An Dong, located in a rural district
about 20 kilometers from the city centre. On average, it took about 30 minutes to the
city by motorbike, a popular means of transport in the region. My first impression of the
school was that it occupied a spacious area in a peaceful village. The school consisted of
three old one-storey buildings making a U-shape with a big yard in the middle. At the
time of the visits, another new three-story building was under construction. An Dong
primary school had a total of 28 classrooms with more than 750 students. All of the
students came from nearby villages, where their parents were farmers or factory
workers. There were 61 teachers working in the school.
The school started to incorporate English into the mainstream curriculum in
2011-2012. On certain days, English was taught as an elective subject with two teaching
periods a week from Grade 3 (i.e., 70 teaching hours a semester). At that time, there was
only one English teacher responsible for the whole school. From the advent of the
NFLP 2020, English was introduced to Grade 3 students with four teaching periods a
week. The school recruited three more English teachers. Despite its involvement in the
NFLP 2020 for nearly a decade, the resources for English learning and teaching at the
school were still limited. The principal commented in interview:
Overall, we are still in poor condition. We are short of classrooms. According to
the regulation, each class should accommodate 30-35 students. However, due to
the shortage, we have to place 40-45 students in each class. We have no
infrastructure to support English teaching and learning, especially teaching
facilities and resources. And there are no specially designed classes for English
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learning. Instead, English teachers have to share with the general subject ones,
which, I know, is an obstacle.
As suggested, the current English teaching in the school was constrained by its
critical lack of teaching facilities and resources. English teachers had to teach in large
classes because of the shortages of classrooms. They also had to share their classroom
with general subject teachers. My observations indicated that all the classrooms were
basically furnished. Each classroom had two rows of desks facing the board and each
desk was shared by four students. There was a spacious aisle between them. Although
the rooms were large, they were bare of resources, except for some fans on the walls
and two big shelves at the back where students could place their notebooks for teachers
to mark or comment on. Only a few rooms (eight, according to the principal) were
equipped with a projector.
Regarding professional development (PD), the principal stated that the school
did not have a budget for this component. Rather, they relied on DOET and BOETs for
their teachers’ professional development opportunities. Unlike the urban school, An
Dong school did not have any collaborations with commercial publishers or local
educational providers. Therefore, opportunities for teachers’ career advancement were
limited. Yet, the principal responded that the school strongly encouraged their teachers
to seek PD opportunities for themselves. If they were offered an opportunity, the school
was able to rearrange the teaching work for their participation.
During my fieldwork, I observed two noticeable aspects in relation to the
school’s system for managing English lessons. First, the participant teachers had to
submit their lesson plans to the principal for his consideration one week in advance.
Once the principal had approved the plans, they could follow them. This point surprised
me, especially when the participants disclosed that the principal did not major in
English. Second, the school leaders might pass along the classroom corridor
unexpectedly during the class hours. Their purposes were to either inspect the teachers’
teaching practices or get a sense how the class was proceeding.
7.3 Participants
Two English teachers, Lan and Loc, agreed to participate in the study. Lan was
41 years old at the time. She lived in the metropolitan area and traveled to work every
day by motorbike. Lan graduated in English from a teacher training college in 1997.
Following graduation, she started her career as a junior high school teacher, teaching
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English to Grade 6-9 students. Therefore, Lan was familiar with teaching English to
adolescents. When English was introduced at the primary level, however, there was an
acute shortage of teachers in many primary schools., Lan decided to change her position
and from 2012 she had worked as an English primary teacher. She had taught English to
different grade levels (3, 4 and 5) and could therefore be assumed to be familiar with the
implementation of the language policy. Lan was assigned 23 teaching periods a week
but stated in interview that she ran some extra classes at home after school. She
explained that this was because her current salary was not enough to support her family.
Although she already had a permanent teaching position in the school, Lan revealed that
she was thinking of relocating to a school which was nearer to her home. Regarding her
professional advancement, Lan reported that she had participated in a number of
professional training workshops by DOET to gain teaching skills at the primary level.
She believed that she had grasped the basic principles of teaching English as a foreign
language to primary students. Lan had also achieved a CEFR level of B1 as her
language proficiency level, which was the minimum requirement for a primary teacher.
The other teacher, Loc, was 38 years old. She lived quite close to the school.
Formerly a sportswoman, she had changed career, taking up a teaching position at the
primary school, because she was looking for a stable, lifetime occupation. To meet the
requirements in terms of qualifications and language competence, Loc enrolled in a
part-time undergraduate course in English education offered by a university. After
graduation, she was employed to teach English to Grade 4 and 5 students. Loc was
assigned 21 teaching periods a week. Loc stated that she was still working on a yearly
contract. She was expecting to have opportunities to become a permanent teacher in the
school. She revealed that she enjoyed working as an English primary teacher because
she loved small children. Like Lan, she also held some extra classes at home to
supplement her income. As a mother of two adolescents, she needed additional income
to support her family. During her teaching life, Loc had participated in a number of
professional training workshops run by MOET and DOET. She was quite well-known
among other teachers in the region because she was regularly selected to give teaching
demonstrations. Loc had achieved a B2 level certificate in English language
proficiency. Table 7.1 summarises the socio-demographic characteristics of these two
participants.
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Table 7.1
Demographic Characteristics of the Participants
Characteristic Participants
Lan Loc
Gender Female Female
Age 41 38
Teaching experience More than 15 years More than 5 years
Grades 3, 4 and 5 4 and 5
Textbooks English 3, 4, 5 English 4, 5
Qualifications Bachelor Bachelor
PD participation Some Some
Language proficiency B1 B2

The data sources for the analysis presented in this chapter included interviews,
classroom observations, field notes and artefacts; interviews were the main source. Data
collection took place between 25 October 2015 and 30 November 2015. The interviews
are labelled R-I-0, R-I-01, R-I-02, R-I-03, and R-I-04 (R-I=rural interview). Table 7.2
summarises information about the type, dates, number, and duration of the interviews.
Table 7.2
DATA
Interview type ID Date Length
(min)
Overall interview R-I-0 25/10/ 2015 102
Interview 1 R-I-01 30/10/2015 30
Lan Interview 2 R-I-02 06/11/2015 60
Interview 3 R-I-03 13/11/2015 45
Interview 4 R-I-04 29/ 11 / 2015 40
Overall interview R-I-0 28/10/2015 120
Interview 1 R-I-01 07/11/2015 35
Loc Interview 2 R-I-02 12/11/2015 45
Interview 3 R-I-03 21/11/2015 40
Interview 4 R-I-04 27/11/2015 30
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The data analysis followed the procedures described in Chapter 4. The key
findings are summarised in Table 7.3. As can be seen, the participants positioned
themselves in diverse ways in response to the four components of the language policy.
Each positioning act was determined by a number of related factors.
Table 7.3
Implementers Standard guide
Administrative purposes
Textbook and Textbook coherence
resource use Adapters Students’ motivations
Time/Money/Surveillance
Textbook change
Strugglers
Insufficient professional support
Implementers Belief in obligations
Training experience
Teaching content
Negotiators Class size
Time allocation
Implementers Students’ motivations
Teachers’ aspirations
Resisters Students’ outcomes
Past experience
Teaching methods Self-efficacy
Strugglers Insufficient professional support
Time constraints
Implementers Obligations
Assessments Teachers’ workloads
Negotiators Teachers’ preferences
In the sections that follow, these categories and sub-categories are discussed in
detail.
7.5 Textbook and Resource Use
Data analysis identified three teacher positions - textbook implementers, adapters, and
strugglers. These positions and the factors influencing them are elaborated below.
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Lan and Loc were currently using textbook series, Tieng Anh 3,4, 5 (English
3,4,5) published by the body that belonged to MOET. These textbooks were decided by
BOET for all the schools in the region to ensure the uniformity of the curriculum
program. At the school, the BOET-recommended textbook was considered to be the
official teaching material. In relation to the textbook use, the interview and
observational data showed that these participant teachers predominantly self-positioned
as textbook implementers. The comments below typify the stance on the textbook that
dominated their approaches:
In the class, I always ask my students to interact with the textbook. If I find
someone does not follow the instruction when I go around the class, I will
punish them. I have to do this to make my students concentrate more on the
lesson. As primary children, they easily lose attention. By asking them to use
their fingers to point at the textbook, I solve the problem of loss of attention.
(Lan, R-I-03)
I can’t give up the textbook. Rather, I have to convey everything in this material.
For me, teaching from the textbook is the priority. (Loc, R-I-0)
These comments signal that the teachers located themselves in the moral order
of the BOET and the school via a close implementation of the textbook and the
classroom observations supported this claim (see Table 7.4). In all four observed
lessons, both teachers approached the textbooks as compulsory guides. Their
implementation of the textbook began immediately after one or two warm-up activities.
Lan appeared to adopt a strict, almost rigid, approach with her students on their
interaction with the textbook. She frequently directed them to look at a specified page of
the book. Her constant phrases included “open the book”, “look at the pictures in the
book”, or “look and repeat”. After each imperative, Lan cast her eyes around the class to
ensure that all the students followed her instructions. When she caught sight of any
students who had not yet opened the book, she called their names aloud and required
them to follow her directions immediately. She then started to cover every lesson task as
prescribed in the textbook.
Similarly, Loc began her lesson with expressions such as “today we learn…”.
She then asked her students to open the book and read the task in chorus. After
appearing satisfied that all her students were looking at the textbook, she started the
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lesson. Her lesson continued exactly as outlined in the textbook sequence.
Consequently, both Loc and her students interacted very closely with the textbook
material. Overwhelmingly, these teachers were consistently observed to follow the task
sequence, convey all the textbook content, and complete the tasks. As outlined in Table
7.4, Lan and Loc’s predominant reliance on the textbook resulted in a pattern of four
major sets of behavior which dominated their classroom interaction.
Table 7.4
Rural Teachers’ Reliance on the Textbook
Activity Teachers
Lan Loc
Ask students to look at the textbook on x x
specified pages
Use the textbook content x x
Use the resources available in the textbook x x
The analysis of the interview data asserted that the teachers’ self-positioning as
textbook implementers was strongly located in their perception of it as the standard and
compulsory curriculum guide, and as a tool for administrative purposes. In relation to
the former, Loc commented:
One reason was, when I attended the training sessions with one of the textbook
writers, he did not leave out any sections. Therefore, I assumed that I was not
allowed to leave them out either. Another reason was, when I observed some
standard teaching demontrations from other colleagues in the region, they also
taught everything in the textbook. That was why I assumed that this way of
teaching was standard and that I should follow it. (Loc, R-I-02)
Similarly, Lan stated:
As the textbook was given to me for teaching, I assumed that I had no right to
change but stick to it. (Lan, R-I-04)
It appears that Lan and Loc sensed it as their duty to follow the textbook from a
cultural norm shared among the teacher community- textbook as a standard teaching
material. Loc’s perception of her position as textbook implementer was based on her
professional experience in the training sessions with the textbook’s author and
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colleagues’ observations. She stated that there was no need to question what the
textbook author provided during the professional workshops because “he was the one
who wrote the material” (Loc, R-I-02). Rather, she assumed that her duty was to
“follow it” (Loc, R-I-01). Lan too believed that teaching from the textbook was
essential. In her view, textbook activities and resources were authoritative because they
were “varied,” “purposeful,” and “clear”. As a teacher, her duty was to use them and to
“ensure the students grasp the textbook content” (Lan, R-I-0).
The two teachers also explained their use of the textbook in relation to its
administrative function, presenting it as a tool that was used to control and standardise
their teaching. As they observed:
I am afraid that the inspectors may comment if I teach differently from the
textbooks. They [inspectors] definitely tell me to cover all the textbook content
first. For example, if they see me using different pictures, they might ask me if I
have completed all the material in the textbook. You know, as many inspectors
have not majored in English, they are quite strict and rigid. In that case, I should
follow their suggestions. (Lan, R-I-02)
As I said before, the textbook is considered standard. When I am observed, I
have to follow this standard material. I might be evaluated as unsatisfactory if I
don’t do that. The inspectors may see me as violating the regulations if I do
something differently or leave out the teaching content. (Loc, R-I-02)
These statements suggest that the institutional and legal moral orders further
framed the teachers’ actions in relation to textbook use. As far as the inspectors were
concerned, Lan remarked that “there was no use arguing with them” (Lan, R-I-0), and
thus, she preferred to avoid conflict and to follow their advice, even though she believed
they only had a vague understanding of what she was doing. Like Lan, Loc aimed to
stay “safe” from the inspectors by following the regulations.
I keep teaching everything in the textbook. I don’t dare to change anything.
What I am required to do, I will obey. I don’t think I have the right to leave out
any content in the lesson. (Lan, R-I-04)
In my view, I am not allowed to omit anything. As far as I am concerned, the
regulation applies to other subjects as well. I think that, as this textbook is given
to us by the MOET, we, as teachers, have to implement it. (Loc, R-I-02)
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Hence, under what they saw as a rigid bureaucratic surveillance of their
teaching, these teachers aligned their understandings of their duties with the values of
the local moral order.
This section has illustrated the teachers’ primary self-positioning as textbook
implementers. Both Loc and Lan mainly adopted a position of faithfully following the
textbook, both in what they stated in their interviews and what they practised in their
classrooms. Their perception of the textbook as a standard and as a channel for
administration played a crucial role in shaping their self-positioning. Three moral orders
- legal, institutional and personal - were in play in this position. As a result, these
teachers complied with a certain perceived repertoire of rights and duties and appeared
to see their compliance as a key part of their involvement in these moral orders. With
this alignment, the teachers’ agency seemed to remain dormant in this initial self-
position.
Nonetheless, despite the major stance as textbook implementers that drove their
teaching, at times these teachers also showed that they could renegotiate and reposition
themselves as textbook adapters. The next section turns to this aspect of their teaching.
As the interviews continued and the teachers became more familiar with me as
the researcher, Lan and Loc began to share some of their concerns about the textbook.
In particular, Lan showed that she was not quite satisfied with the material because of
its heavily crammed lessons. She also commented on the textbook vocabulary and
stated that she found some of it impractical for her students. In addition, Loc sensed a
“cultural inappropriateness” (Loc, R-I-02) in the textbook that she was using. She also
commented on the textbook pictures saying that they are “not lively enough” (Loc, R-I-
0). These criticisms were further reflected in the following comments:
Sometimes, I found the textbook impractical for my students. Some teaching
content was inappropriate or overwhelming. These obstacles made me think of
ways to deal with it. For example, if there were many difficult words, I would
focus on key ones and neglect some. In this way, I made it easier for myself and
my students would remember the lessons better. (Lan, R-I-01)
In my view, the textbook should only be treated as a guide. Currently, I have to
rely on the textbook and have found it a bit overwhelming for my students in
terms of content. I knew that I was not allowed to leave things out but, in some
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cases, I had no choice but to omit the content. It was not good to teach
everything in the textbook. (Loc, R-I-03)
These statements show how the teachers placed themselves in their students’
world and perceived a mismatch between the prescribed material and their classroom
reality. They detected in their classroom experiences that the textbooks did not easily
cater to their students’ needs and capacities. As a result, they started to question the
authenticity of their initial position as textbook implementers. Lan wondered whether
she was entitled to modify the textbook because “it is really a big mistake if I only rely
on the textbook (Lan, R-I-04). Similarly, Loc was concerned about the textbook
modification, “Yet, I am afraid of going against the regulations” (Loc, R-I-02). Their
comments reveal the underlying tension between the policy mandates and the teachers’
personal expectations. On the one hand, they expressed their desire to adapt the
textbook activities to meet their students’ needs and to improve classroom interaction.
On the other hand, they were concerned about breaking the rules by stepping out of the
first order position and repositioning themselves as textbook adapters to cater to their
students’ needs.
The classroom observations supported this interpretation. As shown in Table
7.5, Lan and Loc were observed to employ various adaptations of the textbook material
across the four observed lessons, which included addition, skipping, and modification.
Table 7.5
Rural Teachers’ Adaptive Strategies
Activity Frequency
Lan Loc
Handouts 2 3
Adding inputs 2 4
Skipping the tasks 4 2
In particular, Loc seemed to extend the activities more frequently in the

classroom than Lan did. For example, she brought a number of additional pictures to all
four lessons that I observed. Most of her collected pictures were in A4 paper size and in
black-and-white. They were mostly used for introducing and reinforcing vocabulary. In
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addition, Loc aimed to engage students more actively by personalising the class – telling
stories about herself or encouraging her students to talk about their own experience.
In contrast, Lan’s typical adaptive activities were more restricted and focused
on explaining content items and skipping tasks. For example, when working with a list
of textbook vocabulary, she seemed to deliberately focus more on certain words than on
others. She explained them more carefully, demonstrated with examples and asked her
students to make up sentences with these focus words. On other occasions, Lan was
noted to leave out fun activities (such as chants or quizzes) contained in the textbook. In
a reading lesson, she skipped an activity that expected her students to talk about their
personal experience. However, at times, she did provide some of her own exercises for
her students to use for practice.
These adaptations and classroom actions, despite still being limited in their
scope and frequency, demonstrated the teachers’ desire to adapt the prescribed textbook
in their own way. In the follow-up interviews after the observations, the teachers
explained the reasons for their self-repositioning as textbook adapters in terms of
textbook incoherence and students’ motivation. First, they reflected that they found it
difficult to teach their students effectively if they followed the textbook because they
believed the lessons and tasks lacked systematicity:
I have used the textbooks and witnessed their revisions many times. I still find
them unsystematic and incoherent. There is not a clear link between the tasks in
a lesson and among the lessons in the book. (Lan, R-I-01)
As I find the contents incoherent, I consider some modifications or additions
(…) For example, in a grammatical lesson about the past simple tense, I thought
my students might struggle with understanding this tense. I added one or two
activities that helped them to connect it to real life. (Loc, R-I-03)
Second, Lan and Loc argued that if they faithfully implemented what was
prescribed in the textbook, the students would find their lessons boring:
I love to see them enjoy the class. I don’t want to teach them all the content
because they do not remember it all by the end of the day. (Lan, R-I-01)
In some lessons, the vocabulary is culturally inappropriate to my students. For
example, in a lesson from the Grade 5 textbook, the topic is about the world
around me. The word “underground” is totally foreign to my students. They
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have no idea of what it is. I decided to overlook it and focus on others. (Loc, R-
I-01)
These statements suggest that the participant teachers were critical of the
textbook as they detected a mismatch between its provided inputs and their students’
needs. As a result, they decided to adapt the material in ways they considered would
work well with their students and their teaching goals.
Further exploration of the interview data, however, revealed the influence of
three other factors that could undermine the teachers’ self-position as textbook adapters
- administration, time and financial considerations. In relation to administrative issues,
Lan believed that the institutional moral order worked to constrain her ability to adapt
the textbook.
I just wonder if the inspectors would allow me to teach differently. Most of the
inspectors have their own ways of evaluation. It is great if they openly let me
know that I could teach differently or leave out certain content. Now, I am really
concerned about whether my adaptations are acceptable or not. (Lan, R-I-04)
In a similar vein, Loc referred to the tensions she experienced between her sense
of needing to follow administrative requirements and her desire to assist her students
and to teach effectively according to her own practices.
I also suffer from pressure. If the inspectors discover my omission of some
teaching content, I may be violating the professional regulations. Yet, if I strictly
follow the textbook, I am sure the teaching quality is not guaranteed. My
students might have difficulty understanding. (Loc, R-I-01)
Regarding time and financial concerns, Loc commented that although she herself was
enthusiastic about searching out external resources because of the value they could
bring to her teaching, she was constrained in doing so:
I have to spend time looking for pictures. This task is time-consuming because it
may take me a couple of hours to find them without having the expected results.
In addition, I have to use my own money to print them. As it is much more
expensive to have them in colour, I often choose to print them in black and
white. Some lessons may need more than one set of pictures but I can’t afford to
print them all. (Loc, R-I-02)
Likewise, Lan seemed to rely on the textbook resources because she could not
afford to find and produce external ones:
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Better to use the pictures available in the textbook. External pictures are good
but very time-consuming in relation to preparation. It may cost me some money
if I print them in a large size. If every lesson is prepared in this way, it is beyond
my financial capacity. (Lan, R-I-03)
The above data suggest the teachers’ adaptive actions were conducted in a
secretive manner because they were not sure if the inspectors allowed them to do so. In
addition, their self-investment for textbook adaptation was limited, and might halt at any
time. It can be inferred that the teachers’ positioning was not stable but continually
subject to change under certain conditions.
This section has illustrated the teachers’ position as textbook adapters. This
positioning emerged when they located themselves within their personal moral order
and placed themselves in their students’ world. In such a situation, they became critical
of the current textbook and began to challenge their initial positions as textbook
implementers. Each teacher used different adaptation techniques for their pedagogical
goals and students’ needs according to their classroom perceptions. By distancing
themselves from the first-order position and creating a new one, they began to
demonstrate emergent forms of agentic power to act for what they believed was best for
their students and the teaching conditions. Their position as textbook adapters, however,
was unstable as it was influenced by further factors associated with administration, time
and money.
However, further analyses of the teachers’ talk about textbook use also pointed
to obstacles that they had encountered in fulfilling what they saw as their teaching
responsibilities. It is to this issue of the teachers as textbook strugglers that the
discussion now turns.
7.5.3 Teachers as textbook strugglers
Despite the important and central role of the textbook in their teaching, the two
rural teachers, like the others in this study, had experienced no involvement in its
selection and had also received little input from institutional stakeholders in relation to
its use. In addition, there was no communication channel for them to send feedback
about textbook issues to their senior managers/administrators. As a result, the teachers
positioned themselves also as strugglers in relation to textbook use. This self-position
had especially manifested itself when there was a revision in the mandated textbook:
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As I was not retrained for the newly-updated textbooks, I had to struggle by
myself in finding ways to work with the new teaching materials. In my
experience, the textbooks keep changing every two years. While I was still
struggling with the old version, the new version appeared. To teach well, I had
to spend time preparing the lessons and materials. With the new textbooks, I had
to change my prepared lesson plans. (Loc, R-I-03)
I don’t understand the purposes of revising the textbook on a regular basis.
Actually, I don’t think the new version addresses my pedagogical concerns.
Only the teachers themselves can identify practical problems in the textbook.
(Lan, R-I-02)
Both Lan and Loc seemed unhappy about the imposed textbook change. They
felt disfranchised and resentful about being obliged to deal with the revised version.
Their struggles were made clearer in the interviews when they talked about the lack of
support in terms of resources and training:
There was no training. Last year the new Grade 3 textbook came, [but] I was not
trained. This year was the same for the new Grade 4 textbook. There was no
help and no support. (Lan, R-I-01)
I did not receive support from the school, except the textbooks and the teacher
guides. I had to use my own money to buy a cassette player and some other
resources. (Lan, R-I-0)
I had to find out the solution even when the problem was really tough (…). A
farmer may not work as hard as I was working. (Loc, R-I-03)
At this stage, I did not receive any support from the textbook publisher. There
were no teaching resources (….) I had to use my own money to buy some
necessary resources. (Loc, R-I-0)
Clearly, Loc and Lan had been attempting to implement the textbook policy with
very limited resources. They reported almost no support from their school, or from
BOET and DOET even though they felt a right to being able to access certain resources.
Lan desired to be provided with some necessary resources such as flashcards, large-size
colorful pictures or digital devices, while Loc expressed the need for a well-equipped
language room. Despite their sense of these limitations, rather than wait for external
supports, they demonstrated some of their own agentic capacity by actively seeking
personal solutions to their professional challenges. For example, Loc mainly relied on
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online resources to compensate for the deficits while Lan followed a trial-and-error
approach such as “learning by doing” (Loc, R-I-02).
The analysis in this overall section shows that, in response to the textbook
component, both of the rural teachers took up several different and conflicted positions.
In the first position, they constructed themselves as textbook implementers, acting in
conformity with what they believed were the official requirements imposed on them.
Their adherence to these requirements did not enable their agentic capacity to be
activated. There was also evidence, however, that they somewhat challenged this
position and located themselves as adapters, demonstrating a sense of their agentic
power by critically evaluating and extending the textbook activities. At the same time,
they struggled to use the textbook effectively, especially when the textbook was
frequently revised and updated without the timely provision of support. This situation
resulted in them adopting the position of a textbook struggler.
Having considered the data related to the teachers’ perspectives on the textbook
use, I now turn to what evidence emerged about the two rural teachers’ choices of what
content to focus on in their practice. The section below further discusses this topic.
In relation to teaching content, the participants self-positioned both as adopting a
focus on linguistic knowledge and acting as negotiators for the inclusion of speaking
skills. This section discusses these teachers’ positions and the factors that impacted on
them.
At the beginning of the school year, BOET disseminated a syllabus guide to all
the schools in the region. The syllabus stated what content, in what lesson, and also the
duration of the lesson. This syllabus guide seemed to be important to the participant
teachers because the school leaders or inspectors (from DOET or BOET) might use it to
determine whether they were implementing the curriculum policy as prescribed.
Therefore, it was not surprising that both Loc and Lan self-positioned as strictly
adhering to this mandate. Lan commented that she needed to implement the guide
without questioning. She also saw the syllabus as a document that could be used to
evaluate standardised performance:
They [inspectors] use the syllabus as a benchmark to see if we are teaching in
accordance with the syllabus suggestions. (Lan, R-I-0)
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Likewise, Loc constructed her position according to her duty to abide by the BOET-
proposed syllabus and considered it as a priority of her responsibility.
Teach as mandated in the syllabus first, then expand the content later. However,
I don’t have time to do anything else if I follow the syllabus. (Loc, R-I-0)
While the teachers claimed that they themselves followed the BOET’s and the school’s
moral orders, the analysis of interview and observational data showed that in actual
practice they tended to be more flexible in implementing the teaching content. This
flexibility was manifested in the way they focused mainly on the linguistic content, but
at the same time they neglected speaking activities in class. In relation to the former,
they commented:
In my view, the students have to learn and remember all the vocabulary. I think
it is very difficult for them to remember. Therefore, within the time allocated, I
try to help them pronounce, understand and remember the words (…) I often ask
them to write each word several times in their notebook to reinforce the
vocabulary so that they can remember. (Lan, R-I-03)
The tasks always involve many new words for my students. I always help them
to understand them first and they can then do the tasks well. (Loc, R-I-0)
These statements reflect the teachers’ personal views about the linguistic
content. They both appeared to believe that their students’ mastery of vocabulary and its
pronunciation was highly important if they were to learn English effectively. As a
result, they both felt a sense of duty to help their students grasp this language
component.
Classroom observations provided corroborating evidence of the teachers’
perspectives on the importance of stressing linguistic content. Lan frequently revised the
vocabulary in class by using question-answer techniques. She generated the questions in
Vietnamese and had the students respond in English. Similarly, Loc emphasised
vocabulary by focusing on helping her students pronounce new words and understand
their meaning. She also frequently conducted vocabulary games in class. In addition,
both Lan and Loc prioritised the introduction of vocabulary even when they were
teaching the various language skills. For example, in listening activities, Lan spent a
significant amount of time practising vocabulary. After examining the pictures in the
textbook, she generated some key words or phrases and then wrote them on the board
and introduced their pronunciation and meaning to her students. Similarly, in a writing
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lesson, Loc also produced a list of vocabulary and phrases on the board and spent time
practicing them. Thus, the observational evidence reinforced the teachers’ self-
positioning as implementers of linguistic content (see Table 7.6).
Table 7.6
Rural Teachers’ Teaching Content Focus
Furt Task Content focus
her Lan Loc
analysis of Vocabulary and structure, Linguistics Linguistics
the grammar and pronunciation
interview Listening Key words/ phrases Key words/phrases
data Speaking Skip Replace with games
indicated Reading Vocabulary, Vocabulary, structures
that their structures
positionin Writing Vocabulary, Vocabulary, structures
g as structures
teachers who focused on linguistic content reflected their sense of their students’ needs
and also their training experience. In relation to the former, the teachers’ assumptions
about their students’ needs drove them to invest heavily in the language component in
their classroom practice.
My students can’t read the passage aloud because there are so many new words
for them. I advise them to use pencils and write them directly in the book. They copy
the meaning and the pronunciation. This helps my students to know the meaning and
remember the pronunciation. It works. (Lan, R-I-03)
When my students are required to write a small paragraph or read a passage,
their vocabulary and structures are so limited. Therefore, I have to provide them with
those that are necessary for their writing or reading. (Loc, R-I-03)
I have to teach vocabulary and write them down on the board. I also make sure
my students understand the meanings before listening by translating into Vietnamese. I
do this because I think my students cannot listen if they don’t know the key words or
phrases. (Loc, R-I-02)
In relation to training experiences, their focus on linguistic content was evidently
grounded in the information and approaches that had been displayed to them in previous
training sessions conducted by DOET.
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I thought that most of the training workshops that I attended were about how to
teach vocabulary and structure. Therefore, I was quite familiar with the
techniques of teaching them. Although I was also trained to teach language
skills, they were only taught in a general way [in the training workshops]. I
myself got confused about how to teach them. (Loc, R-I-02)
They [trainers] followed the same principles: showing the pictures, introducing
the vocabulary and structures to students and then letting them practise.
Therefore, I followed this approach in my teaching. I focus on the vocabulary
and structures. (Lan, R-I-0)
It appears that the teachers’ sense of duty to focus more on the vocabulary
reflected their perceptions of their own students’ capacities. From their classroom
observations, both Loc and Lan felt that their own students would learn the lesson more
effectively if they well grasped the vocabulary. This personal knowledge thus made
them slightly eschewing the teaching content mandates. Their agentic action was further
guided by their training experience, which seemed to give them a sense of confidence in
teaching this language component.
In relation to speaking, despite the expectations of the curriculum policy that
English primary teachers would focus on developing this skill, it seemed there was a
lack of any a specific guidance on how to teach it from the DOET and BOET levels.
Lan and Loc stated that they did not receive any particular guidelines about how to
focus on this skill from BOET. At their workplace, the school principal did not formally
mandate them to put an emphasis on this skill either. When asked if they wished to
develop their students’ speaking abilities and were willing to spend time on this
language skill in their practice, the teachers expressed their aspirations. In particular,
Lan and Loc both stated in the interviews that they considered speaking to be an
important skill in foreign language learning and expressed their desire to teach it. Lan
espoused the view that at the primary education level she expected her students to
“speak English well” (Lan, R-I-0). Similarly, Loc believed that without good oral
communication, “there is no point learning English” (Loc, R-I-0). The classroom
observations, however, produced conflicting evidence in relation to the teachers’
comments about speaking (see Table 7.6). Lan was observed to omit the teaching of this
skill while Loc replaced the speaking activities with those that reinforced students’
vocabulary. For example, rather than cover the section “Let’s talk”, Lan asked her
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students to close the book and memorise the vocabulary in the previous tasks. In the
same vein, Loc replaced the speaking section of the textbook with a game on
vocabulary. These acts of avoidance showed that in their actual practice the teachers
tended to neglect the speaking activities.
In the follow-up interviews, when asked why they skipped the speaking
activities, their responses alluded to the constraints of class size and time allocation:
The difficulties include time and the large class size. Many students in my class
are so timid and slow in their speaking. Therefore, it takes time if I regularly do
the speaking in the class. (Lan, R-I-02)
In a class with more than 40 students, it is a big challenge to include speaking
within the teaching time allocation. I normally leave the speaking section as
homework. (Loc, R-I-01)
It appeared that the exercise of teachers’ agency in relation to speaking skills
was constrained by their perceptions of their current classroom conditions. The
teachers’ avoidance of speaking skills in their practice also had several implications.
First, once the policy was translated into the class, it was the teachers who reinterpreted
and implemented it according to their perspectives on their classroom situation. Second,
they had to choose which teaching content to focus on. In this context, they chose to
expand the linguistic content and downgrade the speaking because of their belief that
vocabulary might be more important for their students.
The analysis in this section has shown how the two teachers reinterpreted and
implemented the teaching content mandates of the primary curriculum. On the one
hand, they claimed to respond to its prescriptions and to the way they had been trained
to implement it because of their fears of administrative surveillance. On the other hand,
they seemed to navigate away from the mandated implementational acts when they
considered their students’ needs and expectations to be more important. As a result, they
decided to orient towards the linguistic content and away from teaching speaking skills
within their context. These actions reveal that the participating teachers did not strictly
follow the mandates but flexibly chose to focus on some content areas which they
themselves considered to be more relevant for their own students.
In relation to teaching methods, the analysis of data revealed three positions:
teachers as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities, as strugglers of child-
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friendly teaching activities, and as resisters of child-friendly teaching activities. This
section describes these positions and the conditions in which each occurred.
7.7.1 Teachers as implementers of child-friendly activities
Although the curriculum documents expected the teachers to use child-friendly
techniques, there was no detailed guidance for this requirement from either the DOET
or BOET. Lan and Loc’s construction of their sense of duty to incorporate child-friendly
activities in their practices derived from their training experiences and observations of
their colleagues. In their interviews, the teachers narrated that they were infused with
the concept of child-friendly activities when they participated in a DOET professional
development session. In that workshop, the trainer told all the participating teachers that
as English primary teachers, they had to know how to play games, chant, sing, and
dance. This experience formulated the teachers’ belief that an effective primary teacher
should possess and use these techniques. Their sense of duty to use such techniques was
further reinforced when they attended other workshops offered by DOET and observed
the teaching demonstrations of other colleagues from their region. However, in contrast
at their school, the leaders did not impose upon them a duty to use these techniques in
their practice. Thus, the teachers’ sense that it was their duty to use child-friendly
techniques came from a cultural norm that was beyond the school culture. In her
interview, for example, Lan reported a lesson that she was satisfied with:
I spent a lot of time preparing for that lesson and in the end, I found it so
interesting. I had used many interactive activities. I let my students work
together both in pairs and in groups. There were frequent interactions between
students and students, and students and teacher. (Lan, R-I-0)
Lan’s narrative indicated that she had experimented with using different
techniques, which she believed had made her lesson successful. As the conversation
went on, she became more open about her personal experiences. She revealed that she
was not accustomed to using child-friendly activities and that her repertoire of these
activities was limited, which seemed to hinder her from making her classes more
exciting. In practice, she resorted to recycling activities that she was familiar with: “I
just repeat the same games many times” (Lan, R-I-0). Yet, Lan disclosed that she was
starting to change her teaching styles to make her class child-friendly: “I have started to
change my ways” (Lan, R-I-0).
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Loc commented on her typical lesson approaches:
I often divide the class into different groups to achieve my teaching purposes. I
also use games and role-plays so that my students are engaged in the lesson. Of
course, I am also familiar with the Total Physical Response techniques and use
them in the class. (Loc, R-I-0)
Loc was enthusiastic in discussing how and why she selected what she saw as
child-friendly activities in her practice: “When I decide to implement an activity, I
always have a purpose in mind” (Loc, R-I-01). Loc believed that mastery of skills to
make the class child-friendly was more important than having good subject knowledge:
“In my view, teaching English to primary students is less about subject knowledge than
having the skills to make the class interesting” (Loc, R-I-0).
Although these two rural teachers positioned both themselves as adherers to the
cultural norm of using child-friendly techniques in their practices, Loc seemed to be
more confident about her ability to implement these activities. Lan, on the other hand,
was still endeavoring to adjust her current practices so that she could adopt these
activities more effectively.
The classroom observations provided further evidence of this position. Table 7.7
displays the frequency with which the teachers used interactive activities in the four
observed lessons. As can be seen, Lan tended to implement group work and pair work
in every lesson. She let two students at the same table work together in pair work, or
placed students in two rows facing each other if it was group work. Lan, however,
seemed to use pair/group work to reinforce activities rather than for communicative
purposes. Students were organised in groups or pairs to address the exercises prescribed
in the book or delivered by the teacher. In addition, although Lan was also noted to use
games in her practice, these activities were not frequent. In contrast, Loc was seen to
employ many more child-friendly activities. She conducted games, role-plays and other
physical activities in every lesson. She also used singing as a warm-up activity to revise
vocabulary in some lessons. From my observations, her students appeared to enjoy her
lessons. Although both teachers clearly attempted to use some interactive techniques in
their classrooms, they did so in varied ways as Table 7.7 summarises.
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Table 7.7
Rural Teachers’ Interactive Strategies
Interactive Frequency Arrangement
activity Lan Loc Lan Loc
Songs 1 7 Before the lesson Before/during/after the
lesson
Games 3 8 During the lesson In every lesson

Group work 5 7 In every lesson In every lesson
Pair work 7 9 In every lesson In every lesson
Role-plays - 2 - Reading, writing
The interview data after the classroom observations indicated that the teachers’
employment of child-friendly activities reflected their understandings of students’
motivations and their own aspirations. In relation to the former, they commented:
I am really happy when I see my students being excited with the activities that I
have employed. At the primary level, there is no need to teach something
complicated because the children would get bored. Using games, singing and
dancing keeps their attention. (Loc, R-I-01)
When I use these activities [child-friendly ones], my students became so
talkative and competitive. They seem to be eager to interact with each other in
the class. (Lan, R-01)
Their use of child-friendly techniques seemed to be traceable to their desire to cater to
their students’ perceived needs and their aims to involve their students. In particular,
Lan commented that although she herself did not like games and had no ability to sing,
she tried to do these activities because she believed that “my students love them.” Loc
indicated that she felt happy when her students were engaged in her classroom
activities: “I am really happy when I see my students being excited” (R-I-01).
In relation to their own aspirations to engage their students, they reported:
Sometimes, I am interested in showing my abilities by spending time thinking of
innovative ideas and activities for my students. And I feel really happy doing so.
Creativity in teaching is necessary for any teacher. (Lan, R-I-0)
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As I am naturally fond of children, I enjoy interacting and communicating with
my students. In addition, as I was trained in some interactive techniques in the
professional development workshops, I want to use them as well. (Loc, R-I-03)
These statements suggest that Lan and Loc voluntarily invested time and energy in
preparing for child-friendly activities because they both believed that their actions were
beneficial to their students. In other interviews, Lan showed she expected to diversify
her child-friendly activities “to avoid repetition” (Lan, R-I-0). Loc did not want to
disappoint her students and so, she devoted time to preparing activities for them she
thought they would enjoy “even though I am sometimes tired” (Loc, R-I-0). The
teachers’ actions reinforced their self-positioning as implementers of child-friendly
activities in their class.
This section has described how the teachers’ positioned themselves as
implementers of child-friendly activities in which they saw themselves responding to
the cultural norm to incorporate child-friendly teaching activities in their classroom
practice. This cultural norm was shared among the teachers’ wider community as a
standard by which to teach English to primary students. The two rural teachers
endeavored to adhere to this norm even though their school did not require them to do
so. Even though such practices did not come easily to her, Lan made efforts to adjust
her teaching style in order to adopt different child-friendly activities to teach her young
learners, while Loc eagerly practiced them. Two factors - students’ motivation and their
internal aspirations – appeared to serve as drivers to activate the teachers’ agentic
power.
Despite the teachers’ determination to make their classes child-friendly, they
also, however, identified obstacles that might constrain their positioning as
implementers of these activities. It is to these perspectives that the discussion now turns.
7.7.2 Teachers as strugglers of using child-friendly activities
While the two rural teachers were aware of the need to incorporate child-friendly
activities into their daily teaching practices, during the interviews, Lan and Loc often
referred to their personal and contextual challenges in relation to these activities. The
identified obstacles, which included insufficient professional support, constraints of
time, and overloaded teaching content, seemed to deter the participants from exercising
agency in the ways they organised and managed the classroom activities.
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First, the participant teachers reported that the sporadic PD events they had
experienced had not made them confident with using child-friendly activities in the
class. In particular, Lan stated that opportunities to access professional development
were rare: “I can count my participation in professional development on my fingers”
(Lan, R-I-0). Loc too seemed to feel the lack of professional guidance. She commented:
“There is no one who could guide us in the right way, to follow the right way” (Loc, R-
I-03). When asked if they had received professional support from the district (BOET)
English supervisor, they each expressed reservations:
She [the English supervisor] was not trained to teach English at the primary
level. She does not have practical knowledge either. (Lan, R-I-02)
I don’t think she would give me sound advice for my problem. She is still young
and does not work as a primary teacher. (Loc, R-I-0)
As a consequence of this insufficient professional support, Lan tended to rely on
traditional teaching techniques. In the class, she tended to maintain a power relationship
with her students and to follow a lecturing style. Her power was manifested in the way
she used a ruler which she saw as an effective tool to control her class in order:
Perhaps, it is my habit. If I don’t hold the ruler, I feel as if I was missing
something. I think a ruler can help me send signals to keep the class disciplined.
(Lan, R-I-02)
The other teacher, Loc encountered another obstacle. She was concerned about
her vague understanding of principles for teaching English effectively to young learners
that resulted in a lack of confidence in practice: “I really expect to grasp the principle
firmly so that I can manage the lesson in my own way” (Loc, R-I-03). Although she
kept reflecting on the issues that had arisen from her practice and wondered if she could
address them more effectively, due to her limited understanding of teaching principles,
she expected to “have an expert guide me” (Lan, R-I-03).
In the absence of external professional support, the teachers attempted to seek help
from other sources. For example, Lan relied on her experience and former and current
colleagues: “I have a close friendship with a colleague from another school. I often
share my problem and ask her for advice” (Lan, R-I-04). Loc resorted to online sources
of help and her own trial-and error strategies. However, she commented: “I felt as if I
was on the right path but I am not sure” (Loc, R-I-03).
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Second, both Lan and Loc saw time limitations as a serious implementation concern.
Lan was worried that the overloaded content in the syllabus would suspend her
intentions of using child-friendly activities:
The time allocated for this lesson, from my experience, is not enough. I don’t
think I could present the teaching content within the time frame. It may be time-
consuming if I decide to use child-friendly techniques. The classroom may
become chaotic and I have to spend time getting it under control. (Lan, R-I-03)
Loc, too, desired to have more time so that she could expand the approaches she could
use more appropriately:
If I had extra time, I would introduce more games and other interesting activities
for my students. Whenever I have used such activities, my children are more
involved in the lesson and learn much better. (Loc, R-I-01)
These factors portray the teachers’ sense of the personal and contextual constraints
they encountered as they went about implementing the mandates of the prescribed
teaching methods in their classroom. Overall, it seems that they experienced limited
support in dealing with their problems. Support from administrative sources such as
BOET was, in their view, unhelpful and they believed they had to manage the obstacles
to their teaching duties by themselves. Due to teaching time constraints, Lan hesitated to
use activities like games in the classroom, while Loc felt she had to prioritise which
ones to use. The teachers’ responses indicate that their agency was much constrained
under these conditions although they made some attempts to overcome these challenges.
Given the teachers’ struggles to adopt child-friendly classroom activities, at time they
simply refuted these activities and referred back to teaching techniques that they were
accustomed to. The following section discusses this type of repositioning in more detail.
7.7.3 Teachers as resisters of child-friendly teaching activities
Although these two teachers believed that they should employ child-friendly
activities to make the lesson more interesting to their young learners, there was evidence
that they also felt challenged by this view. Analysis of the interview and observational
data revealed their self-repositioning as resisters of these activities as these two
illustrative excerpts display:
My decision on teaching techniques depends on students and classes. A
technique may work well with this class but in another class, it may not.
Therefore, as a teacher, I have to adjust to cater to my students. (Lan, R-I-0)
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If I find the technique ineffective, I won’t implement it. I have my own purposes
when I let my students work in groups. (Loc, R-I-01)
The teachers’ pedagogical decisions about teaching techniques varied according
to their perceptions of their students and their personal purposes. Three factors that
contributed to their decisions included students’ outcomes, past experience, and self-
efficacy. First, both Lan and Loc believed that their students’ learning outcomes should
be their priority in determining what teaching techniques should be employed.
In my view, to evaluate if a teacher teaches well or not should be seen through
students’ learning outcomes. The evaluator would come to the class, select any
student, and ask him or her lesson contents. If they could remember, that teacher
obviously teaches well. Regardless of what strategies or techniques she employs,
the students’ final outcomes count. (Lan, R-I-02)
I think the students’ outcomes are very important. Teachers may use different
teaching methods but at the end of the day, their students must understand the
content. Their outcomes determine the teaching success. (Loc, R-I-03)
Second, their past experiences also informed many of their pedagogical decisions. Loc
decided to use some activities that she had experienced as a former language learner.
She believed that these techniques would work well with her students:
When I was learning English, I loved doing the translation. Therefore, I often
use this technique in my current teaching. (Loc, R-I-0)
In contrast, Lan referred back to one of her adult-oriented techniques - drilling exercises
that she thought may help her students reinforce the teaching content.
I also felt clumsy in organising games for primary students. I felt so lazy.
Instead, I preferred to give them some exercises to reinforce the lesson. (Lan, R-
I-0)
Third, the teachers’ sense of the self-efficacy of their capacities contributed to their
selection of teaching techniques. Lan seemed to experience tensions if she was required
to sing or chant in the class. She thought that these activities were not appropriate for
her:
The problem is that I cannot chant in the class. I feel uncomfortable if I have to
chant with my students. I am sure that not many teachers of my age could do
that. I think it is really a problem for me. (Lan, R-I-02)
Similarly, Loc did not feel confident about her singing ability:
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It is hard to chant some tasks in the book. The words for chanting are so difficult
I don’t think my voice is attractive to the students. Sometimes, singing a song is
a problem for me, too. In such cases, I rely on the cassette player. (Loc, R-I-0)
Given their evaluations of their teaching conditions, the teachers decided on
teaching techniques that they believed would achieve their pedagogical goals and work
well with their students.
The classroom observations provided additional evidence of this. Table 7.8
summarises the range and frequency of non-child-friendly activities that were observed
in the four lessons. Overall, both teachers varied their teaching techniques. However,
the most typical activities were translation, reading in silence, and repetition.
Table 7.8
Rural Teachers’ Non-Child-friendly Strategies
Activity Frequency Lesson Type
Lan Loc Lan Loc

Reading in 12 9 Reading, dialogues, Reading, dialogues
silence structures
Translation 12 10 All lessons All lessons
Dictation 6 2 Reading, writing Writing
Memorisation 7 5 Vocabulary, structures Vocabulary, structures,
pronunciation
Repetitions 12 10 Vocabulary, structures, Vocabulary, structures,
pronunciation pronunciation
Drilling 5 3 Review Review
exercises
The analysis in this section identified three positions in relation to teaching

methods. In the first-order position as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities,
the two teachers made attempts to incorporate these techniques in their practice. In this
initial position, students’ motivation and teachers’ aspirations served as key incentives
for the teachers’ exercise of agency. Nonetheless, such positioning was negatively
affected by constraining factors, notably teaching time, professional support, and
language competence. These obstacles limited their choices to use child-friendly
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activities in the classroom. On some occasions, the two teachers, however, reshaped
their position as resisters of child-friendly techniques. Rather, they referred back to
teaching techniques that they were accustomed to and used them in their actual practices
for reasons regarding students’ outcomes, their teaching experience, and self-efficacy.
7.8 Assessment
The analysis of data on the teachers’ responses to assessment in the curriculum
policy identified two positions - teachers as implementers of summative assessment and
teachers as negotiators of formative assessment. This section discusses the two positions
and the factors that influenced them.
In relation to summative assessment, the two rural teachers reported that they
received the prescriptive package transferred from BOET, which explicitly guided them
to develop the test, administer the test, and send the results back to BOET for
management. Administratively at the school, Lan and Loc were assigned a duty to
design and run the test, which occurred at the end of each semester. In the interviews,
both these teachers expressed their strong sense of responsibility to adhere to the
requirements of the curriculum policy:
I myself was responsible for developing the tests for the classes that I was in
charge of. When designing a test, I followed the test format which told me
clearly how many parts or items there were. (Lan, R-I-0)
The test guidelines give me detailed information about test development. The
document tells me what should be included in the test and how many marks
should be distributed to different sections. For the test items, I use the textbook
as the main source. (Loc, R-I-03)
In self-positioning strongly as implementers of the required summative
assessment, they located themselves as conforming to the BOET rules and expectations.
At their school, all English teachers worked together, discussed and developed the test
used for each grade group. They agreed on test inputs that were taken from the textbook
and only tested their students on what they had already learnt.
Analysis of a sample test used for Grade 3 provided further evidence of the
nature of the teachers’ implementation of the testing mandates (see Appendix C3).
There were three sections in the test. Section 1 contained five questions about listening,
Section 2 had three questions about reading and writing, and Section 3 with one
question was about speaking. All these sections corresponded closely to the BOET
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guidelines, demonstrating that the teachers followed the mandated rules. However, a
further exploration of the speaking section revealed one noticeable aspect that entailed
the teachers’ agency. In the test sample, the speaking section was designed as shown
below.
Part III Speaking (1 pt)
Question 10
1. Listen and repeat 2. Point, ask and answer
3. Listen and comment 4. Interview
In principle, this speaking format conformed to the guidelines outlined in the

curriculum policy. In practice, however, the teachers allowed the students to attempt
only the listening items (i.e. items 1 and 3); the speaking component (i.e., items 2 and 4)
was ignored when the test was actually conducted. In practice the teachers did not
adhere to the BOET rules in executing the speaking section.
During her interview, Loc explicated the reason for leaving out the speaking
component: “because we don’t have time to have teachers ask all the students” (Loc, R-
I-03). Similarly, Lan commented that the large population of students deterred them
from running the speaking test: “we don’t test their speaking because (…) the large
number of students” (Lan, R-I-0). The teachers’ sense of time constraints and large
student population thus led to a mismatch between the mandates of the curriculum and
the reality of practice. The teachers modified their implementation of the testing policy
because of the local constraints they perceived in their classroom contexts.
As for formative assessment, Lan and Loc were expected to follow “Circular
30”, issued by MOET, which stated how to give formative comments on primary
students’ learning progress. This legal document was applied to all general subjects in
the mainstream curriculum. However, DOET and BOET had provided no further
interpretation or guidance on how this document applied to the subject of English. Lan
and Loc both believed that their duty was to follow the Circular 30 mandates in order to
respond to the formative assessment aspects. At the school this was done by requiring
the teachers to write student progress reports on a monthly basis on a common notebook
shared with other subject teachers. Their school leaders had also set up deadlines for all
the teachers to submit this notebook for administrative purposes. In line with such a
tightly bureaucratic situation, Lan and Loc strictly conformed to the school
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expectations. However, while they placed themselves as followers of the Circular 30
rules, they became critical of these requirements as reflected in the following quotes:
I don’t think the application of Circular 30 could help my students to learn well.
The reason is that it does not accurately reflect my students’ actual learning. I
have to praise them all the time, and encourage them all the time. Even with bad
and lazy students, I have to give them positive comments. What about the good
ones? I also give them positive comments. So, in the end, what are the
differences between the two student groups?. (Loc, R-I-0)
I had to teach 6 classes with more than 200 students. How could I remember all
of them to give accurate and detailed comments? When I got home, I forgot
who was who. If I remembered someone well, I would give them my accurate
comments. If not, I had to make up the information, just to meet the
administrative deadline. (Lan, R-I-02)
These statements revealed a tension in their beliefs about formative assessment.
On the one hand, they accepted that they had to implement the formative assessments
mandated in the policy document. On the other hand, they challenged the authenticity of
these mandates Their repositioning was motivated by the contextual conditions under
which they operated which included workload and preferences. In relation to the former,
they stated:
I have to observe and then write comments in the class. I set up a goal for each
week. For example, this week, I have tried to write comments for about 20
students, or several ones for each lesson to save time. (Lan, R-I-02)
In the class, I am not allowed to give marks for the students’ performance during
the teaching. Instead, I should encourage them. Each week, I pay attention to a
group of students, and note down their progress in the notebook. (Loc, R-I-0)
Two possible inferences can be drawn from these statements. First, the two
teachers seem to have misinterpreted the essence of formative assessment. Rather than
providing formative comments on students’ performance in class, they appeared to
believe that by writing regular reports they were fulfilling this obligation. Second, they
appeared to have been struggling to find ways to conduct the formative assessment to
meet school’s deadlines. When asked if they had received any training or support in
relation to this kind of assessment, the two teachers replied in the negative. Instead, they
followed examples of writing formative reports from other general subject teachers.
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In relation to their personal preferences, both Loc and Lan would have preferred
to use marks to assess their students’ performance:
With marks, the students will be more competitive in their learning in order to
achieve good grades. In my experience, when students get high marks, they feel
excited and proud. They also take them home to let the parents know about their
achievements. (Lan, R-I-0)
I still prefer to give marks on my students’ performance. I am familiar with this
evaluation. It is my habit. Also, when they receive the mark, the students know
how well they have done. (Loc, R-I-0)
In the absence of guidance on the purposes of formative assessment and
strategies for implementing it, Lan and Loc proposed an alternative assessment
approach which they were accustomed to and which they believed might contribute to
assessing their students’ progress effectively.
This section has discussed the rural teachers’ responses to the assessment
component of the curriculum policy. In their first order self-position as implementers,
the teachers appeared to respond to the mandates for both summative and formative
assessment. Yet there were some modifications in their actual implementation of the
assessment policy within their context. For summative assessment, they made the
decision not to cover the speaking section because of their perceptions of constraints of
time and student population. Regarding formative assessment, in the absence of any
guidance they self-repositioned themselves as negotiators who fell back on more
familiar concepts to help them implement this kind of assessment. The discussion has
shown how and to what extent the teachers exercised their agency as manifested in their
questioning of the authenticity of the first-order position and their renegotiation of the
obligations imposed in their teaching context.
7.9 Summary
This chapter has generated insights into how the two rural teachers responded to
the four key components of the language policy that were outlined in Chapter 5. The
data sources included interviews and classroom observations. The analysis showed the
diverse positions that the teachers adopted. While they established their initial and
primary positions as curriculum implementers, morally responding to policy mandates,
they also challenged this position and repositioned themselves in different contexts
according to what they saw as the opportunities and constraints of their local school and
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classroom circumstances. Through these actions, they demonstrated the nature of their
agentic power and what influences were exerted on it in the ways they thought,
negotiated and acted. Chapter 8 continues this analysis in the case of the island teachers.
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Chapter 8
Island Teachers’ Responses
8.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the findings on island teachers’ responses to the language
policy within the framework of positioning theory. As in the previous chapter, the four
components drawn from the policy documents are employed to categorise teachers’
responses to the policy at the grassroots level. The chapter begins by describing the
research site, the participants, and the data sources. It then presents the key findings on
the teachers’ responses under the four categories of the language policy.
The research site is a small primary school, An Thanh, located on an island in
the northeast of the province, where the study took place. The school is separated from
the inland region by a large river. The only transport between the region and the city
centre is a ferry, which takes more than one hour. The participating school differs from
the other two research contexts (urban and rural) in two important ways. First, there are
two educational levels (junior and primary) in the same school system. All the students
share the same teachers, facilities and resources. As there are only two English teachers
in total at the school, these two teachers have to teach English from Grade 3 to Grade 9.
Second, English is taught as an optional subject at An Thanh school because this school
belongs to the remote and island group, which is eligible to implement the optional
English program due to its contextual constraints (see Section 5.4.2.2, Chapter 5). As an
optional subject, there are only two teaching periods a week, as opposed to four in the
other contexts.
An Thanh primary school lies on the main road of a fishing village. The school
was newly constructed, with only one three-storey building and a large front yard. It
appeared spacious, and was surrounded by grassland. There were 21 classrooms, which
were used for both junior and primary school students. The school day had two shifts - a
morning shift for the junior high school students and an afternoon session for the
primary students. At the time of the study, it had about 200 primary students, most of
whom came from several nearby fishing villages. In an interview, the school principal
provided the following information:
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There are some constraints in relation to teaching and learning English in the
region. The school is not well-equipped with teaching facilities. There is almost
nothing: no posters, no flash cards, and no language rooms. The students in the
school are also different from the other regions. They don’t have the opportunity
to learn English at a language centre. Many come from poor families. Most of
them have to help their parents after school. Therefore, they are not really
interested in learning English. Their parents also show no interest in investing in
this subject.
The principal’s account highlights the obstacles that teachers may encounter
when they work in such an environment. Unlike the urban school, this one received
little support from parents and community. The An Thanh school principal also
acknowledged that teaching resources and facilities were limited by budgetary
constraints. From my observations, all the classrooms were basic with fixed seating
arrangements in rows. The interiors were bare apart from some fans on the walls.
Only limited opportunities for professional development were available to the
teachers. Since the school had no budget for this component, the teachers relied on the
BOET and DOET for access to PD. The DOET tended to organise workshops in the
urban area, so the island teachers had to relocate to the city in order to participate in the
workshops. As well, as noted above, An Thanh’s English program only had two
teaching periods a week, whereas PD opportunities were often reserved for schools
whose program had four teaching periods. Therefore, An Thanh school teachers had to
relocate to other schools for classroom observations to update their teaching skills.
8.3 Participants
Two teachers, Hong and Hai, agreed to participate in the study. Hong was 39
years old at the time the study was conducted. She graduated from a distance
undergraduate program on English teaching in 2003. Hong explained that this career
was her second choice after failing to achieve university entrance. Upon graduation, she
got a job at a junior high school, where she was assigned to teach Grades 6-9. Since
Project 2020 was implemented in her school, Hong had occupied two positions - as a
junior high school teacher and as a primary school teacher. At the primary level, she
was assigned to teach two classes (Grades 3 and 5). The reason for her taking an extra
position as an English primary teacher was the lack of English primary teachers at the
school. Therefore, Hong had to undertake two professional positions at the same time.
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In the interviews, she revealed that she was unhappy with this assignment because she
was not formally trained as a primary teacher. Rather, she considered herself as an
English teacher of junior high school students. Hong’s opportunities to access
professional training were limited. Since she had begun teaching at the primary level in
2012, she had undertaken one in-service training program organised by DOET. The aim
of this program was to equip English teachers with necessary teaching methods for
young learners and to upgrade their language proficiency. Although she achieved B1 for
her language proficiency after this course, she did not find the course beneficial for her
teaching. In addition, Hong seemed to have a busy life. She was a mother of two
adolescents and, after school, she helped her husband to run a private manufacturing
company at home.
Hai was 40 years old. He had participated in a distance undergraduate training
program to become an English teacher. After graduation, he worked for a junior high
school in the region. After a few years, he relocated to Anh Thanh school, where he
continued to work. Like Hong, Hai seemed to have had extensive experience as a junior
high school teacher. He had been teaching English at this level for more than ten years.
When Project 2020 was implemented in his school in 2011, he was assigned two
primary level classes (Grade 4 and Grade 5). However, Hai did not feel happy with
teaching English to primary students and he viewed it as an extra workload. He
considered himself as a junior high school teacher. He expected that the school would
soon recruit an English primary teacher who was responsible for the primary level. To
fulfil his teaching responsibilities at the primary level, Hai had taken up two
opportunities to participate in professional training workshops offered by DOET, but he
did not feel that he had gained much in the way of knowledge or skills from them. His
language proficiency was classified as B1, which was the qualification level for an
English primary teacher. Hai was married and a father of two adolescents.
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Table 8.1 describes the sociodemographic characteristics of the two participants.
Table 8.1
Demographic Characteristics of the Participants
Characteristic Participants
Hong Hai
Gender Female Male
Age 39 40
Teaching experience More than 10 years More than 10 years
Grades Grade 3 and 5 Grade 4 and 5
Textbooks English 3, 5 English 4, 5
Let’s learn Let’s learn
Qualifications Bachelor Bachelor
PD participation Very few Some
Language proficiency B1 B1
The data sources used in the analysis presented in this chapter comprised
multiple interviews, classroom observations, artefacts and fieldnotes. The interview data
were the main source. The data collection took place from 2nd December, 2015 to 5th
January, 2016. Table 8.2 summarises information about the interview sources and their
assigned labels (I-I-0, I-I-01, I-I-02, I-I-03 and I-I-04, where I-I= interviews for island
teachers).
Table 8.2
DATA
Interview type ID Date Length
(min)
Overall interview I-I-0 9 / 12 / 2015 90
Interview 1 I-I-01 17/12/2015 40
Hong Interview 2 I-I-02 24/12/2015 35
Interview 3 I-I-03 28/12/2015 40
Interview 4 I-I-04 05/01/2016 35
Overall interview I-I-0 10 / 12 / 2015 110
Interview 1 I-I-01 15/12/2015 55
Hai Interview 2 I-I-02 22/12/2015 40
Interview 3 I-I-03 29/12/2015 35
Interview 4 I-I-04 04/01/2016 35
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The data analysis followed the procedures described in Chapter 4. Table 8.3
summarises the key findings. As can be seen, the teachers positioned themselves in
different ways in response to the four components of the language policy. Each position
is determined by a number of related factors.
In the sections that follow, these categories and sub-categories are elaborated.
Table 8.3
Obligations
Implementers Administrative purposes
Textbook and Students’ motivations
resource use Adapters Learning facilitation
Strugglers Textbook change

Insufficient support
Implementers Obligations and responsibility
Teaching content Teachers’ beliefs
Negotiators Students’ needs
Obligations
Implementers Teachers’ beliefs
Students’ outcomes
Teaching methods Negotiators Teaching experience
Students’ stereotypes
Strugglers Teachers’ self-confidence
Implementers Obligations
Assessments Professional support
Negotiators Teachers’ workload
Teachers’ preferences
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8.5 Textbook and Resource Use
The analysis showed that the participants, like the teachers described in Chapters
5 and 6, adopted three positions in relation to textbook and resource use - implementers,
strugglers, and adapters. The positions and the conditions that shaped them are
discussed below.
The interview and observational data showed that the two teachers mainly self-
positioned as textbook implementers, which meant that they relied heavily on this
teaching material. In the island district, the BOET mandated all the regional schools to
use the textbook series Tieng Anh 3,4,5 published by NXB Giao Duc (Vietnam
Education Publishing House). In the interviews, the two island teachers predominantly
expressed a sense of ‘oughtness’ in relation to implementing the required textbooks.
They both asserted that covering all the textbook inputs and resources was the way to
respond to the mandates within the allocated teaching time. Hai explained that, although
in principle the class ran for 35 minutes, in practice it was usually 28-30 minutes
because of classroom management activities. Therefore, he perceived his duty was to
“only teach what is prescribed in the textbook” (Hai, I-I-02), and that his students
should understand the content and “do the exercises” (Hai, I-I-01). In a similar vein,
Hong attested that her responsibility as a teacher was to teach from the textbook. She
also considered her teaching to have been successful if all the students could remember
what they had learned in the textbook. The following comments typify their textbook
dependence.
Honestly, I am attached to the textbook and follow it. I rarely teach something
beyond this material. (Hong, I-I-04)
I attempt to address all the activities and exercises that are provided in the
textbook. (Hai, I-I-01)
These statements indicate that Hong and Hai both felt obliged to use the
textbook as a compulsory teaching guide.
Their dependence was further supported by the observational data. Table 8.4
summarises the textbook-related activities that these teachers employed in the four
observed sessions. Overall, Hong and Hai seemed to follow the same pattern. After
warm-up activities, they started to use the textbook by asking their students to open the
book on a specified page. The lesson started with the first learning task as prescribed in
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the textbook. With this task, the teachers asked their students to look at pictures in the
book and answer the teachers’ questions. The lesson continued according to the
textbook sequence until the last learning task.
Table 8.4
Island Teachers’ Reliance on the Textbook
Activity Teachers
Hong Hai
Start the lesson with pictures in the textbook x x
Ask students to look at the textbook x x
Use the resources available in the textbook x x
Further analysis of the interview data revealed that administrative considerations

were a key factor that shaped the teachers’ self-positioning as textbook followers. Hai
stated that he did not expect to encounter any problems with the school leaders and
inspectors. Therefore, he chose to embrace the teaching content within the prescribed
textbook. In this way, he hoped to avoid any repetition of a previous negative
experience:
I remember the time the inspectors visited my school and inspected my class. On
that day, I did not, unfortunately, follow the textbook. I taught something
outside it. One inspector (whom I knew well) told me that I should not do that.
Rather, I had to teach according to the textbook so that no one could criticise
me. (Hai, I-I-02)
Hong was also apprehensive about being supervised and inspected. She felt she
had to ensure that her teaching embraced all the required content because “if I do not do
so, I may be assessed as a poor teacher” (Hong, I-I-03). She expressed her concern: “I
always worry about whether or not I can get through all the textbook content” (Hong, I-
I-01). As she explained:
If I am caught not finishing the lesson, I may be criticised. Therefore, at all
times, I have to try to cover all the content. (Hong, I-I-0)
It appears that bureaucratic control and surveillance compelled the two teachers
to conform to the textbook mandate. Located in such a context, neither Hong nor Hai
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believed that they had the right to teach beyond the textbook. In other words, they
adhered closely to the rules in their working environment of following the textbook.
This section has provided evidence for the two island teachers’ self-positioning
as textbook implementers. The participant teachers felt it was their duty to cover all the
textbook material because they located themselves within the structural order of both
the BOET and the school. Their adherence to these structural orders indicates their
intention to comply with the relevant regulations. In this context, the teachers’ exercise
of agency seemed to be restricted, especially when administrative supervision frustrated
their desire to extend the textbook activities.
However, while the two teachers indicated that they acted in conformity with the
textbook policy, deeper discussion of their teaching conditions and student issues
repositioned them as strugglers in relation to textbook use. The following section
discusses this further self-repositioning in more detail.
8.5.2 Teachers as textbook strugglers
In contrast to their position of conformity, the two island teachers also depicted
themselves as strugglers with textbook use in a constrained environment. They both
indicated that they received no support or resources linked to the textbook from the
DOET, BOET or their school. Hai asserted that he received a copy of the students’
textbook only at the beginning of the school year. Hong reported that she had repeatedly
requested that school leaders provide her with a teachers’ reference book. These
obstacles were exacerbated when the textbooks were revised, as happened frequently.
The problem is that the textbook always changes. I expect it should remain
stable for a certain period of time. On average, the textbook is revised every
year. I am not yet used to teaching the old version, then I have to cope with the
new one. (Hong, I-I-04)
The new textbook, even with the revision, means that I have to obtain a new
teaching syllabus and remake the lesson plans according to the new one. (Hai, I-
I-0)
Both Hong and Hai were uncomfortable with the newly revised textbook
because of its potential to negatively impact on their practice. Hong stated: “I do not
know why the book always changes” (Hong, I-I-02), while Hai was concerned that the
updated textbook might cause “confusion among my students’ parents about whether
they were buying the right version” (Hai, I-I-0). When asked if they had received any
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professional support to cope with the new textbook, they replied in the negative:
“without any further support” (Hai, I-I-0) and “no supports at all” (Hong, I-I-03). Hong
felt that she herself was a passive textbook recipient. She did not even know that the
textbook had been revised until the school year began.
It appears that Hong and Hai had to implement the textbook policy in the face of
limited resources. They were assigned the textbook and left to fulfill the policy mandate
without any further support from other stakeholders. To cope with the challenges, they
turned to other sources. For example, Hong chose to “learn from other colleagues”
(Hong, I-I-01) or “the teachers’ guide book” (Hong, I-I-01) while Hai relied on online
sources. These actions show that Hong and Hai addressed the problems that they
encountered using their own initiative.
Another salient challenge against which the teachers struggled was that the
textbook content was seen as excessive and inappropriate for their students. Although
the teachers were mandated to teach two periods a week, this did not mean that the
lesson content was reduced to suit the local learning context. Therefore, the island
students had to cover the same amount of lesson content as their counterparts in other
regions. In addition, they did not have the opportunity to learn English at a language
centre or at home with private tutors. Their English learning mainly occurred at school.
In relation to the current textbook, the participant teachers’ commented:
I am sure that many words in the textbook lesson are of no benefit to my
students. They are foreign and decontextualised. Even if I teach these words to
my students, they won’t remember them afterwards. (Hong, I-I-01)
In English 5 [textbook for the 5th graders], some topics are alien to my students.
How can my students learn and remember content about the universe? I think
the topics should be child-friendly so that they can understand better. (Hai, I-I-
01)
These reflections suggest the existence of a gap between the textbook and what
the teachers perceived to be the students’ realities, which arguably called for the
teachers to enact their agency by modifying the textbook material to better reflect their
students’ needs (see Section 7.5.2).
The discussion so far has described the teachers’ predicament in relation to
textbook use in the island context. It can be inferred from the account of their struggles
that they were claiming their right to challenge the policy mandate in the context of
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their contextual and personal circumstances. They also strived, within their capabilities,
to address the professional and resource deficiencies they faced. Their statements could
be seen to indicate that they exercised some kind of agency to respond to the policy
mandate in a situation of limited resources.
Although, the two island teachers used the textbook despite contextual
limitations, they stated that at times they also decided to adapt the mandated textbook to
match their teaching goals and students’ needs. The following section describes their
adaptations in more detail.
The interview and observational data showed that teachers also self-repositioned
as textbook adapters, as the following quotes illustrate:
Of course, I aim to cover everything in the textbook. However, some lessons
contain inappropriate content that makes me think of ways to leave it out.
(Hong, I-I-02)
When I teach the vocabulary lesson, I depart a bit from the textbook by
connecting the content to real life so that my students can remember better. (Hai,
I-I-01)
In these situations, Hong and Hai appeared to reposition themselves as textbook users
when they interacted with the student community. To meet their students’ needs, they
intentionally omitted or modified prescribed teaching material.
Classroom observations revealed the strategies that the teachers used to adapt
the textbook. Table 8.5 summarises the frequency of the adaptive strategies they used
during all four observation sessions. In general, both Hong and Hai tended to modify
teaching items used in the class. Hong brought some real objects - such as a pencil
case, eraser or postcard - to illustrate the vocabulary. She also created an interview
activity to engage her students’ attention on the target structures. Similarly, Hai brought
some black-and-white pictures for his vocabulary lesson. He also made some handouts
as additional drills to reinforce the structures. These actions, despite their limited
frequency, demonstrated the teachers’ textbook adaptation in their classroom practice.
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Table 8.5
Island Teachers’ Adaptive Strategies
Activity Frequency
Hong Hai
Handouts - 2
Real objects 3 2
Adding inputs 3 2
Skipping the tasks - 1
Analysis of the subsequent interviews suggested that the teachers repositioned
themselves as textbook adapters as the result of their teaching goals to motivate their
students. In the classroom context, the teachers other-positioned their students as those
who would benefit from their adaptations. As a result, they stepped outside their initial
position as faithful textbook implementers, and self-repositioned as adapters. This kind
of act demonstrates that, under certain conditions, the teachers would challenge their
existing position and reshape it for pedagogical purposes. The following quotes are
illustrative:
When I modified the textbook input I found that my students were able to follow
the teaching flow more easily. They were more engaged in the lesson. (Hong, I-
I-01)
When I brought real objects to the class, my students felt excited and learned
more quickly than by looking at the pictures in the textbook. (Hai, I-I-02)
It can be inferred that the teachers experienced a conflict between their moral
positioning (to follow the set of rights and duties) and their personal positioning (values,
aspirations) when they located themselves in the student community. Consequently,
they deliberately self-repositioned themselves as textbook adapters to cater to their
students’ needs. With this navigation of their positioning, the teachers could be said to
“break the ritual” as conformists to the textbook mandate (Langenhove & Harré, 1999,
p. 20) and display their agency by adapting the textbook to achieve their goals. These
adaptations, however, were unstable because of time and financial constraints, as is
elaborated below.
There was evidence that these actions were vulnerable to workload and financial
considerations. In relation to time, for instance, Hong stated: “Honestly, as I have to
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teach English to both primary and junior high schoolers, I don’t have time to invest in
resource preparation for my classes” (Hong, I-I-0). Hai was also concerned: “I have
limited time to prepare the lesson carefully and look for online resources” (Hai, I-I-02).
Financial constraints were also raised: “My salary is so modest that I have to decide on
my investment in teaching resources” (Hong, I-I-0); “The school does not support us to
buy teaching resources so I rely on the textbook” (Hai, I-I-0). These reflections suggest
that their agentic enactment in relation to textbook use was constrained by contextual
environmental factors which, at times, might have caused them to relocate their
position.
In summary, the two island teachers enacted various levels of agency in
response to textbook use. In the first-order self-position as textbook implementers, they
followed the policy mandates imposed on them. Their strong sense of compliance with
structural regulations constrained their ability to activate agency because they did not
want to risk violating the regulations. However, they began to distance themselves from
this first order position when they contemplated their pedagogical conditions. As a
result, they repositioned themselves as strugglers and adapters. In these positions, they
manifested their agency by asserting their right to challenge the policy’s appropriateness
in their contextual and personal circumstances. Their agency was also exhibited through
their creative adaptations of the imposed textbook to meet their students’ needs.
Because they took up three positions on the same policy component, it can be said that
the teachers’ positioning was fluid. This positioning fluidity reflected the teachers’
dynamic policy implementation.
In relation to teaching content, both teachers self-positioned as implementers of
teaching linguistic knowledge, which focused on vocabulary and grammar, and as
negotiators for language skills. This section discusses these two positions and the
factors that appear to have influenced them.
Analysis of the interview and observational data indicated that Hong and Hai
adopted the position that their responsibility was to convey linguistic knowledge. At
their school, they followed an English program with two teaching periods a week. They
received the teaching syllabus from the island BOET, which explicitly mandated that
they covered lessons 1 and 3 within a teaching unit. In the prescribed textbook, lessons
1 and 3 followed a similar pattern, with three sections - look, listen, and repeat; point
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and say; and let’s talk (for Lesson 1) and listen and repeat; listen and circle; and fun
times (for Lesson 3). As the teaching guidelines did not explain what teaching content
or language skills should be emphasised, Hong and Hai had to reinterpret the mandates
by themselves.
In the interviews, the two teachers claimed that they aimed to follow the
teaching guidelines on ways to teach the content and did not dare violate the
regulations. Hong, for instance, asserted that she tried to avoid problems with the
inspectors by “completing the administrative documents by the deadline” (Hong, I-I-
03), while Hai believed that “it is better to conform to the guidelines” (Hai, I-I-0). In the
classroom, however, they tended to put emphasis on vocabulary and grammar:
The lesson today was about verbs in past form. Therefore, while I aimed to help
them with the verb forms, I decided to remind them about the grammatical rules
at the same time. (Hong, I-I-03)
My main focus is to help students acquire and remember as much vocabulary as
possible. And I also help them to grasp some grammatical knowledge (…). My
expectation is to address all the tasks, and do the exercises provided in the
textbook. (Hai, I-I-0)
These statements indicate the teaching goals they set themselves when they
implemented the teaching content policy. Hai believed that it was good for students to
“remember as much vocabulary as they can” (Hai, I-I-01). He also aimed to explain
verb tenses and the differences between “verbs, nouns, and adjectives” (Hai, I-I-01).
Like Hai, Hong was afraid that her students would not understand the lesson if they did
not acquire enough vocabulary. She was also concerned that they might confuse “plural
and singular noun forms” (Hong, I-I-01).
The classroom observations provided corroborating evidence of how they
actually dealt with the teaching content. In all four observed lessons, both teachers
followed a similar pattern, focusing on “forms” when they taught vocabulary and
grammar. In Hai’s class, for instance, he carefully explained the vocabulary and its
formation to primary students. He also taught grammatical rules for plural nouns. Like
Hai, Hong used terminology such as plural or singular, present or past tense and spent a
lot of time analysing the target models. When these teachers displayed the vocabulary
on the board, they labelled the word according to parts of speech, such as (n) for noun,
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(v) for verb, or (adj) for adjective. These actions supported their assertions that their
focus was on linguistic knowledge.
The reason for this focus emerged in the subsequent interviews revealing
teachers’ personal beliefs that impacted their pedagogical decision-making. Hong
believed that vocabulary was the foundation for learning English, and stated that she
managed to “cover all the vocabulary” (Hong, I-I-0). She also explained why she felt
grammar was important to her students:
I just did what I thought was good for my students. If they could not understand
right away, they would absorb the taught content later as long as I kept
explaining it. I thought if I did not introduce the past forms, my students would
encounter obstacles in future lessons. (Hong, I-I-03)
Like Hong, Hai believed that his students should grasp the linguistic content as
firmly as possible to ensure learning continuity when they transited to the junior
secondary level, where he might still teach them. He believed that “it is an investment
for their future English learning” (Hai, I-I-02). He also clarified his reason for using
labels in his teaching practice.
I used these labels [e.g. (n) for noun or (v) for verb] because I thought they were
useful for my students to distinguish different kinds of vocabulary. I know that
many students have trouble identifying the parts of speech in Vietnamese, let
alone English. If I use them regularly, my students won’t have any difficulty
understanding what they mean. (Hai, I-I-01)
It appears that the two island teachers formed their own interpretations of the
teaching guidelines that trickled down from the BOET. While the teaching content
mandates did not explicitly state what to focus on in the island context, Hong and Hai
sensed their oughtness to focus on the linguistic content as the appropriate response to
the mandate. The teachers’ interpretation and sense-making were intertwined with their
personal beliefs about language learning and what was good for their students.
Nevertheless, these teachers began to question their initial self-position of
focusing on linguistic content as they continued to discuss the students’ attributes. In the
interviews, both Hong and Hai expressed concern about their students’ ability to cope
with the large amount of linguistic content. Hong disclosed that her island students may
find it difficult “to digest all of the content” (Hong, I-I-03) while Hai believed that his
students may not spend time learning English vocabulary at home because they “mostly
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have to help their families after school” (Hai, I-I-03). As a result, the teachers chose to
reorient their teaching to suit their students’ perceived abilities. Hong was selective
with the teaching content and decided to “go quickly and only focus on the main
content” (Hong, I-I-02). Similarly, Hai chose to emphasise the content that he thought
was “important” (Hai, I-I-04). Their behavioral adjustment indicated how they would
act on their own assessment of the contextual situation.
In relation to language skills, both participant teachers positioned themselves in
the interviews as negotiators. They both insisted that they did not have to teach these
skills as part of their classroom practice because English was an optional subject. In
other words, teaching language skills was, in their view, discretionary. During the
discussions, Hong and Hai expressed their goal for students’ speaking skills:
My expectation is that by the end of the lesson, the students will speak well.
They will be able to use what they have learned to communicate. (Hong, I-I-04)
I would like my students to develop their speaking skills so that they can handle
some basic communicative situations well. When they meet foreigners, for
example, they would use English to speak to them. I really encourage my
students to speak like that. (Hai, I-I-0)
It seems that the participant teachers expected that they should teach speaking
skills in the classroom. In practice, however, they ignored this skill and chose to focus
on other teaching content that they thought was important for their students. Hong, for
instance, decided to embrace listening skills:
I expect my students to listen well. In practice, I sometimes teach them listening
skills when there is still teaching time available. However, I must say that this
kind of activity is not regular. (Hong, I-I-03)
Hai, in contrast, decided to cover reading skill as a way of reinforcing students’
vocabulary:
Although reading comprehension is optional, I expect to help my students read
the text, understand it, and gain some vocabulary. (Hai, I-I-02)
It appears that these two island teachers’ goal was to incorporate language skills
in their practice. Since they believed that it was not compulsory for them to teach
language skills, they had to decide what skills they would cover. Their decision-making
shows that they had freedom to make choices in the context of limited resources. It also
shows that their pedagogical choices reflected students’ needs.
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In summary, this section has described how the participant teachers responded to
the policy on teaching content. It can be inferred from the discussion that they
reconstructed the mandates by reinterpreting the policy in the context of their teaching
conditions. Self-positioning as implementers, they aimed to place themselves within the
structural order by complying with the mandates. Their decisions, however, showed that
they did not strictly follow the rules. In the absence of detailed guidance from the policy
document, these teachers had to interpret the policy by themselves. Their interpretation
was governed by their teaching goals and students’ needs, which reflected classroom
realities rather than policy intentions. They also defined by themselves what language
skill should be covered given their perception that they were not required to include
language skills in their teaching context.
Data analysis generated three emergent positions in relation to teaching methods
- teachers as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities, teachers as strugglers in
the use of English primary teaching methods, and teachers as resisters to using child-
friendly teaching activities. This section discusses these positions and the conditions
that shaped them.
8.7.1 Teachers as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities
Interviews and classroom observations showed that the participants, at times,
repositioned themselves as implementers of child-friendly teaching activities. In an
interview, Hai in fact expressed his desire to “create a child-friendly learning
environment” for his students (Hai- I-I-01) in which he could try “some fun activities”
(Hai, I-I-0) and group work to promote his students’ autonomy. In a similar vein, Hong
reported that she herself wanted to achieve “a cheerful and active class” by using
“games and lively pictures” (Hong, I-I-03).
As the conversation went on, the two island teachers seemed to become more
comfortable talking about their students. They began to state that they found it easier to
work with primary children than junior high school students. In their view, primary
learners were “innocent and open-minded” (Hai, I-I-03) and were “learning mostly
through imitation” (Hong, I-I-02). In particular, Hai found that his students were curious
and motivated in their learning when he drew pictures on the board for a guessing
activity. He also reported that, unlike junior high school students, primary learners
could not stay focused for long. When he used a game, they became more engaged and
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the class atmosphere changed in a positive way. Hai admitted that although his
employment of some child-friendly activities may cause disturbance and noise to the
next-door class, he addressed this challenge by seeking empathy from his colleagues.
If the class becomes noisy and interferes with other classes, I ask my students to
close all the doors and windows. It’s a way of minimising the noise. Actually, I
discussed this issue with my colleagues and they had no complaints. (Hai, I-I-
03)
Like Hai, Hong surmounted contextual obstacles when she decided to use child-
friendly activities in the class for her students’ needs. She also had to negotiate with
colleagues about the potential noise these might generate. In addition, despite her
comment about the time-consuming nature of group activities, she decided to use them
in her practice to “reduce the students’ discomfort if they sit in one place for too long”
(Hong, I-I-02). Hong talked about a favourite lesson, which was about Vietnamese
Teachers’ Day. She decided to invest considerable time in studying the lesson carefully
and building up lesson goals. She commented that the textbook input and resources
were not sufficient to make the lesson interesting and achieve her goals. As a result, she
exploited external resources “to motivate the students’ curiosity and engage their
attention” (Hong, I-I-01). She also collected and incorporated songs, games, and
simulated situations for students. In her opinion, her preparation and investment made
the lesson successful in the end. She concluded that, to be a good English primary
teacher, she must be “passionate, child-loving, and patient” (Hong, I-I-02). These
accounts indicate that these teachers could see the value of having the goal and intention
of utilising child-friendly teaching activities in their classroom practice.
The observational data provided evidence of the kinds of activities they
employed. Table 8.6 summarises the activities observed in the four lessons. As can be
seen, both teachers implemented child-friendly activities such as songs, games, and
group work in their practice. Two points, however, should be noted. First, the use of
child-friendly activities was infrequent. For most of the classes, the teachers employed
traditional teaching methods, as if they were lecturing. The classes were generally quiet
and appeared to be teacher-centred. Second, the child-friendly activities that they did
employ did not support communicative goals. For example, at the beginning of a lesson,
both Hong and Hai allowed their class to sing a song. Surprisingly, the song was in
Vietnamese and had no relation to the lesson they were going to teach. They also let
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their students work in groups or pairs, but only for textbook exercises rather than for
communicative purposes. These actions suggest that Hong’s and Hai’s interpretations of
‘child-friendly activities’ might differ from the mandates in the policy documents. They
also reveal gaps between what the teachers said and what they practised in the
classroom.
Table 8.6
Island Teachers’ Child-friendly Strategies
Interactive Frequency Format
activity Hong Hai Hong Hai
Songs 2 1 Before the lesson Before the lesson
Games 4 3 Checking vocabulary/ Before /After the lesson

After the lesson
Drawing - 1 - Introducing vocabulary
Group work 4 4 During the lesson During the lesson
Pair work 3 5 During the lesson During the lesson
The subsequent interviews revealed that the teachers’ use of ‘child-friendly

teaching activities’ in class were informed by their personal beliefs. Hong, who
explained that she had had no opportunities to participate in PD activities, said that she
relied on her intuition and personal experience.
I implemented these [child-friendly] activities intuitively. Mostly, I based them
on my own perceptions and my accumulated experience when I worked with
junior high school students. (Hong, I-I-01)
Hai referred to his use of child-friendly activities in relation to his personal perception
of their value:
I employed them [child-friendly activities] because I believed that they could
create a relaxed learning environment for my students. I believed that it was
good to do so. (Hai, I-I-01)
This subsection has discussed the teachers’ self-repositioning as implementers of
child-friendly teaching activities. Their exercise of agency was manifested in the way
they surmounted their personal and contextual constraints to make the class child-
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appropriate. However, it was also noted that their enactment of child-friendly activities
was limited and might have misconstrued the intended policy mandate.
8.7.2 Teachers as strugglers in the use of English primary teaching methods
One of the most salient themes that emerged from the teachers’ interview
accounts was their self-positioning as strugglers in their use of English primary teaching
methods. Their struggles were manifested through their sense of their professional
identity, inadequate professional training, professional competence and students’
concerns.
First, Hong and Hai maintained dual professional identities - one as English
teachers of junior high school level and the other as teachers of primary students. They
perceived themselves, however, more as junior high school teachers and considered
teaching English at the primary level as an additional teaching task because he mainly
worked as an English teacher for junior high school students (see Sections 8.2, 8.3). Hai
even suggested that his school leaders should recruit an English primary teacher “to
reduce the teaching work burden” (Hai, I-I-01). Hong believed that English was not
emphasised at the school because it was deemed “only an optional subject” for the
primary students (Hong, I-I-02). Furthermore, while these teachers seemed to be
confident with their teaching methods for junior high school students, they felt less
competent with English primary teaching methods. Hai commented that the teaching
methods used for the two educational levels were dissimilar and that he himself was
“perplexed about teaching English as a foreign language to primary students” (Hai, I-I-
0). In a similar vein, Hong frankly admitted that she was not confident with the English
primary teaching methods, “I am not sure if what I am doing is appropriate or not”
(Hong, I-I-0).
Second, only sporadic professional development support seemed to be available
to these island teachers. Hong revealed that she had never had a chance to “participate
in any formal training workshop on English primary teaching”, even when the new
textbook was introduced (Hong, I-I-0). Unlike Hong, Hai undertook some PD activities
offered by the DOET, but he did not find them to be effective. Hai said that the
workshops were crammed, theoretical and not context-sensitive and that he did not have
enough time “to absorb the training content” (Hai, I-I-0). In one interview, he likened
his participation in PD activities in the city as “an opportunity for relaxation” (Hai, I-I-
01).
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Third, Hong and Hai were apprehensive about their professional competence.
Having graduated from university nearly two decades ago, they no longer felt confident
about their professional knowledge. They also believed that their working environment
did not foster their language abilities. Hong was concerned about her pronunciation and
communication: “I don’t feel self-confident with it” (Hong, I-I-04). Similarly, Hai said
he would struggle to “find suitable words to express my ideas” if he was asked to
communicate in English (Hai, I-I- 04). Finally, the two island teachers described
stereotypical student characteristics as presenting challenges that they had to cope with:
I feel perplexed about some difficult students. Although I try to help them
understand the content, they cannot absorb it. In addition, some students do not
pay attention to the lesson. They show little interest in the lesson (…) Some
students are timid and silent. They don’t want to speak out or collaborate with
other students in the class.(Hong, I-I-02)
My students are quite passive and silent. (…) Some students do not want to
work in groups. They take advantage of sitting in the group and do something
else. (Hai, I-I-0, Hai, I-I-04)
It appears that the two island teachers faced a plethora of obstacles when they
had to implement the teaching methods mandates in the classroom context. When asked
if they received any support from the BOET supervisor in dealing with this contextual
and personal quagmire, Hong reported: “He [the supervisor] has only a vague idea about
English primary teaching” (Hong, I-I-01), while Hai stated in a straightforward manner,
“I don’t think he would help us. As it is our problem, we should find the way out” (Hai,
I-I-0). At the school level, their teaching practices, however, seemed to be
administratively controlled. Hai revealed that he was stressed by having to deal with
various kinds of professional documents (such as lesson plans, or teaching progress
reports) because the school leaders could decide to examine them without any advance
notice. Hong attempted to avoid administrative problems by maintaining her
professional documents meticulously.
So far, the discussion has focused on the teachers’ struggles in relation to
English primary teaching methods. To deal with this professional dilemma, Hong and
Hai enacted some kind of agency. They both relied on various sources of help, such as
colleagues, online resources, or teaching guide materials. Hai stated that he frequently
attended a teaching forum, where he could find useful materials for his classroom
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practice. He also consulted the teachers’ guide for suggestions about appropriate
English primary methods. He acknowledged, however, that what he was doing was
trial-and-error. He was also unsure of the reliability of online teaching resources
because “they are not official” (Hai, I-I-04). Hong sought ways of improving her
English primary teaching methods through peer observations to “see how they [her
colleagues from other schools] teach a specific lesson” (Hong, I-I-0). Although she
reported that she gained some practical techniques, she did not seem to fully understand
the reasons for using them: “I just imitate what they have done” (Hong, I-I-0). In most
cases, she relied on her teaching experience and intuition: “I teach based on my intuition
and my prior experience as a junior high school teacher” (Hong, I-I-01).
While these teachers exercised some personal agency to overcome their
difficulties, they also claimed their rights, especially for professional support. Hai
commented that, if the DOET expected teachers to teach well, this body should
professionally support teachers:
As a teacher, I expect a training workshop which is held on site and addresses
my specific concerns. With this kind of training, I am sure I could improve my
professional knowledge and skills much better. Also, I don’t have to relocate to
the city centre, which would save me money and energy. (Hai, I-I-03)
Similarly, Hong craved participation in an intensive PD training session on English
primary teaching:
If I was retrained properly and understood the principles of English primary
teaching methods, I could handle a lesson in my own way. I could decide what
teaching techniques I should use to make the lesson interesting to my students.
(Hong, I-I-02)
It appears that PD activities were a pressing issue for the two island teachers.
They both expressed their strong desire to participate in PD sessions to upgrade their
English primary teaching methods.
From the analysis, it can be seen that the two island teachers’ implementation of
English primary teaching methods was entangled with a myriad of challenges. With
little help from the DOET, BOET and school levels, the participant teachers had to
exercise their agency to compensate for these deficits. They themselves surmounted the
obstacles by resorting to different sources. In addition, they turned the policy back on
itself by claiming their entitlement to participate in appropriate and context-sensitive PD
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activities on English primary teaching methods so they could perform their teaching
responsibilities effectively.
Despite these efforts to develop their understanding of English primary teaching
methods, further discussion revealed another self-position - as resisters to the use of
child-friendly teaching activities. Their navigated position is elaborated in the following
section.
8.7.3 Teachers as resisters to the use of child-friendly teaching activities
Hong and Hai perceived their responsbilities of using child-friendly activities -
chants, singing, games and group activities - through BOET documents and peer
observations. In the region, there was a primary school located in the district centre
where English was taught over four periods a week. As the teachers in this central
school were often selected to participate in PD activities offered by the DOET, they
were considered key teachers who were well versed in English primary teaching
methods. The island BOET mandated them to organise regular teaching demonstrations
(once a semester) so that other English teachers in the region could observe and learn
from them.
Hong and Hai, however, did not find these PD activities useful to their practice.
Hai commented that the child-friendly activities they used may not work with his
students, while Hong seemed to be confused because “they [her colleagues] only
disseminate what they have been trained in without detailed explanations” (Hong, I-I-0).
Consequently, they tended to resist using these activities in their classroom. Hai stated
that he rarely used “chants and songs” because he was not interested in them (Hai, I-I-
01). He also believed that he was too old for these kinds of activities. Hong assumed
that games made the class “chaotic, out of control and time-consuming” (Hong, I-I-02).
She added that the overloaded teaching content meant “there was no time for playing
games in the class” (Hong, I-I-02).
The classroom observations did show, however, that the teachers used different
teaching strategies. Table 8.7 summarises the activities that both teachers were observed
to use during the four classes. Typical strategies included substitution, translation,
interrogation, dictation, and repetition. Hai regularly used translation when he taught
new vocabulary or structures. In the class, he also used memoristation, asking the
students to close the book and remember the content. Similarly, Hong favoured
substitution when introducing structures. She also frequently read the sentence model
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aloud and asked her students to repeat and memorise it. The teachers’ statements and
observational data suggest that adult teaching methods were prevalent in the participant
teachers’ classrooms.
Table 8.7
Island Teachers’ Non-child-friendly Teaching Strategies
Frequency Lesson Type
Activity Hong Hai Hong Hai
Substitution 6 8 Structures, grammar Structures, grammar
Translation 13 15 Every lesson Every lesson

Memorisation 10 12 Vocabulary, structures Vocabulary, structures,
pronunciation
Repetition 12 11 Vocabulary, structures, Vocabulary, structures,
pronunciation pronunciation
Exercises 8 9 Review Review
Analysis of the interview data identified two factors that contributed to the
teachers’ employment of non-child-friendly activities: students’ outcomes, and their
own teaching experience. In relation to the former, they reflected:
As a teacher, my priority is to help the students achieve the learning outcomes. I
think other teachers share the same view. In practice, I always attempt to make
my students understand the lessons using different techniques. (Hong, I-I-02)
In my view, a successful lesson is that my students would be able to remember
the teaching content, complete the tasks, and practise them (…). I agree that
there is no need to follow a fixed teaching procedure. The decisions depend on
students. I myself sometimes don’t follow any particular teaching approach. For
example, in a lesson, there are new words, structures and grammar that should
help them understand, practise. (Hai, I-I-01)
As for their past experience as junior high school teachers. Hai believed that he
drew on his personal experience to make up for his limited knowledge of English
primary teaching. Similarly, Hong indicated that she did not want to take risks and
tended to use teaching techniques that “I am familiar with” (Hong, I-I-01).
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I was trained to teach junior high school students and I have more teaching
experience at that level. At that level, I don’t have to sing or chant with students.
Therefore, when I teach the primary students, I choose to leave these activities
out (…) I follow the teaching procedure that I used with my junior high school
students. (Hai, I-OI, Hai, I-I-02)
My approach to teaching vocabulary is that students have to pronounce the
words, understand their meaning and put them into practice. This comes from
my teaching experience at junior high school level. (Hong, I-I-01)
These statements indicate that the two island teachers drew on their own
rationales for their pedagogical decisions, which reflected their teaching goals and
teaching experience. In the classroom context, they decided to use the teaching
techniques that they believed worked best for their students and that would help them
achieve their pre-determined teaching goals. Their decisions were related to the
repertoire of methods from their prior experience, which might not comply with the
mandate to use English primary teaching methods.
The data analysis in this section shows that, in their classroom context, the
participant teachers still had the freedom and rights to reject the use of child-friendly
activities, even though they were aware of their obligations to employ these teaching
techniques in their daily practice. The teachers’ resistance occurred when they
contemplated variables such as students’ needs, their own personal interests and
passions, and teaching conditions. It can be inferred that the participant teachers
exercised their agency by daring to resist the structural order to use child-friendly
teaching activities. Once they rejected these activities, they chose to revert to their
familiar teaching techniques.
Yet under certain conditions the two island teachers decided to use child-
friendly activities in their practice. This aspect of their practice is discussed below.
In summary, the section has portrayed the two island teachers’ responses to the
teaching methods mandates. They predominantly struggled and resisted using English
primary teaching methods in general and child-friendly activities in particular because
of their perceptions of contextual and personal constraints. Rather than considering
these struggles and resistance as negative responses, they can be interpreted as evidence
that the teachers were engaged in policy implementation by asserting their right to
challenge the policy mandate. That is, if the policy makers did not cater to their needs,
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they had the right to refuse to implement the policy. This section also discusses how the
teachers positioned themselves as implementers of child-friendly activities when they
entered the students’ worlds with greater passion and devotion.
8.8 Assessment
In relation to the assessment component, the data showed consistent evidence
that the participants positioned themselves as implementers of both summative and
formative assessment. However, when these teachers considered contextual conditions,
they repositioned themselves as negotiators of these two kinds of assessment.
Like the urban and rural teachers, the island teachers were mandated to follow
the MOET test guidelines, which provided information on how to develop the end-of-
term tests, and Circular 30, which provided guidelines for formative assessment in the
classroom. Both the test guidelines and Circular 30 were initiated by the MOET and
trickled down to the island BOET from the DOET. Hong and Hai received the mandates
from the BOET body and implemented them under the supervision of the school and
BOET. In interview, both predominantly constructed themselves as implementers of
these guidelines. They perceived their duty was to follow the rules, for instance: “I have
to implement them” (Hai, I-I-04); “I attempt to conform to the legal guidelines” (Hong,
I-I-02).
In relation to summative assessment, they commented:
According to the guidelines, there is a certain percentage for different
components such as listening, reading, vocabulary and structures. I constructed
the test based on the format that I received from above. I also consulted teachers
from other schools in the region to see how they did it. (Hong, I-I-02)
I received instructions on how to construct the test. I also understood what
weight was allocated to different test sections. (Hai, I-I-01)
Evidently, Hai and Hong were assigned the role of developing the test for the
students in the school. They acted as conformists to the moral order of assessment
policy by agreeing to develop the test in alignment with the mandate. They both had to
read the policy and reinterpret it themselves in order to implement it. The BOET and
school did not seem to support them in making sense of the prescriptions. Instead, Hong
resorted to her colleagues for help while Hai endeavored to make sense of the
guidelines.
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They reported that all the test items and content derived from the textbook and
that they only tested their students on what they had been taught. The test embraced four
language skills with five sections, as instructed in the guidelines. The first two mainly
tested students’ vocabulary, structures, grammar, and writing; section III was about
reading comprehension; section IV involved speaking; and section V concerned
listening. Their self-developed test, however, included the language skills that they did
not fully cover in their actual teaching practice. When asked why reading, writing and
speaking were included in the test while these skills were not actually taught in the
class, Hong explained that “such is the regulation” (Hong, I-I-02) and Hai responded, “I
followed the test format and other schools also do this” (Hai, I-I-01). It can be inferred
from these actions that the teachers were attempting to follow and implement the rules
and guidelines as strictly as possible.
Regarding formative assessment, the teachers’ accounts also reflected their self-
positioning as implementers:
I have taught three classes and I was given three notebooks in which to write
reports on students’ progress. The notebook is like a classroom diary. I have to
update it regularly. I have no choice. (Hong, I-I-02)
The Circular 30 document is still new to me. I found it really tiring in the way
that I have to give my comments on some of the students’ progress in the
notebook. I have to do it regularly. (Hai, I-I-01)
As previously discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, Circular 30 was widely used to
formatively assess students’ progress in other general subjects in the mainstream
curriculum. When English was incorporated into the curriculum, Circular 30 was
applied to this subject as well. In the island context, as with the test guidelines, Hong
and Hai had to make sense of Circular 30 by themselves, using their limited knowledge.
Hai acknowledged that he himself was not familiar with formative assessment as
presented in the Circular 30 guidelines because it was “still new” (Hai, I-I-01) while
Hong frankly admitted that “I have not fully understood Circular 30” (Hong, I-I-02).
Despite their vague understanding, these teachers still attempted to follow the
assessment mandate in practice because of their sense of duty for this imposed
requirement. By writing monthly reports on their students’ progress, according to their
reinterpretation, they were implementing formative assessment as prescribed in the
policy document. Their understanding did not reflect the true spirit of Circular 30,
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which expected English teachers to provide constructive comments to students in the
classroom (see Section 5.4.2.4, Chapter 5 for the discussion of Circular 30).
It seems that in their implementation of the assessment policy, Hong and Hai
attempted to respond to the policy mandates even though there was a mismatch between
the test content and their actual practice, and they were confused about formative
assessment. As there was no support from the BOET and school when the teachers
reinterpreted the policy requirements, it can be inferred that the participant teachers
themselves had to make sense of the mandates and acted in accordance with their
understanding. While Hong and Hai constructed themselves as conformists to the
assessment policy, they also challenged their first-order position as implementers and
repositioned themselves as negotiators for the two kinds of assessment, especially
formative assessment, when they took some contextual variables into account. Their
repositioning act is further discussed below.
In relation to summative assessment, these teachers aimed to be flexible with the
test design. In the interview, they reflected:
When designing a test, we still covered the listening and speaking skills because
it was important. We also included some reading comprehension although we
did not teach it in the class. But we simplified the test items. (Hong, I-I-02)
It is the regulation that I have to follow. However, in practice, I am flexible. For
listening, I just made it simple so that this section did not put too much pressure
on students. The items might include filling in the blank or choosing True or
False. (Hai, I-I-04)
Examination of a sample that was used to test the teachers’ Grade 3 students in
the first term 2015-2016 provided additional evidence about what the teachers had
claimed in interview about the test design and development (see Appendix C2). The
extracts in relation to reading (section III), speaking (section IV), and listening (section
V) were presented as follows:
III. Em hãy đọc kỹ đoạn văn sau (3đ)
(Read the passage carefully and answer the questions below – 3 points)
Hello, I am Hoa. I am 9 years old. I live in Cat Hai. There are 4 people in my
family. My father is a doctor. He is 40 years old. My mother is a teacher. She
is 38 years old. My sister and I are both students.
A. Điền (T) nếu các câu sau đây đúng và (F) nếu các câu sai với nội dung
đoạn văn (2đ)
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(Decide these statements True (T) or False (F) – 2 points)
1.Hoa’s mother is a doctor. ..................
2.Hoa’s father is 40 years old ...................
B. Trả lời câu hỏi về Hoa (1đ)
(Answer the questions about Hoa – 1 point)
3. How old is Hoa? .................................
4. What does Hoa do?............................
IV.Trả lời câu hỏi về bản thân của em (2đ)
(Answer the questions about yourself – 2 points)
1.What is your name? - ......................................................................................
2.How old are you? -..........................................................................................
V. Nghe cẩn thận và điền từ còn thiếu vào chỗ trống (2đ)
(Listen carefully and fill in the blank with one missing word- 2 points)
1.Hello, I ........................... Lan, I am ................... years old.
2.This is my .................., it is ............................................................................
There was an obvious mismatch between the policy document (MOET test
guidelines) and the teachers’ actual practice. At the Grade 3 level, the policy document
expected a standard complete test to comprise ten questions with three main sections
(Part I concerned listening with five questions, Part II was about reading and writing
with four questions, and Part III focused on speaking with four subsections - listen and
repeat, point, ask and answer, listen and comment, and interview) (see Appendix C2).
However, when these teachers developed the test, they were influenced by their current
teaching conditions and decided to implement the imposed guidelines in alignment with
these contexts. In other words, Hong and Hai chose to flexibly adapt the test mandates
to reflect their classroom realities. They aimed to act according to the regulations rather
than to strictly follow them.
As for formative assessment, the two island teachers seemed to hold a negative
view about this kind of assessment. They were mandated to implement formative
assessment without proper training. In interviews, these teachers explained the likely
reason for their resistance to Circular 30 as follows:
I don’t really understand Circular 30. I found the document too general to put
into practice. It said that, when reporting students’ progress, I should avoid
negative comments. In the class, I often observed students’ learning. My
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teaching was fine if the students understood my lesson. If they didn’t know how
to do the exercise, my teaching was not successful. (Hong, I-I-02)
I got confused about the implementation of Circular 30. So it was difficult for
me to report and discuss with parents. Circular 30 requires me to comment on
three areas: capacity, language skills, and qualities. These requirements are so
general. (…) My students were mostly lazy but I was required to give positive
comments on their learning progress. (Hai, I-I-01)
It appears that Hong and Hai were perplexed when Circular 30 was translated
into their classroom context and were aware of obstacles to its practical applicability.
Hai, for instance, was concerned about possible discrepancies between the test
outcomes and formative assessment. For instance, what if his students received bad low
marks in the term test while Circular 30 mandated him to always provide positive
comments on students’ learning progress? Hai was concerned about how to explain such
a mismatch to the students’ parents. Like Hai, Hong did not believe that Circular 30
accurately reflected her students’ competence. Rather, she considered it as “a form of
indulgence and encouragement” (Hong, I-I-02). It can be seen that these two island
teachers were critical of Circular 30, questioning the reliability of this kind of
assessment in relation to their classroom realities.
As a consequence of failing to make sense of Circular 30, these two teachers felt
unwilling to commit to implementing it:
Circular 30 requires us to submit the reports every month. But I did not want to
spend much time on report writing. It was a lot of pressure. (Hong, I-I-04)
My main job was to teach in the class, not to sit and write the reports and submit
them by the deadline. I felt really pressured and uncomfortable in the peak time.
(Hai, I-I-01)
Evidently, Hong and Hai considered Circular 30 as a burden that they had to
bear. Hong even complained that she was always overwhelmed with paper documents
for different classes. Hai felt uncomfortable with writing students’ reports to meet the
school deadline. Their act revealed that these teachers silently resisted the imposition of
Circular 30 because of their personal perceptions. In discussion, these teachers proposed
mark-giving as an alternative to Circular 30:
I thought that mark-giving was much more familiar and easier to do. Some
critics said that giving marks might put pressure on students and that progress
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should be observed and commented on. However, I thought the best way to
measure students’ progress was through the test results. (Hong, I-I-02)
I myself expected some type of assessment that worked best. Conventionally,
with mark-giving, I would know who was doing well and who was not. Giving
marks is a great way of knowing about students’ progress. (Hai, I-I-01)
These reflections suggest Hong and Hai were speaking out for their rights in
relation to assessment implementation. On the one hand, their proposal challenged the
policy mandates and, on the other hand, reflected contextual conditions and their
personal beliefs and expectations about the policy.
In summary, this section has presented an illustration of the two island teachers’
responses to the assessment policy. With limited support from the school and other
stakeholders and lack of professional training these teachers exercised their agency
through the way they interpreted and implemented the policy mandates. In some cases,
however, their interpretation of these mandates did not conform to the original intent of
the policy, which reflected the gap between the policy and classroom realities. While
their self-positioning as implementers of the test mandates locates them within the given
moral order of practice, they modified the test content to reflect their teaching
conditions. In the same vein, these teachers challenged their first-order self-positioning
and self-repositioned as negotiators in relation to the assessment policy. Once they
repositioned themselves, the teachers perceived and acted in accordance with that
position. Therefore, it can be inferred that the teachers’ agency enactment was subject to
change as a consequence of their navigation of positions.
8.9 Summary
This chapter has discussed teachers’ agentic responses to the language policy in the
island context. The data were drawn from two sources (interviews and classroom
observations). The diversity of teachers’ (re)positioning acts was described and possible
determining factors were examined. Within each established position, the teachers
demonstrated agentic decisions, choices and capacity to act toward the achievement of
their goals and intentions. Having analysed the data for the three sets of teachers in
Chapter 6, 7, and 8, I now turn to the next chapter, which discusses the main findings of
the teacher agency as presented in these chapters in relation to current literature.
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Chapter 9
Discussion
9.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a summary of key research findings across the three cases-
urban teachers, rural teachers, and island teachers. These findings are further discussed
in relation to contemporary literature on language policy implementation. The terms
curriculum policy and language policy are used interchangeably throughout the
discussion since, in the classroom context, the teachers’ policy implementation was
equivalent to their enactment of curriculum policy. The chapter is organised as follows:
summary of findings, teachers’ positions, teachers’ acts/actions, influencing factors, and
teachers’ roles in the policy implementation.
9.2 Summary of Findings
This study aimed to explore how English primary teachers exercise their agency
in response to the language policy in the Vietnamese context. A group of English
primary teachers, school principals, and regional English managers in a province in
Vietnam were purposively selected to participate. Data were collected from multiple
sources - in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and documents. Positioning
theory provided the theoretical framework for data analysis.
Overall, the findings showed that teachers were positioned (by the policy and
their institutions) as “mere” policy implementers who needed to strictly follow the
mandates and instructions transferred to them. Their implementation of policy was
regularly supervised and inspected by local stakeholders, including DOET, BOET, and
school leaders. The teachers, however, did not take on their assigned positions
unquestioningly but repositioned themselves in different ways- as strugglers, resisters,
adapters, or negotiators in their workplace. Teachers’ capacity to act was informed by
their previous professional experience, beliefs, and teaching passion and was influenced
by the specifics of their context.
As noted in Chapter 1 and Chapter 4, the specific research questions posed in the
thesis were:
The findings from these questions are addressed in the sections below.
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9.2.1 How do English primary teachers exercise their agency?
The English primary teachers in this study were found to exercise their agency
in three main contexts: misalignment between policy rhetoric and classroom realities,
inner desires and motivation, and symbolic responses to the policy mandates. These are
discussed in the following sections.
9.2.1.1 Misalignment between policy rhetoric and classroom realities
The teachers exercised their agency as a consequence of what they perceived as
the policy’s ignorance of contextual and learner factors and also because of their own
educational backgrounds (Graves, 2016). First, the teachers adapted the policy mandates
because they felt that their students’ needs were not met. Examples supporting this
claim could be found across four language policy components (textbook use, teaching
content, teaching methods, and assessment). For example, in the three study contexts,
textbooks were required as a de facto curriculum (McGrath, 2013), which the
participant teachers were mandated to strictly implement. However, taking into account
their students’ needs and interests, all the teachers complained about the overloaded
content and inappropriate resources (e.g., pictures or vocabulary). As a result, the
participant teachers adapted the textbook to ‘suit the needs, abilities, and interests of the
students’ (Graves, 1996, p. 27) (see Chapters 6, 7 and 8 for discussion of textbook).
Second, the teachers exercised their agency when there was a conflict or tension
between the policy mandates and their beliefs, prior knowledge and expectations. As
argued in Chapter 1, the teachers were not empty vessels (Freeman & Johnson, 1998).
Instead, they used their knowledge (Graves & Garton, 2014) to address the perceived
curriculum−policy conflicts. They adopted teaching techniques and material they
believed was right for their own classroom circumstances, given their repertoires of
knowledge. For example, in all three contexts, the English primary teachers believed
that students’ outcomes were their priority. Although the policy mandated them to
employ ‘child-friendly’ activities, the teachers decided to use various alternatives such
as translation, repetition, substitution, and reading aloud, all of which derived from their
training or previous experiences as language learners (see Sections 6.7, 7.7 and 8.7 for
discussions of teaching method mandates). Teachers employed their own theories for
practice, ‘by which the teacher mediates classroom practices through the values, beliefs,
and attitudes that underlie professional action’ (Burns & de Silva Joyce, 2007, p. 9).
With these methods, it can be said that the teachers’ personal theories led them to
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surmount the structural orders or ‘the systems in which they worked’ in the light of their
expected outcomes or goals (Burns & de Silva Joyce, 2007, p. 5).
The teaching content mandates also provided another example of the conflicts
between policy expectations and teachers’ practices (see Sections 6.6, 7.6 and 8.6 for
discussions of teaching content). Although the policy expected English primary teachers
to focus on developing students’ communicative competence in two language skills—
speaking and listening (see Section 5.4.2.2)—the participant teachers interpreted and
implemented the curriculum differently. In all three regions, they tended to focus on
linguistic content. For instance, the urban teachers focused on vocabulary, structures,
and grammar because of their orientation towards the test (see Section 6.6). Rural
teachers focused on vocabulary because they believed that this aspect of language was
more important to their students (see Section 7.6). The island teachers taught the
linguistic content because of their interpretation of their duties (see Section 8.6). In all
three contexts, teachers’ beliefs and expectations mediated their orientation towards,
and choices of, teaching content.
Third, the teachers exercised their agency when they had to meet the
requirements of a prescribed curriculum with little clarification of its contents from the
MOET, DOET, BOETs, and schools (see Sections 5.4.2.1−5.4.2.4 for the meso-level
discussion). Consequently, they had to make sense of and interpret the policy based on
their own knowledge and understanding, which, in some cases, did not reflect the
original intention of the policy. For example, due to lack of training, rural and island
teachers interpreted formative assessment as the writing of student reports on a weekly
or monthly basis, rather than the need for daily feedback on student learning in the
classroom (see Sections 7.7 and 8.8).
Thus, teachers exercised their agency when there was a conflict between their
moral and personal positions (see Section 3.3.3 for discussion of these positions). The
teachers attempted to conform to the policy mandates according to their perceived
responsibilities and duties, but held personal agendas by which they rationalised their
pedagogical choices, decisions, and actions and which did not necessarily reflect policy
intents or expectations. The following section focuses on a further condition for teacher
agency.
9.2.1.2 Teachers’ inner desires and motivation
The teachers exercised their agency when they desired to apply or experiment
with something new. In particular, the participant teachers exercised this kind of agency
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when they felt passionate, motivated, inspired, or supported (Burns & de Silva Joyce,
2007; Enever, 2017; Moore, 2007). Under such conditions, they devoted themselves to
making lessons interesting, with much investment in gathering resources and preparing
activities for their students. For example, one of the urban teachers, Thanh, was inspired
about teaching pronunciation. Her interest came from her observations that many of her
colleagues found it challenging to teach. Therefore, she decided to challenge herself by
voluntarily presenting a demonstration on this language aspect at her school and
invested time into locating resources and activities for it. Her dedication finally brought
success and she is now well-known for teaching pronunciation in the region (see
Section 6.7). An island teacher, Hong, narrated a success story based on her love of
teaching. She decided to invest considerable time in studying the lesson carefully and
building lesson goals. She incorporated some child-friendly activities to motivate her
students despite previously perceiving these techniques as unsuitable for her student age
group (see Section 8.7).
From the above evidence, it can be inferred that the teachers’ personal positions
seemed to serve as strong motivators of teacher agency activation, which manifested
through their abilities to act in new and creative ways (Lasky, 2005). Despite the
imposed constraints, these teachers willingly stepped out of their comfort zones,
experimented, and executed their teaching with dedication and zeal. However, English
primary teachers were also found to exercise their agency through their attempts to
adhere to the policy mandates, which are presented below.
9.2.1.3 Teachers’ symbolic responses to the policy mandates
The participant teachers exercised their agency when they chose to symbolically
respond to the policy mandates. ‘Symbolic responses’ refer to the way teachers react to
policy messages in the appearance ‘but not the substance of their work’ (Coburn, 2005,
p. 33). This kind of agency occurred when the teachers responded to policy mandates in
constrained conditions brought about by teaching workload, overloaded content, class
size, job insecurity, administrative supervision, or rigid mandates. Many examples of
teachers’ symbolic responses could be found in this study. For example, the teachers in
these three contexts symbolically responded to the test mandates by complying with the
format transferred to them. They incorporated speaking skills in the test even when
teaching this language skill was deliberately avoided by the urban and rural teachers
(see Sections 6.6 and 7.6). Similarly, island region teachers did not teach the speaking
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skill but still included it in the test (see Section 8.8). These teachers’ responses indicated
that they aimed to appear to comply with the imposed structural rules.
However, in practice, the teachers flexibly or “creatively” implemented the
speaking skill in a manner that suited their teaching conditions and learners. For
example, the urban and rural teachers tested only one or two out of four tasks in the
speaking section mandated by the policy documents (see Sections 6.8 and 7.8). The
island teachers modified the speaking task as a short asnwer section to make it simpler
for their students (see Section 8.8).
It could be inferred from the teachers’ symbolic responses that while their moral
positioning against the policy mandates might be exercised, their personal positioning
acts seemed to be constrained. That is, participant teachers were more likely to align
themselves with the structural aspects. Their strong sense of compliance with structural
regulations constrained their ability to activate agency because they did not want to risk
violating the regulations. However, these structural constraints also enabled teacher
agency to be exhibited through their “creative” adaptations of the imposed mandates to
meet their students’ needs, and their contextual realities.
The discussion in this section reveals that teacher agency was exercised in
various conditions in response to their sense of policy negligence in the grassroots
context. Their agency enactment indicated that they dared to ‘break the rituals’
(Langenhove & Harré, 1999, p. 20) for their teaching goals, desires, or purposes.
Additionally, contextual conditions and teachers’ personal capital (beliefs and prior
knowledge) can either constrain or enable teacher agency. Through agency enactment,
the participant teachers were not pawns or conduits of the language curriculum policy.
Rather, they could act as both receivers and reproducers of the imposed curriculum by
strictly, flexibly, or creatively implementing it to meet their situational needs and
personal expectations.
9.2.2 What are the regional similarities and differences in the way participating
teachers exercise their agency?
It is acknowledged that teacher agency is contextually bounded (Lasky, 2005)
and is, therefore, likely to vary according to region. This section presents the regional
similarities and differences drawn from the current study.
9.2.2.1 Regional similarities
As presented in the three different contexts (Chapters 6, 7 and 8), the
participating teachers responded that they conformed to the policy mandates, which
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included textbook use, teaching content, teaching methods, and assessments. The
participant teachers positioned themselves as policy implementers because they
believed that they, as teachers, should follow the policy mandates and prescriptions.
This kind of positioning was categorised as first-order positioning (Van Langenhove &
Harré, 1999) in that English primary teachers attempted to remain within a moral space
(see Section 3.3.3 for a discussion of first-order positioning).
However, English primary teachers in the three contexts did not entirely take
this positioning for granted. Instead, they repositioned themselves in different ways as
resisters, adapters, negotiators, and strugglers. That is, they could accept, resist,
struggle, negotiate, or adapt the policy mandates imposed according to their
interpretations, preferences, choices, and current teaching conditions. This act was
categorised as second-order positioning (Van Langenhove & Harré, 1999) in that the
teachers challenged and reversed the structural order (see Section 3.3.3 for a discussion
of second-order positioning).
The teachers’ self-positioning and repositioning showed that even when they
claimed that their implementation conformed to the policy mandates, this conformity
did not mean that they were all scrupulously followed. As their positions embraced a
cluster of rights and duties to perform certain actions (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003) (see
Section 3.3.2 for discussion of positions), it can be inferred that the teachers exercised
their rights and freedom as teaching professionals to perform their duties in ways that
may or may not have aligned with policy prescriptions. Indeed, the teachers claimed
their rights and agency and exercised them in response to the policy mandates.
The participant teachers’ self-positioning and repositioning also indicated that
their positions were not fixed. They navigated between different roles (implementers,
strugglers, resisters, negotiators, and adapters) depending on teaching environments,
students, and pedagogical intentions under the same language policy components (i.e.,
textbook use, teaching content, teaching methods, and assessment). Therefore, it can be
inferred that the teachers’ positioning was fluid and that teacher agency was sporadic
and changeable. This positional fluidity also reflected their dynamic policy
implementation.
Despite the similarities discussed, the study also revealed some regional
differences between English primary teachers in three contexts. The following section
discusses these in detail.
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9.2.2.2 Regional differences
Rural and island teachers were found to exercise their agency in more
constrained working environments with ‘minimal support’ (Wedell & Grassick, 2018, p.
4) than their urban counterparts, though constrained conditions manifested differently.
First, the participant teachers received very limited support from schools, parents, and
other educational providers (see Sections 7.2 and 8.2 for descriptions of the research
sites). The rural teachers, for instance, complained that they were not provided with
essential resources that accompanied the textbooks, such as flashcards, large colorful
pictures, or digital resources (see Section 7.5.3 for the discussion of textbook use). As a
result, the teachers had to use their personal funds to obtain these resources. Similarly,
the island teachers received very limited support from their school. Hong, for example,
stated that she even had to insist that the school leaders provide textbooks (see Section
7.5.3). Alternatively, Hai compensated for the deficits in teaching resources with online
searches (see Section 7.5.3).
Second, the rural and island teachers, especially the latter, exercised their agency
with very limited professional development. The rural teachers felt that their PD
participation was insufficient and expected to have more PD opportunities to take up
(see Section 7.6). Similarly, the island teachers admitted that they were rarely selected
to participate in PD activities because of their schools’ characteristics (two school levels
and English as an optional subject) (see Section 8.6). Due to this limited professional
support, the rural and island teachers tended to struggle and resisted the policy
mandated textbook use, particularly in the context of textbook revisions, on a frequent
basis (see Sections 7.5 and 8.5). In addition, the island teachers in particular seemed to
lack the motivation and commitment to teach English to primary students because they
were simultaneously assigned to teach junior high school students. They considered
their responsibility for English primary teaching as optional or additional work.
Therefore, their agency manifested through their resistance and struggles against the
policy mandates (see Section 8.7).
Third, the rural and island teachers perceived themselves as under greater
administrative supervision from either their school leaders, DOET, or BOET inspectors,
without advance notice of inspections. For example, the rural teachers revealed that
their school leaders might come to the class unexpectedly to see how their lesson was
going (see Sections 7.2 and 7.5). An island teacher, Hai, also described their experience
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when being inspected by DOET (see Section 8.5). To protect their positions and avoid
criticism, these teachers chose to follow the policy mandates as closely as possible.
Therefore, it can be inferred that in most cases, their capacity for agency remained
dormant. This manifested as their failure to take risks and their perception of themselves
as conformists with the policy mandates.
In contrast, the urban teachers appeared to exercise their agency in a more
favorable manner, which is reflected in professional training opportunities and school
leaders’ support. In relation to professional development, these teachers felt that they
became confident with their teaching skills as a consequence of their participation in PD
workshops (see Section 6.7). Although they were not formally trained as English
primary teachers, they had opportunities for PD activities on English primary teaching
methods offered by DOET. Their frequent participation in DOET PD activities reflected
the situation that ‘formal support is frequently available to only some teachers, who may
then be expected to cascade training content to colleagues in their local context’
(Wedell & Grassick, 2018, p. 4). As presented in Section 6.3, these teachers were
frequently selected (by DOET) to give teaching demonstrations to other provincial
English teachers. In addition, urban teachers also enjoyed on-site professional training
by private educational providers who had close relationships with the school (see
Section 6.2). These opportunities supported the urban teachers to advance their
professional knowledge and English primary teaching skills.
In terms of school leaders’ support, the two urban teachers appeared to be
encouraged to activate their agency by the school leaders. Unlike their rural and island
counterparts, urban school leaders placed great emphasis on English and considered it to
be a strategic subject (see Section 6.2 for research site descriptions). The urban teachers
did not feel under administrative pressures in relation to teaching content (see Section
6.6) and their school leaders were willing to provide them with essential teaching
resources (see Section 6.7.1).
However, the urban teachers experienced other factors that both facilitated and
constrained their agency. First, parents’ high expectations appeared to compel urban
teachers to devote themselves to their teaching activities. Both teachers felt that the
parents who monitored their children’s learning progress might send feedback on their
teaching practices to school leaders. This parental involvement might also cause urban
teachers to give symbolic responses (see Section 6.7). Second, while the competitive
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school working environment was another important motivating factor for teachers to
exercise their agency to fulfill their responsibilities at the highest level, it also
constrained their collegiality. In particular, the working environment made the two
urban teachers feel that they had to give their best for good treatment at work. This
competitive working environment impeded effective interaction between colleagues
because they did not want to share their professional skills and knowledge (see Section
6.7).
From the case of the urban teachers, it can be observed that the school working
culture, including the role of leaders, was highly important for teacher agency. School
cultures, which are defined as ‘unwritten cultural norms’ (Humphries & Burns, 2015, p.
241), may influence teachers’ actions and efficacy (Liddicoat, Scarino & Kohler, 2017).
Thus, school cultures should be considered to underpin teachers’ actions, decisions, and
choices. At this level, school leaders have key roles in facilitating teacher agency
because they may recognise their teachers’ work, distribute teaching resources, promote
teachers’ initiatives, and restructure everyday work (York-Barr & Duke, 2004).
However, as demonstrated above, school cultures may also act as a constraint for
teacher agency.
Thus far, key findings from the study have been outlined by addressing the two
research questions posed at the beginning of the study (see Section 1.3). To perceive
English primary teacher agency in depth, the next section will further consider three
constructs—teachers’ positions, actions, and influencing factors—within which the
contingencies of teacher agency are believed to occur.
9.3 Teachers’ Positions
This section discusses in detail how teachers’ positioning is framed on the
macro- and meso-levels and how teachers themselves respond to this positioning in their
classrooms.
A key finding was that English primary teachers exercised their agency as a
consequence of the conflict between their moral and personal positioning in response to
policy prescriptions. As discussed in Chapter 5, the policy was transferred from the
macro- to the meso- and micro-levels where teachers, as the final arbiters, had to
implement the mandates with very little support or guidance. Consequently, the
participant teachers had to make sense of and interpret the policy documents and
implement them within their personal capabilities and teaching conditions. Previous
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studies in Vietnam (Hoang & Le, 2017; Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Phan & Hamid, 2017)
and other Asian contexts (Glasgow, 2017; Molina, 2017; Zacharias, 2013) have shown
similar findings. It was found to be common for teachers to have to exercise their
agency in constrained conditions and to respond adaptively to the prescriptions imposed
by policy makers, rather than not passively following them.
The present study aims to provide an alternative perspective on the gap between
policy rhetoric and classroom reality through the lens of positioning theory. In Chapters
5−8, teachers’ positions were discussed in relation to three distinct policy tiers: macro-,
meso- and micro-levels. Figure 9.1 summarises teachers’ positions in these tiers.
Teachers’ positions Tier Teachers’ rights
Implementers: MOET Sufficient professional

support (training, resources,
- Textbook and facilities) to teachers
- Teaching content
- Teaching methods
- Assessments
DOET, Limited sufficient

Implementers:
OOETs, professional support to
Schools teachers
- Textbook
Very limited expertise in
-Teaching content English primary teaching
- Teaching methods
- Assessments
Different positions:
Implementers
Limited support
Negotiators
Teachers
Resisters External and internal forces
Strugglers
Figure 9.1 Teachers’ Positions in Different Levels
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As can be seen in Figure 9.1, there is an obvious divide in teacher positioning
between the macro-and meso-level on the one hand and the classroom level on the
other. As the data in Chapter 5 show, English primary teachers were assigned a position
as ‘mere’ policy implementers by the macro-and meso-level players. In particular, they
were expected to implement four mandatory language policy components - textbook
use, teaching content, teaching methods, and assessments. In this position, teachers were
promised certain entitlements such as professional support, teaching resources, and
small class sizes to fulfil their duties. These entitlements, however, were not fully
addressed when the policy was translated at the meso-and micro-level.
In the classroom, all the English primary teachers in the study (regardless of
regional background) self-positioned in different ways as implementers, resisters,
strugglers, and negotiators of the curriculum (see Chapters 6, 7 and 8). The teachers’
positioning in these micro-contexts indicates that they did not simply accept the position
as strict implementers imposed from the top-down. Rather, they challenged this
imposed positioning and repositioned their teaching in different ways.
The divide between the macro-and meso-level and the classroom level is further
evidence of the hierarchical, centralised, and structured nature of the educational system
in Vietnam (Hamano, 2008, London, 2011; Pham, 2005). It also shows that policy-
making in Vietnam continues to adopt a traditional top-down approach (Baldauf, 2006;
Coburn, 2016; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996). In such a system, teachers are at the
opposite end of a continuum, which has been characterised as “two worlds” (Terhart,
2013, p. 494), with a divide between “the policymakers on the one hand and the local
practitioner on the other hand” (Fullan, 2007, p. 99). In other words, policy formulation
and policy implementation are regarded as “two distinct phases of a policy process”
(Sutton & Levinson, 2001). The existence of this divide gives rise to serious potential
misinterpretations in practice; as Fullan (2007) warns, “not only is meaning hard to
come by when two different worlds have limited interaction, but misinterpretation,
attribution of motives, feelings of being misunderstood, and disillusionment on both
sides are almost guaranteed” (p. 100).
In this study, macro-level actors initiated the policy, formulated it, and
transferred it to lower level bodies for translation and implementation. Policies comprise
sets of principles, laws, and regulations (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997) and “are sometimes
poorly thought-out or poorly written” (Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012, p. 8). As
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discussed in Chapter 5, the MOET expected CLT to be implemented to achieve
collective goals of communicative competence. However, the policy makers and
curriculum developers failed to make explicit what CLT meant and how it was to be
enacted in the classroom in different contexts. Similarly, the MOET policy documents
employed concepts such as formative assessment and child-friendly activities without
explanation. This finding is in line with those from previous literature (Ariatna, 2016;
Fadilah, 2017; Li, 1998; Littlewood, 2014). It also resonates with Graves and Garton’s
(2017) discussion that “governments, when introducing curricula reform, rarely define
what they mean by communicative” (p. 447). The resulting puzzles and ambiguities
demand skilled sense-givers who can “negotiate not only the meanings of policy for
practice, but also the very legitimacy of policy itself” (Spillane & Anderson, in press, p.
32).
The findings in Chapters 6, 7 and 8 show that the teachers’ policy
implementation was embedded in their school environment, which in turn was
embedded in the district (BOET) and DOET settings. There was little evidence of direct
links with the MOET environment. This finding suggests that meso-level actors had
critical roles as they were the ones who had the most direct interactions with teachers in
relation to policy implementation. Moreover, teachers’ implementation activities were
simultaneously embedded in multiple institutional contexts (DOET, BOET and schools)
or structural and moral orders (Van Langenhove, 2017). These overlapping contexts
interacted with each other and located the teachers’ attempts to make sense of the policy
mandates. In other words, the teachers’ policy implementation was dependent on the
broader policy environment in which their classrooms were embedded (Spillane, 2000).
As the policy documents, which were general and abstract, were transferred
from the top level to the classroom, it was expected that DOET and BOET actors
would interpret the policy and develop a well-researched and educationally sound
curriculum ready to pass on to school leaders and teachers for implementation (Spillane,
2009). As Vandeyar (2015) points out, “provinces and districts by virtue of their formal
position of power within the system are pivotal as policy-implementing agencies” (p.
348). However, Chapter 5 showed that DOET and BOET officials mainly perceived
their role as policy conduits or channels that disseminated the policy mandates to
schools and teachers for implementation. These meso-level players also perceived
themselves as policy supervisors, whose duty was to monitor and supervise
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implementation at the grassroots level, rather than collaborate with school teachers to
achieve effective implementation. The findings show that they generally lacked
essential skills and expert knowledge of English primary education. The DOET
representative was a teacher of information technology, and none of the BOET
supervisors and school leaders had been trained to teach English to primary students.
This finding is consistent with those from other studies elsewhere which show that
province and district leaders were poorly equipped to interpret and decontextualise the
policy intent for local application (Vandeyar, 2015; Yanow, 1996). This lack of
competence impacted negatively on the ability of district level officials to implement
policy and support schools (Vandeyar, 2015). Similarly, the participating teachers in
this present study received the policy mandates without further translation and
clarification from the meso-level actors and were left to their own devices in executing
them in the classroom context.
At the classroom level, none of the teachers in the study accepted their position
as mere policy implementers, as imposed on them by the policy makers and other
educational stakeholders (DOET, BOET, and school leaders). Instead, they also
repositioned themselves in different ways - as resisters, strugglers, negotiators, and
adapters - and navigated within these positioning acts (see Chapters 6, 7 and 8)
according to their local teaching constraints and conditions. In other words, they
questioned, challenged, and resisted their first-order positioning. This contested
positioning led to their second-order positioning, which reflected their contextual
conditions, expectations, and desires. The teachers’ navigation shows that their position
was not fixed but dynamic, and changeable (Tirado & Gálvez, 2007). With this
repositioning, the teachers also claimed their right to challenge the policy makers, since
positions are always relational (Harré & Moghaddam, 2003). The mismatch in terms of
teachers’ positioning between the macro- and meso-level and the classroom context
raises several issues for further discussion, as outlined next.
First, when these macro-and meso-level actors assigned teachers a fixed position
as implementers with certain clusters of rights and duties, they failed to recognise the
distinction between positions and roles. While positions are dynamic and fluid, roles are
relatively fixed, often formally defined and long-lasting (Harré & Van Langenhove,
1998; James, 2014). Therefore, when the teachers in this study were assigned the role of
policy implementers, this role responsibility could last throughout the whole of their
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professional life, along with a set of implementative behaviours prescribed by policy
makers and other stakeholders. This type of role assignment reflects a traditional view
of policy formation - a specialist view of curriculum, based on fidelity perspectives, or a
centre-to-periphery model (Graves, 2008), or a technicist or transmission approach
(Kamuravadivelu, 2003). Teachers are placed outside the policy planning process, and
“rarely informed or consulted about the proposed curriculum changes” (Wedell &
Grassick, 2018, p. 3). Classroom teachers in this view are “assigned the role of passive
technicians who learn a battery of content knowledge generally agreed upon in the field
and pass it on to successive generations of students” (Kamuravadivelu, 2003, p. 9). In
this sense, teachers were expected to act as conduits, faithfully transmitting the
information from one end (i.e., the expert) to the other (i.e., the learners) without
questioning.
Second, disempowerment of teachers and ignorance of their lived experiences
are not conducive to effective educational policy enactment (Burns, 2017). By assigning
a fixed position to teachers, policy makers, and educational managers ignored the
dynamics of teaching contexts and teachers’ agentic power. Language policy is not
implemented in a vacuum but involves complex interactions among different actors in
varied conditions (Johnson & Freeman, 2010; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). If teachers are
expected to faithfully implement policy mandates without any channel for feedback,
their creative responses, which are an important component of successful policy
implementation (Coburn, 2005), could be restricted. As a result, teachers have limited
space to exercise their agency because they are obliged to disseminate what they are
mandated to teach and facilitate students’ understanding of content knowledge
(Kamuravadivelu, 2003). Giroux (1988) refers to this process as the proletarianisation
of teachers’ work, whereby teachers are to follow the curriculum as mandated without
critical reflection or adaptation to address their pedagogical concerns. Recently, Creasy
(2018) has discussed the issue of “taming” teachers which, he argues, occurs “where
particular outcomes are both required and expected” (p. 30). By exerting more control
over teachers, educational stakeholders assume that they can direct teachers to
implement the policy according to its intended outcomes. From the perspective of
positioning theory, however, James (2010) warns that the dynamics and fluidity of
positioning can lead to policy failure if it is not paid sufficient attention.
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Putting policies into practice is “a creative and sophisticated and complex
process” (Ball et al., 2012, p. 8). As previously mentioned, the teachers adopted
different positions in their implementation of the mandates that had been handed down
to them. Once a position has been taken, individual teachers perceive and interpret the
world from and through that position (Tirado & Gálvez, 2007). The following section
discusses the teachers’ acts and actions within the positions they adopted.
9.4 Teachers’ Acts and Actions
Freeman (2016) defines teacher agency as “what they do through the choices
and decisions they made in enacting classroom instruction” (p. 138). Accordingly, the
following discussion focuses on teachers’ actions to display their exercise of agency.
Harré and Slocum (2003) identify three categories of actions: those one has done, is
doing, or will do; those which one is permitted, allowed or encouraged to do; and those
which one is physically and temperamentally capable of doing. They suggest that the
two last categories can be used interchangeably. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 identified five
types of actions that English primary teachers performed in response to the curriculum
policy: implement, resist, negotiate, struggle, and adapt. These actions can in turn be
classified into two action domains: “implement” (those which teachers have done, are
doing, and will do), and “negotiate, resist, struggle, and adapt” (those which teachers are
encouraged to do, or are temporarily capable of doing).
The first domain of actions was implementation. As shown in Chapters 6, 7 and
8, all the English primary teachers in the three contexts asserted that they acted in
conformity with the language policy mandates. Their action was, from one perspective,
in alignment with the expectations of macro-and meso-level actors (see Chapter 5).
Morality is crucial to understanding human behaviour and is used to judge what is right
or wrong (Van Langenhove, 2017). As part of their positioning, the teachers constructed
a duty to faithfully follow the textbook mandates, to cover all the teaching content, to
employ child-friendly activities, and to execute assessment components as their moral
responses to the mandates from the higher-ranking levels. They perceived that, as
teachers, these were their duties.
However, the second action domain (struggle, adaptation, resistance, and
negotiation) was also found in all three contexts, though the frequency varied. Resisting
and struggling were more dominant among the rural and island teachers, especially in
the island context. The island teachers held two professional identities – as English
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teachers of junior high school students and as English teachers of primary students. Yet,
they tended to perceive themselves more as the former, refusing to identify themselves
as English primary teachers. They saw their English primary work as an obligation that
they were forced to implement. These perspectives demonstrate that the English primary
teachers did not implement the policy mandates in a vacuum (McGrath, 2013). Rather,
their actions varied according to what could be enacted in their teaching situations.
Positioning theory is concerned “exclusively with analysis at the level of acts,
that is of the meanings of actions” (Harré & Slocum, 2003, p. 124). Two actions that
come under the same description may imply the performance of different acts (Harré &
Slocum, 2003). Therefore, when the teachers claimed that they strictly implemented
language policy components, this did not mean that they did what they said. Their
employment of other actions (struggling, resisting, negotiating, or adapting) indicates
that they implemented the policy in the classroom context adaptively rather than strictly.
This finding is consistent with those from other studies of teacher agency in language
policy implementation, which showed that teachers flexibly implemented the policy
(Hoang & Le, 2017; Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Ollerhead & Burns, 2017; Phan & Hamid,
2017; Yang & Clarke, 2018; Zacharias, 2013).
The present study, however, identified for the first time two kinds of teacher
agency - positive agency and negative agency toward their language policy
implementation. Positive agency refers to “teachers’ creative responses to what they
perceive as the constraints or inadequacy of formal curriculum policy” (Bascia,
Carr‐Harris, Fine‐Meyer, & Zurzolo, 2014, p. 232). In this study, there was evidence
that the participant teachers creatively coped with such challenges as overloaded
teaching content, limited resources, limited teaching space, teaching time constraints,
parental pressures, and strict administrative supervision. In addition, all the teachers
exercised positive agency when they felt compelled by their inner desires to act for their
students. However, positive agency seemed to be more prevalent among urban teachers
than among their rural and island counterparts as a consequence of the school policy and
professional support.
Negative agency, in contrast, occurs in the context of prescriptive curriculum
policy. This kind of agency shows itself as resistance, lack of motivation, lack of
commitment to implementing the curriculum policy or even subterfuge (Bailey, 2000;
Bowe, Ball, & Gold, 2017; Collin, Paloniemi, & Vähäsantanen, 2015; Priestley,
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Edwards, Priestley, & Miller, 2012). Overall, the empirical data show that the teachers
in all three contexts exercised negative agency in their daily practice. However, the rural
and island teachers were more likely to struggle and resist the policy mandates because
of the limited resources and professional support available in their working
environment.
Teacher negative agency is revealed through a mismatch between the original
policy intention and classroom realities (see Table 9.1).
Table 9.1
Mismatch between Policy Intention and Classroom Realities
Policy intention Classroom realities School context
Traditional techniques All three contexts
CLT
(translation, repetition…)
Teach English as a Teach English as a subject All three contexts
communicative skill
Focus on listening and Focus on linguistic content All three contexts
speaking
Use formative Mark-giving preference Rural and island contexts
assessment
As shown in Table 9.1, the teachers’ interpretation and implementation of the

policy in all three contexts did not align with the policy’s original intention. Although
the MOET identified the CLT approach as the means of achieving their desired
communicative goals, the teachers interpreted this mandate not only as the adoption of
child-friendly techniques (as expected by the curriculum developers) but also as the
inclusion of traditional techniques (such as translation and repetition). Particularly in the
island region, the teachers considered child-friendly activities as ways of brightening up
the class rather than for communicative purposes. In addition, while the policy makers
expected English to be taught as a language skill, it was seen as a subject in the
curriculum. Therefore, they perceived themselves as a subject teacher whose
responsibilities were to accomplish the lesson with the assigned teaching guidelines and
textbook content.
The gap between policy intention and classroom reality was also reflected in the
components of teaching content and forms of assessment. As for teaching content, all
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the teachers chose to focus on linguistic content rather than on developing speaking and
listening, as expected by the policy makers. The teachers had their own rationale for
their decisions and choices. In relation to assessment, the teachers seemed to exercise
their negative agency in response to the formative assessment policy as a consequence
of their workload, lack of understanding, and willingness. This evidence is closely in
line with Moore's (2017) study showing that English teachers in Cambodia felt reluctant
to adopt formative assessment due to their assessment fatigue, lack of motivation and
reward, workload, and the time-consuming nature of providing feedback.
However, this study provides further evidence of the regional differences in
relation to teachers’ interpretation of the formative assessment policy. Unlike their
urban teacher counterparts, who were trained to conduct formative assessment at school,
the rural and island teachers misunderstood the nature of formative assessment as they
believed that it was their duty to write students’ progress reports in notebooks to fulfil
the formative assessment mandates. Their misinterpretation of formative assessment
was most likely due to their lack of training and professional knowledge.
Similar misalignments between policy and classroom lives have also been
reported in other empirical studies in Vietnam (Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Phan & Hamid,
2017). Silver and Steele (2005), for instance, identified a gap between structural
priorities and classroom priorities in Singapore. Structural priorities are emphasised by
policymakers and disseminated through legislation or policy documents. Classroom
priorities are “those which relate to the specific contexts of teaching rather than to the
broad goals of the education system” (Silver & Steele, 2005, p. 117).
Through their own interpretation and sense-making, the participant teachers
were likely to encounter “false clarity” - “an oversimplification of the change in which
teachers mistakenly think that they are already responding well to the educational
change mandates” (McGrath, 2013, p. 175). However, teachers’ resistance to the
curriculum implementation should be seen as a positive sign (Gitlin & Margonis, 1995).
Teachers as resisters may be displaying good sense by seeing through the change as
“faddish, misdirected, and unworkable” (Fullan, 2007, p. 111). As Duffy (2002)
suggests, the best teachers are not followers but, through resistance, they demonstrate
that they might be effective teachers.
The discussion so far has been about teachers’ acts and actions. However, it is
argued that teachers’ actions cannot be understood without understanding the setting in
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which the actions are situated (Datnow et al. 2002). The next section discusses the
factors that affected the teachers’ actions.
9.5 Factors Affecting Teacher Agency
As revealed in Chapters 6, 7 and 8, diverse contextual conditions and personal
factors affected the teachers’ agency. The following discussion considers external and
internal forces.
9.5.1 External forces
External forces include structural orders, resource support, and professional
support. Structural orders or moral orders impacted the teachers’ positions and their
pedagogical decisions because they establish the rules for teachers’ actions (Van
Langenhove, 2017). Positioning always occurs within the context of a specific moral
order (Moghaddam, 1999). Each school comprises different rights and duties (Redman,
2013). Structural orders guide how teachers act and indicate which values influence
teachers’ daily choices (Redman, 2013). From an institutional perspective, teachers are
social agents whose thinking and action are situated in the institutional culture that
provides the norms, rules, and definitions of the environment, both constraining and
enabling action (DiMaggio & Powell, 1999). Similarly, Candlin et al. (2017) state
‘introducing the constructs of (im)permissibles, makes very clear that the workplace is
an ordered environment with prescriptions and proscriptions on what may be done or
said/ written” (p.52). Towards what should or should not be said or done, Harré (2010)
makes the distinction between “following the rules” and “acting according to the rules”:
Following a rule is typified by the sort of thing one does when there is a written
instruction; one reads the instruction and then does what it says. Acting
according to a rule is quite different. Acting according to a rule is typified by the
sort of thing one does when driving cars, playing musical instruments and so on,
correctly, that is in accord with some usually publicly acknowledged standard.
(p. 262)
The difference between the two is important. By following the rules, according
to Harré (2010), teachers may become passive and dependent because their aim is to
obey. Acting according to the rule, in contrast, enables teachers to consider the
surrounding conditions and respond to normative standards. The latter offers the space
for teachers to demonstrate their agency.
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In this study, the teachers implemented the policy documents under different
structural conditions - MOET, DOET, BOET, and schools. These structural conditions
may limit, enable, or influence what teachers can do and should do (Van Langenhove,
2017). However, the teachers had the right and freedom to “follow” or “act” according
to the rules in their own classroom context. For example, in all three contexts, the meso-
level actors expected the teachers to strictly follow the textbook material. Textbooks
and teaching guidelines directed the teachers what to teach and how long to teach it.
Textbooks were even used to supervise their daily teaching in the rural and island
schools (see Chapters 7 and 8). As the textbook was also considered the de facto
curriculum (McGrath, 2013), the teachers had to implement the textbook mandates and
did not have the right to select textbooks for their own practice. In this case, they were
“clearly a victim of a decision made by someone else” (McGrath, 2013, p. 57).
Despite these rules, all participant teachers demonstrated flexibility with their
textbook use. Their textbook adaptations indicate that they were not “passive vehicles
for the activity of rules” (Harré, 2010, p. 268). Instead, they exercised power and
capacity to adjust or recreate the rules to suit their needs. According to Harré (2010):
There are roles and rules, and there are people. Only the latter have the
necessary powers to generate social worlds as products. Changing the social
world can be achieved only by changing the rules and customs active people
follow (p. 268 )
The possibility for teachers to resist or create a moral order indicates their power
and ability to act as agents.
The component of resource and professional support varied in different contexts.
Chapter 6 showed that the urban teachers were provided with necessary teaching
resources and facilities by the school and parents. In stark contrast, the rural and island
teachers had to work in a poorly-resourced environment. The availability of teaching
resources and facilities seemed to be especially limited in the island area (Chapters 7
and 8). Furthermore, as explained in Chapter 2, when the NFLP 2020 was introduced,
no colleges or universities offered pre-service English primary teacher training
programs. Therefore, many of the teachers recruited to teach English to primary
students were career changers, second career teachers, or change-of-career teachers
(Anthony & Ord, 2008; Berger & D'Ascoli, 2012; Cuddapah & Stanford, 2015; Trent &
Gao, 2009). Among the study participants, Lan (a rural teacher, Chapter 7), Hong and
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Hai (two island teachers, Chapter 8) had two identities - teachers of junior secondary
school students and teachers of primary students. Loc (Chapter 7), who used to be a
sportswoman, was embarking on a second career. Only the two urban teachers were
formally trained to teach English to junior and high school students.
PD opportunities are crucial for teachers with these kinds of profiles. As
discussed in Chapter 8, the island teachers had to relocate to the city to participate in PD
because most of the professional workshops run by DOET were organised in the city
centre (see Chapter 5). The rural and island teachers also revealed that they did not
benefit from concentrated PD activities, thus indicating that were marginalised in
relation to PD opportunities as opposed to their urban counterparts. Other studies report
similar findings about PD inequalities between teachers in urban, rural and mountainous
regions (Chinh, Linh, Quynh, & Ha, 2014; Trần & Lê, 2017; Vu & Pham, 2014)
Teachers’ implementation of policy mandates in constrained environments is
widely discussed in the literature (Garton, Copland, & Burns, 2011; Kirkgöz, 2007;
Kırkgöz, 2008; Li, 1998; Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Priestley, Biesta, Philippou, &
Robinson, 2016; Priestley et al., 2012; Wedell & Grassick, 2018). Nevertheless, in this
study, the teachers demonstrated some capacity to surmount these challenges. In
particular, to compensate for the resource deficits, the rural teachers spent time
collecting resources from different sources, while island teachers relied on objects they
could find in the classroom. In addition, to address the lack of professional support, they
turned to colleagues, online resources, teachers’ guidebooks, and past experience. This
evidence further supports the claim made in previous studies that teachers’ agency is not
simply a capacity inherent in the individual but is achieved through interaction with the
contextual conditions (Biesta & Tedder, 2006, 2007; Priestley et al., 2016; Priestley et
al., 2012), and that a constrained working environment may, counter-intuitively, be a
good medium for teachers to exercise their agency (Hamid et al., 2014; Nguyen & Bui,
2016; Phan & Hamid, 2017). As a consequence, teacher agency is contextually bounded
and varies from context to context according to the institutional conditions of
constraints and possibilities. Teacher agency is shaped by the social conditions, yet it
may also in turn reshape the social realities (Biesta & Tedder, 2007; Emirbayer &
Mische, 1998).
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9.5.2 Internal forces
Internal forces include teachers’ passion, beliefs, and past experience, as
elaborated below.
The findings in Chapters 6, 7 and 8 show that teachers in all three regions
sustained their passion to benefit their children’s interests. When they felt passionate
about a teaching activity, they dedicated more time and energy to it. This finding is
consistent with those from previous studies about the impact of teachers’ passion on
their teaching practice (Coleman & Guo, 2013; Day, 2004; Fredricks, Alfeld, & Eccles,
2010; Moore, 2007). It also shows that passionate teachers are devoted to working with
children towards the desired outcomes (Day, 2004). They constantly search for more
effective ways of meeting their students’ needs (Zehm & Kottler, 1993).
Teachers’ passion and commitment are seen as important personal traits that can
activate teacher agency. They are a source of motivation to act, to dedicate themselves
to a teaching activity, or to display persistence in tough teaching conditions
(Bonneville-Roussy, Lavigne, & Vallerand, 2011; Vallerand, 2008). Without teachers’
passion, all pedagogical approaches are likely to fail (Day, 2004; Hargreaves, 1997).
However, the language policy documents seemed to neglect teachers’ psychological or
inner worlds. Rather, the policy focused on policy goals, mandates, and guidelines,
which were expressed in written form for teachers to follow. Palmer (1998) comments:
In our rush to reform education, we have forgotten a simple truth: reform will
never be achieved by renewing appropriations, restricting schools, rewriting
curricula, and revising texts if we continue to demean and dishearten the human
resource called the teacher on whom so much depends…if we fail to cherish and
challenge the human heart that is the source of good teaching. (p.3)
Agency power is dormant and inherent in every teacher. If teachers feel over-
controlled and over-supervised, this can lead to mistrust and frustration (Day, 2004). As
a result, they are likely to withhold their enthusiasm, creativity, and energy from their
work. This withdrawal might constrain their agency enactment in response to language
policy mandates. To activate teacher agency, their intrinsic power should, therefore, be
awakened. A supportive context and positive relations are important to foster and
sustain teachers’ passion (Coleman & Guo, 2013; Day, 2004; Fredricks et al., 2010):
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…if passion for teaching cannot always be sustained, if we accept that it can die,
then, knowing its importance to good teaching, we must identity what went
wrong and find ways of rekindling the passion. (Day, 2004, p.133)
As for teachers’ beliefs and past experiences, the findings show that these
factors strongly affected teachers’ thinking and action-making in their classroom
practice. When the policy mandates were translated into the classroom, the teachers had
to reinterpret the messages. In other words, these messages had to be adapted or
modified to fit their contextual needs and conditions: teachers “notice, then frame,
interpret, and construct meaning for policy messages” (Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer,
2002, p. 392). However, teachers are not empty vessels (Freeman & Johnson, 1998).
They bring to their encounters with policy documents prior knowledge, beliefs, and
dispositions (Spillane, Peterson, Prawat, Jennings, & Borman, 1996). This repertoire
influences how they interpret language policy. The context in which teachers work also
impact their interpretation and sense-making of the policy messages (Spillane et al.,
1996). The participating teachers tended to resist, struggle, or adapt the mandates if they
contradicted their beliefs. As a result, they embraced conventional practices such as
teacher-centered and textbook-based instruction, linguistic focus, repetition, drill and
practice, and teacher authority (see Chapters 6, 7 and 8). This discrepancy between
teachers’ beliefs and government curriculum goals is consistent with findings from
several other studies conducted in different settings (Orafi & Borg, 2009; Seargeant,
2008; Waters & Vilches, 2008; Zhang & Liu, 2014).
Teachers’ beliefs and prior knowledge are context-based, dynamic, multifaceted,
and complex. They strongly impact teachers’ pedagogical decisions and instructional
practices (Burns, 1992; Orafi & Borg, 2009; Waters & Vilches, 2008; Zhang & Liu,
2014). According to Harmer (2003), all teachers are “the product of their culture, their
training, their learning, and their experiences” (p. 291). It is these features that make
teachers more sensible to, and practical and flexible in their practices in selecting,
adopting, adapting, resisting, and seeking teaching activities that fit “best the local
context and their own comfort zone” (Zhang & Liu, 2014, p. 200). They can, however,
facilitate or impede policy implementation. The prior beliefs and practices of teachers
can pose challenges. Not only may teachers be unwilling to change in the direction of
the policy, their extant understanding may interfere with their ability to interpret and
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implement the reform in ways consistent with the policy makers’ intentions (Spillane et
al., 2002).
The empirical data presented in Chapter 5 suggests that the policy makers and
other educational stakeholders in Vietnam focus on external forces and ignore “the
contents of the blackbox of local practices, beliefs, and traditions” (McLaughlin, 1990,
p. 11). Although both external and internal forces play an important part in constraining
or enabling teachers’ enactment of agency, it can be argued that teachers’ internal forces
essentially activate their capacity for agency. No matter what policy makers or
educational stakeholders invest in funding, teaching facilities and resources, good
textbooks, and professional development opportunities, policy implementation is likely
to be unsuccessful if teachers’ internal forces are not recognised. Without proper
attention to teachers’ inner worlds, they may choose to exercise negative agency, which
results from a lack of commitment and willingness. Money is not the most important
factor in the successful implementation of an educational policy and change
(McLaughlin, 1990). Similarly, the removal of constraining factors such as class size,
teaching facilities, or inadequate materials does not ensure effective implementation
(McLaughlin, 1990) if teachers, who are key policy implementers, are still entrenched
in their conventional methods (Stigler & Hiebert, 2009). Therefore, teachers’ internal
drive is worth considering by policy makers. McLaughlin (1990) suggests that teachers’
educational policy enactment largely depends on their capacity and will, while Sikes
(2002) asserts that the core message for successful policy implementation is to regard
teachers as “the people”. As Hattie (2012) comments:
Raise the question of class size, grouping in class, salaries and finance, the
nature of learning environments and buildings, the curriculum, assessment, and
the ensuing debate will be endless and enjoyable. These are not, however, the
core attributes of successful schooling. (Hattie, 2012, p. 1)
The core attributes that Hattie (2012) mentions concern “the Intel inside” (p.1), a
metaphor referring to the processor in the computer. It is this component that powers the
computer. Therefore, without paying attention to teachers’ internal world, it is
impossible to awaken their dormant capacities and power for policy implementation.
Once these powerful resources are awakened, teacher positive agency can be effectively
deployed.
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9.6 Beyond Policy Implementation
The dynamic role of teachers has been widely recognised in the literature on
language policy and educational change over the past few decades. They have been
variously described as central policy actors (Brown, 2010; Zakharia, 2010), language
planners (Freeman, 1996), policymakers (Li, 2010), active agents of language policy
implementation (Levinson & Sutton 2001; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996), “the
centerpiece of educational change” (Schmidt & Datnow, 2005, p. 949), key players in
the reform process (Swanepoel, 2008; Wedell, 2003), agents of change (Spillane et al.,
2002) and chief implementers of change (Guro & Weber, 2010). Policy failures in
practice have also been widely reported in recent literature (Baldauf, Kaplan,
Kamwangamalu, & Bryant, 2011; Coluzzi, 2017). In this section, I revisit the question
of teachers’ role in policy formation and implementation. With teacher agency in mind,
I discuss that teachers should be considered as policy co-constructors.
As previously discussed, there are discrepancies between teachers’ positioning
in relation to policy formation and implementation in the macro/meso and classroom
contexts. Macro-level actors claim their rights and duties on the basis of their primary
role in policy initiation, management and decision making. Teachers, who are direct
policy implementers, are located outside the policy-making process and positioned as
faithful and passive receivers. If any problems in implementation occur, teachers are
blamed because they have not been “faithful to the curriculum, not with the curriculum
and those who designed it” (Graves, 2008, p. 151). This approach, however, has been
associated with reported examples of unsuccessful policy implementation in many
contexts (Kaplan, Baldauf, & Kamwangamalu, 2011; McLaughlin, 1987, 1990). In
Vietnam, for example, in 2016 the MOET minister officially declared the failure of the
NFLP 2020 to the National Congress: “Let me get it straight: the project has failed to
meet its target” (Linh, 2016).
Rather than blame the teachers, the real source of the problem needs to be
considered. As Coburn (2016) has observed, “the field of policy implementation suffers
from the propensity fails to learn the same lessons over and over again […] If we are to
move the field forward, it is important to dig beneath what are now truisms to uncover
the underlying mechanisms by which these factors matter” (p. 473). In the light of this
statement, I was led to reconsider the question: What are teachers’ roles in policy
formation and implementation?
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Although language policies have been widely researched in many contexts
(Chua, 2006; Copland, Garton, & Burns, 2014; Hamid & Nguyen, 2016; Kirkgöz,
2007), the true meaning of policy is sometimes taken for granted or “defined
superficially as an attempt to solve a problem” (Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012, p. 2).
Policies are commonly viewed as legislative texts or documents that are to be put into
practice (Braun, Maguire, & Ball, 2010). From this perspective, government officials
are seen as the prime actors in language policy activities (Baldauf & Kaplan, 2003). Ball
et al. (2012), however, argue that, if policy is viewed in such way, “all the other
moments in processes of policy and policy enactments that go on in and around schools
are marginalised or go unrecognized” (p. 2). In other words, many actors or groups
“may lie outside the formal machinery of official policy-making” (Ozga, 2000, p. 113
cited in Ball et al., 2012). Policy is understood not only as texts or things but also as
discursive processes: “policy is done by and done to teachers, they are actors and
subjects, subject to and objects of policy” (Ball et al., 2012, p. 3).
This suggestion opens up a new way of understanding policy formation and
enactment - policy as discursive practice. Barakos and Unger (2016) contend that, by
locating language policy research in a discursive approach, the issue of criticality is
emphasised. They explain: “by critical, we mean adopting a problem-oriented approach;
questioning what is taken for granted, indicating problematic discursive practices by
policy-makers and other elites, and challenging dominant ideologies and normative
assumptions” (p. 3). This approach challenges the taken-for-granted issue in policy: the
relationship between structure and individual agency. In general, structures create rules
and regulations, which trickle down to individual actors in the next level for translation
and implementation.
LP research, however, is entering what is called the fourth wave ( Johnson,
2016), a dominant feature of which is to question and reconceptualise the macro-micro
dialectic and structure-agency phenomenon in ways that shed new light on language
policy texts and discourses (Hult, 2010; Johnson & Johnson, 2015). LP researchers who
adopt this approach believe that, while it is essential to analyse policy documents, this
analysis is not sufficient to capture the complex interaction of policy actors, action, and
social structures (Barakos & Unger, 2016). Further exploration is needed of classroom
lives in which teachers are key actors.
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It is widely accepted that ‘policy is practice and practice is policy” (Shohamy,
2006, p. 165). Language policy as a discursive practice brings macro-structures of
policy into dialogue with the individual agents at the implementation level (Barakos,
2016). McCarty (2011) defines a language policy “as a complex sociocultural
process…as modes of human interaction, negotiation, and production mediated by
relations of powers” (p. 8). This definition goes beyond the notion that language policy
is a thing (Ball et al., 2012) and focuses on “things people do - social actions”
(Mortimer, 2013, p. 69). Barakos (2016) also views language policy as “a discursive
process and as action rather than solid structure” (p. 27). She argues that it is possible to
engage with both the macro-and micro-dimensions of policy (Barakos, 2016). Structure
is “both the medium and the outcome of the practices which constitute social systems”
(Giddens, 1981, p. 27). Structures shape people’s practices, but people’s practices also
constitute and reproduce structures. In this view of things, human agency and structure,
“far from being opposed, in fact presuppose each other” (Sewell, 1992, p. 4). To be an
agent means to be capable of exerting some degree of control over the social relations in
which one is enmeshed, which in turn implies the ability to transform those social
relations to some degree (Sewell, 1992).
Bauldauf (2005) argues that language policy occurs at different levels - the
macro, meso and micro. This orientation implies that language policy even takes place
at the micro level. The focus on local context in language policy reflects the need for the
decentralization of decision-making in social policy in general, which recognises the
impact of power asymmetries on policy outcomes (Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008, p. 5). A
macro-level body may set up norms and expectations for the micro-level, but how this
work is realised depends on decisions made at other levels. No macro-level policy is
“transmitted directly and unmodified to a local context” (Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008, p.
10). In this sense, there is no boundary between macro and micro level; rather, it is a
single entity. Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008) comment:
It has been argued so far that micro-level language planning is a particular
process within a general framework of language planning. In so doing, it has
been necessary to establish a division between the micro and the macro.
However, such a division is in reality a false one. In many cases, what happens
in local language planning contexts is related to the macro-level context and the
interactions between levels can be complex. (p. 10)
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In short, language policy can be considered as practice. Policy implementation
can be seen as a daily event occurring in schools (Rigby, Woulfin, & März, 2016).
Therefore, when teachers implement the language policy in their classroom every day,
they are doing policy. Graves (2008) emphasises that the classroom context is a unique
social environment because of “its own human activities and its own conventions
governing these activities” (p. 166). In this context, teachers act as leaders and actors
who are in a powerful position to do policy. They are knowers and providers of
knowledge. They perform many classroom actions such as controlling specific teaching
tools (books, notebooks, and blackboards) to deliver knowledge and regulate activities
in the classroom (Graves, 2008). The classroom is also a place where teachers make
sense of and reinterpret policy mandates. If the language policy is viewed as two
distinct worlds – macro-and-meso, and classrooms - as previously discussed, the
classroom context in which the policy is actually executed in practice may be neglected.
In other words, if language policy is viewed only as the possession of those who are in
power to effect their decisions, the fundamental interplay between the macro and the
micro is omitted. This view of language policy as practice raises the issue of power
redistribution, and the question, “What is implementable and what works for whom,
where, when, and why?”, is put on the agenda (Honig, 2006, p. 2).
Teaching is a cultural activity (Stigler & Hiebert, 2009). Teaching reality is
complicated: it has been described as a complex cognitive skill (Leinhardt & Greeno,
1986), a dynamic decision-making process (Freeman, 1989), a thinking activity
(Richards, 1998), or reasoning (Johnson, 1999). To fulfil their role, teachers have to
figure out “how to teach a particular topic, with a particular group of students, at a
particular time, in a particular classroom, within a particular school” (Johnson, 1999, p.
1). Teachers have to negotiate their sense of meaning, identity, and practice. The
knoweldge that teachers use for negotiation is “local, contextualised, personal, relational
and oral” (Burroughs, Roe, & Hendricks-Lee, 2000, p. 345). Exploration of teachers’
understanding and interpretation of language policy provides insight into how they
perceive and react to policy and curriculum documents and, thus, emphasises the need
for language convergence between policy makers at the macro level, adminstrators at
the meso level and teachers at the micro level as policy is put into practice. Ball et al.
(2012) highlight the complexity of this process:
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Policy enactment involves creative processes of interpretation and
recontextualisation, that is, the translation of texts into action and the abstractions
of policy ideas into contextualized practices – and this process involves
interpretations of interpretations although the degree of play or freedom for
interpretation varies from policy to policy in relation to the apparatuses of power
within which they are set and within the constraints and possibilities of context.
(p. 3)
Teachers’ policy interpretation and negotiation do not take place in a vaccum.
Through negotiation, new meanings are developed and adopted (Wenger, 1998).
Therefore, without involvement in the initiation of policy, teachers may see themselves
as being linguistically distanced from both the reform and the reformers, which can lead
to the decontextualisation of the language of the reform: “one group always proposing
meanings, and the other group always being in the role of adopting those meanings”
(Melville, 2008).
In the hierarchical, centralised and top-down political system of Vietnam, there
is little input from teachers in policy initiation (Hallinger, 2010). Teachers in schools
are placed as implementers without any involvement, contributions, or consultations
upward to shape or decide on policy initiatives (Cheng & Walker, 2008; Hallinger,
2010). This gap potentially culminates in the erosion of the educational value of reform,
“with the reform being superficially adopted with no real impact on teaching and
learning” (Melville, 2008, p.1196). Consequently, educational change does not achieve
its desired impact, as vividly reflected in the quote from Minister of Education and
Traing (cited earlier in this section). It is, as Stigler and Hiebert (2009) observe, “always
changing and yet staying the same” (p. 100).
These arguments indicate that, if policy makers or curriculum developers work
closely with teachers, beneficial outcomes are more likely to occur. For effective policy
implementation, teachers should involve in a critical negotiatation process with the
policy makers. Melville (2008) suggests that both reformers and teachers should work
together to develop a situated language of reform, thereby strengthening the potential
for effective policy implementation. In particular, Melville (2008) argues that both
teachers and educational reformers should be actively work together to avoid false
clarity, sabotage or superficial adoption of the language of the policy. The so-called
“teachers grow weary” phenomenon that results from ineffective implementation might
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also then be limited (Stigler & Hiebert, 2009, p. 100). More importantly, when teachers
are involved in the policy process, they feel empowered, inspired and motivated, which
in turn potentially activates their agentic capacities and powers.
All things considered, rather than view policy formation as the property of top-
level actors and implementation as the duty of bottom-level actors, teachers should be
seen as policy co-constructors. Policy documents are dead and static; they only come to
life when they are ‘done’. When policy is put into practice, all the actors involved are
seen as policy constructors. Therefore, there needs to be collaboration and support
among the various institutional levels during policy formation and implementation.
McLaughlin (1987) suggests the term “mutual adaptations” to capture this dynamic
process. It portrays policy and practice relations as a mutually adaptive process, “where
policy is transformed to meet the needs of local educators and local practice is
transformed to fit with the goals of policy” (Spillane et al., 1996, p. 431).
9.7 Summary
This chapter has summarised the present study’s findings and discussed them
with reference to current literature. The findings show that the English primary teachers
who participated, regardless of regional context, received the language policy
documents but adapted them to reflect their teaching realities. However, they had the
right and freedom to choose to exercise either positive or negative agency in their
classroom context. Because of their particular institutional constraints and conditions,
the rural and island teachers seemed to display more negative agency than the urban
teachers. The discussion also considered the external and internal factors that affected
teacher agency and reconsidered teachers’ roles in the policy formation and
implementation.
The discussion in this chapter has located the study’s findings in the broader
picture of teacher agency within the current literature. As introduced in Chapter 1,
teacher agency is portrayed as an undertheorised and complex phenomenon and little is
known about how teachers in different contexts exercise their agency in response to a
new language policy. The discussion in this chapter contributes to further understanding
about teacher agency in the context of policy implementation in a centralised
educational system. The following chapter draws conclusions from the present study
and makes some policy recommendations to promote and sustain teacher agency.
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Chapter 10
Conclusion
10.1 Introduction
This study aimed to investigate English primary teacher agency in response to
the primary English curriculum policy introduced as part of the NFLP 2020 in Vietnam.
In particular, the study attempted to achieve two research goals: (1) to explore how
English primary teachers exercise their agency in response to the new English language
policy reforms in three different contexts (urban, rural, and island); and (2) to compare
how teacher agency is exercised across the three contexts. Positioning theory was used
as the theoretical framework and a descriptive-exploratory case study approach was
adopted to explore the phenomenon. The participants included DOET and BOET
supervisors, school leaders, and six English primary teachers in three different locales -
urban, rural, and island in one province in Vietnam.
The concept of teacher agency in this study is in line with other theorists (Biesta
& Tedder, 2006, 2007; Emirbayer & Mische, 1998) and other researchers (Priestley,
Biesta, & Robinson, 2013; Priestley, Edwards, Priestley, & Miller, 2012; Robinson,
2012) in that teacher agency is not a personal trait but achieved through interaction with
other resources. This study, however, further envisages the phenomenon in the way
teachers mobilise imposed structural orders and their rights/ duties.
The study shows that all the participant teachers had rights to perform either
positive or negative agency in response to the language curricular policy. Teacher
positive agency occurred when they were motivated, inspired, and supported while
negative agency appeared when they lacked teaching commitment.
Negative agency seemed to be more prevalent among rural and island teachers,
especially for the latter case. In these contexts, the teachers did not receive sufficient
professional support in terms of training and resources. They were also suppressed by
administrative supervisions from BOET and school leaders. Therefore, their creative
responses to the policy mandates were limited because on most occasions, they chose to
conform to the policy mandates. Noticeably, island teachers appeared to lack motivation
to work as primary teachers because of their perceived duty that it was an additional
teaching task. These teachers possessed two professional identities- as teachers of
English for junior high school students and as English teachers for primary students.
Both of them considered themselves to be English teachers of junior high school
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students, which was likely to undermine their commitment to the position of English
primary teachers.
The primary aim of this chapter is to highlight the study contributions and
suggest some implications for the implementation of effective language policy in the
local context. It begins by theorising teacher agency, drawing on the issues addressed in
the previous discussion in Chapter 9. This is followed by discussion of the implications
of the study’s findings for key stakeholders in policy formation and implementation in
Vietnam. The limitations of the study are also considered, and areas for further research
are identified.
10.2 Teacher Agency in Policy Implementation
Teacher agency is conceptualised in this study as the way English language
teachers can choose to act, in accordance with (rather than follow) rules, regulations,
policy mandates, or structural orders, within their capabilities and local contexts to
achieve their pedagogical goals, desires, or intentions. The power of and capacity for
agency is inherent (though possibly dormant) in every teacher, regardless of educational
background, teaching experience, school context, or geographical location. It is teachers
themselves who choose to activate or exercise it (Redman, 2013). Teacher agency is
manifested through their acts or actions; hence agency is analysed in terms of actions
rather than personal traits, properties, or capabilities (Haapasaari, Engeström, &
Kerosuo, 2016).
Teachers’ actions do not stand alone but interact with diverse moral orders -
cultural, legal, institutional, conversational, and personal (Van Langenhove, 2017).
Moral orders are fundamental to understanding teachers’ actions and decision-making in
the classroom context because they provide a set of rights, obligations, and duties that
define whether their actions are right or wrong. Moral or structural orders, therefore,
limit, enable, or influence what teachers can or cannot meaningfully say and do. Yet
teachers have the right and freedom to choose to conform to the structural order or resist
it. If teachers choose to do what the moral order sanctions, their agency may remain
dormant. Their agentic power is only enacted when teachers choose to act against the
moral order in play and create a new one. When teachers decide to do something, they
always create their own personal moral order (Van Langenhove, 2017). It is in this
personal moral order that teachers justify the rationale for their actions, decisions, and
choices, which Kubanyiova (2015) calls the “inner landscape of actions” (p.567). This
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landscape is believed to shape the quality and meaning of teachers’ classroom practices
and their interactions with students (Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016).
Teacher agency can be positive or negative. It is positive when teachers feel
motivated and inspired, and negative when they resist the policy prescriptions or feel a
lack of commitment, motivation, and recognition. When teachers choose to exercise
their agency, they draw on their store of professional and personal capital, which
includes beliefs, personal values, dispositions, students, prior knowledge, and
professional training experience. The structural order acts as both medium and outcome
of teacher agency (Hamid et al., 2014; Hays, 1994). Teachers exercise their agency
when they make use of the structural order to achieve their pre-determined goals or
purposes. Therefore, structures are seen to shape teachers’ practices, but teachers’
practices, in return, reproduce structures.
Figure 10.1 proposes a model that theorises the findings of this research project.
The language policy is seen as part of the social structure that was initiated and
formulated at the top level. This structural order, which consists of rules, mandates, and
obligations, passes through several layers (i.e., DOET, BOET, and school) before it
arrives in the classroom- a unique context for the policy implementation (Graves, 2008).
Nevertheless, the teachers, as final arbiters in the classroom context, do not
unquestioningly accept the imposed position and structural order. Instead, they
challenge the position and reverse the order. Their agentic actions are manifested in
different ways – implementation, resistance, struggle, adaptation, and negotiation. The
power of macro- and meso-level actors is exercised through rules and mandates, while
the power of teachers is exercised through their agency. Teacher agency is affected by
both external and internal forces. Internal forces, however, are crucial to activating and
maintaining teacher agency.
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Structural order
(Rules, mandates, obligations)
MACRO – MOET
MESO- DOET, BOETs,

SCHOOLS
Teacher agency
Teacher agency
Positive and Negative
Positive and Negative
MICRO-
CLASSROOMS
Teachers
External and internal factors
Figure 10.1 Teacher Agency at the Classroom Level

Drawing on these insights from the study, I am now able to propose the
following as a provisional definition of teacher agency in the context of this research
project:
Teacher agency is an inherent capacity that resides in every teacher. It is
teachers who have the right to choose to act on it (or not) under certain
conditions. Teacher agency is manifested through their actions, choices, and
decisions in the classroom. When teachers exercise their agency, they make use
of rules, regulations, mandates and resources for their teaching purposes. Both
external and internal factors either constrain or enable teacher agency. Yet,
internal factors are argued to be crucial for activating teacher agency.
This section has theorised the concept of teacher agency in a centralised

education system, which included three layers-macro-, meso-, and micro. From the
discussion, it can be seen that these policy levels are not static but always interrelated,
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dynamic, and mutable. The model and definition of teacher agency presented in this
section also leads to a number of implications, particularly for policy makers, which are
elaborated below.
10.3 Implications of the Study
This section discusses the implications of the study’s findings for moving
towards effective language policy implementation in the Vietnamese context. It
considers specific implications for MOET, DOET, BOET, and schools, teachers’ PD
activities, and English primary teacher training.
10.3.1 Implications for macro-level actors: MOET
Language policy development in Vietnam takes place within a hierarchical
structure that is characterised by ministry power and responsibilities devolved to
teachers. However, there is a mismatch between reform initiatives and the local context
(see Section 9.4, Chapter 9). MOET is currently embracing an extensive number of
language policy initiatives – a situation that can lead to so-called “reform syndrome”,
which refers to “so many concurrent reforms on the education system” (Cheng, 2009, p.
75). There are three main conditions for reform syndrome to occur: (1) “the system is
eager to achieve the reform targets in a very short time and implement many initiatives
in parallel; (2) the reforms themselves often ignore their own cultural and contextual
conditions during the implementation process; and (3) too many parallel reforms can
lead to chaos and multiply the chances of reform failing” (Cheng & Walker, 2008, p.
514). The result is likely to be confusion, passivity, and co-dependence among
subordinate actors, which constrains their autonomy, creativity and agency in
implementing the policy mandates. Therefore, rather than viewing policy making as the
property or right of the macro-level, language policy could be seen more constructively
as a practice in which all the relevant actors, including teachers, are policy constructors.
In addition, in relation to the policy making process, top-down policy makers
should be aware that teachers possess the capacity to act as agents in response to
language policies. As Freeman (1996) observes:
Teachers have considerable autonomy in their implementation of high-level
decisions, which leaves room for significant variation in the way they put the
plan into practice on the classroom level […]. Considering teachers and
administrators as planners allows an understanding of how practitioners
potentially shape the language plan from the bottom up (p. 560).
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Policy makers should also be aware of the regional differences and the need to
empower and provide teachers across the regions with sufficient professional support
and resources when the policy is transferred and translated into classrooms. If teachers
in the marginalised regions (i.e., rural, or island) feel discriminated against or isolated,
they may respond negatively to the policy mandates. Therefore, the topic of equity
(Chinh et al., 2014; Phyak & Bui, 2014) should be placed on the agenda for the policy-
making process to narrow the regional gaps.
In addition, policy makers should take account of teachers’ inner worlds to
foster their positive agency. It is common that the policy documents comprise rules,
regulations, guidelines, and instructions imposed on teachers for their implementation
without considering what they think and feel. If teachers are not motivated by the
imposed mandates, they tend to resist them. Therefore, such topics as teachers’ thinking,
dispositions and sociocultural conditions should be put forward in the policy-making
agenda.
10.3.2 Implications for meso-level actors: DOET, BOET, and schools
Since teachers’ policy implementation is directly impacted by these meso-level
actors, their roles are decisive. To be effective, Vandeyar (2015) suggests that meso-
level actors should be provided with skills “as appropriators, interpreters, and learners
of policy” (p.358). In particular, they should be equipped with sound knowledge of the
curriculum policy, teaching methods, assessments, and materials. Without this expertise,
meso-level actors may become co-dependent on MOET and adopt a passive position. If
they engage in policy interpretation with limited expertise, the design or intent of the
original policy may be distorted, leading to failure in implementation (Honig, 2006) or
failure to establish a strong professional community of practice for teachers in the
region. According to Vandeyar (2015):
If within a developing country context, districts and provinces actually constrain
and hinder policy implementation, the argument may prevail as to whether they
serve as legitimate systemic structures. Thus, principals and teachers may be
skilled to receive and interpret policy makers’ intent with intermediaries. (p.
357)
In a centralised political system like that in Vietnam, the political mechanism
operates through different administrative layers (see Section 4.5.1, Chapter 4, and
Section 5.2, Chapter 5 for the information on the hierarchical education system).
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Therefore, no administrative body is ever abolished, even when it performs its
responsibilities poorly. In 2017, there was a public discussion about whether the BOET
level should be abolished because it seemed to be redundant and imposed more
administrative burdens on schools and teachers (Luan, 2017). In a newspaper article,
however, a representative of the national assembly pointed out that this level was part of
the political mechanism and could not be removed (Luan, 2017). If this bureaucratic
level continues to exist, BOET supervisors should be equipped with sound knowledge
of curriculum policy so that they can fulfill their role of supporting teachers.
It is well-documented that the school is the unit or centre of change (Fullan,
2007) and school culture is the essence of sustained success (Hattie, 2012). Kennedy
(2011) also stresses the important roles of an institution which may “produce local
counter-language policies from those proposed at macro levels” (p.11). At the
institutional level, the role of school leader is vital. They can support teachers both
psychologically and with resources (Fullan, 2007), lead cultural change in the school
(Emore, 2004), and treat teachers well (Amabile & Kramer, 2011). In the centralised
Vietnamese education system, primary schools are closely controlled by higher
administrative bodies such as DOET and BOET. Therefore, their autonomy in
managing curriculum policy is likely to be limited.
Despite this administrative constraint, schools can play an active role in
maintaining teachers’ commitment and passion for teaching, which activates teachers’
agentic power and sustains their positive agency. In addition, school principals can
develop a supportive working environment in which every teacher feels safe and
motivated to have the greatest positive effect on student learning and achievement. To
this end, school leaders should be well-informed about educational change and policies
so they can support teachers more effectively. Unless principals understand the
dimensions of change in beliefs, teaching behaviour and curriculum materials, they will
not be able to understand teachers’ concerns and usefully support them in policy
implementation (Deng & Carless, 2010; Fullan, 2007; Wedell, 2009).
10.3.3 Implications for teachers’ professional development
Professional development is important for teachers to exercise their agency
because, without appropriate expertise, they can fall into the trap of false clarity
(McGrath, 2013) (see Section 9.3, Chapter 9). Teacher development does not exist in a
vacuum but is situated in a particular context, with particular people who have particular
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needs, purposes and goals (Kumaravadivelu, 2001). Hence it is both inappropriate and
impractical to provide the same training content to teachers from different regions.
However, as discussed in Section 2.3.3, Chapter 2, PD activities in Vietnam are
centralised with pre-fabricated training workshops for all English primary teachers. In
addition, in Section 8.7.4, Chapter 8, Hai, an island teacher did not find a PD workshop
that he attended valuable and considered it an opportunity to relax. Therefore, the
current mode of PD activities should be changed to embrace regional differences and
differences in teachers’ levels of experience. Situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991;
Riveros, Newton, & Burgess, 2012), which enables English primary teachers to learn in
their school context or communities of practice, seems to offer a useful alternative for
English primary teachers to address their context-specific concerns, especially for those
in rural and island locations. Hargreaves (1997) also suggests that teachers’ professional
learning should address issues of interests to teachers and not issues raised by others.
Therefore, teacher trainers are advised to arrive at the local schools or communities and
work with teachers for their specific needs in particular contextual environments. It is
assumed that English primary teachers would promote their agency if they gain
confidence in making use of contextual constraints.
In addition, to promote teacher agency, it is crucial to recognise and foster their
capacity for reflection and inquiry. Action research is a potential tool to promote
teachers’ professional knowledge and capacity for agency. Freeman (2016) argues that
teachers can “address their agency by thinking heuristically about how they teach” when
they are encouraged to engage in research activities (p. 143). Action research in
particular has been identified as a powerful tool to empower teachers to grow
professionally and agentically (Edwards & Burns, 2015; Moore & Bounchan, 2011).
Effective teachers can become reflective practitioners who adopt an inquiry position on
their practice (Burns, 2009; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Darling-Hammond &
Baratz-Snowden, 2007). In a recent study, Vaughn et al. (2014) assert that even rural
educators can gain significant benefits for the unique needs of their students through
engagement with action research, which could bring potential applicability to the
teachers in disadvantaged areas.
While I support the argument that English primary teachers could also engage in
research, I believe that more commitment to educational change is required from policy
makers, educational administrators, and teachers themselves. Teachers are likely to
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resist educational changes if these changes do not make sense to them. They cite
different reasons for not engaging in research, such as insufficient resources or heavy
workloads (Moore, 2011), lack of motivation, time, professional training support, and
equipment (Stroupe & Kimura, 2011), lack of power, or absence of reward (Moore &
Bounchan, 2011). As well, in Vietnam (as elsewhere in the developing world),
“research culture” is a novel concept. From his personal experience with English
teachers in a developing country, Moore (2011) observes that very few teachers are
keen to undertake research: “professionals are curious about understanding research but
not particularly interested in doing research” (p. 341). Moore’s (2011) concerns raise
the question of how to activate teachers’ power of agency in relation to their
engagement in research for professional development, which would be an interesting
topic to explore in future.
10.3.4 Implications for English primary teacher education
In the long run, pre-service English primary teacher education is important to
ensure qualified English primary teachers for Vietnamese language policy
implementation. To nurture teacher agency, it is argued that pre-service teachers should
become critical thinkers (Freeman, 2016; Hult, 2018). Priestley et al., (2012) also assert
that when humans exercise their agency under concrete situations, they are reflexive and
creative in response to the problem. Therefore, thinking skills should be fostered in the
pre-service teacher training program. However, as discussed in Section 2.3.1, Chapter
2, during the first two years the current teacher training program focuses on general
education courses such as Hochiminhism, Marxism, and educational psychology, and
subject-matter knowledge such as phonology, grammar, discourse analysis, and the four
language skills (Le, 2011; Nguyen, 2017). During this training period, pre-service
students do not have opportunities to develop their reflective thinking skills about their
future profession. Even in the third year of training when the pre-service students are
offered courses on teaching methodologies, reflective practices seem to be limited.
Kumaravadivelu (2001) criticises current models of teacher education which
tend to “transmit a set of preselected and presequenced body of knowledge from the
teacher educator to the prospective teacher” (p. 551). To promote teacher agency, pre-
service English primary teachers should not be trained merely to become teaching
workers who faithfully follow one fixed teaching methodology or approach. Rather,
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they should be helped to develop critical capabilities through critical reflection and
thinking.
Language education is argued to be currently in the era of post-method (Akbari,
2008; Bell, 2007; Kumaravadivelu, 2001, 2006) where post-method practitioners are
expected to practice their profession with competence and confidence (Akbari, 2008;
Kumaravadivelu, 2001). In the post-method era, teachers are autonomous individuals
who can “build and implement their own theory of practice that is responsive to the
particularities of their educational contexts and receptive to the possibilities of their
sociopolitical conditions” (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 548). In the post-method world,
thinking entails freedom - and indeed responsibility - “on the part of the teacher to
articulate her choices and decisions and thus to work out her own method” (Freeman,
2016, p.138). Therefore, the current teacher training program in Vietnam should provide
a space for pre-service teachers’ mental activity to be nurtured and developed. Pre-
service teachers could be given opportunities to practice and rationalise their choices
and decisions among different ways of doing things in the classroom.
With such in mind, the current teacher training program should incorporate one
course on critical perspectives on language education issues which give pre-service
teachers opportunities to critically reflect on contemporary issues in relation to the
language education. Roleplay scenarios (Hult, 2018) are proposed to be one of the
potential learning activities for this kind of course. Hult (2018) investigated the
effectiveness of using roleplay scenarios as an initiative to develop and foster pre-
service teachers’ critical and reflective thinking on language policy implementation. His
study showed that roleplay scenarios enabled his students to critically engage with LP
topics. He also asserts that without critical capacities, there is a risk of teachers’ blind
adherence to policy mandates.
Roleplay scenarios are also argued to be a potential solution for pre-service
teachers to reflect on language curriculum topics such as textbooks, assessments,
teaching contents, and teaching methods. For example, as presented in Chapter 6, 7 and
8, all the participant teachers predominantly relied on textbooks in their teaching.
Critical reflections on textbook materials are crucial for teachers to creatively exploit
the textbook. While a course on textbook evaluation and use is worth considering,
Graves and Garton (2014) argue that this proposal is important but insufficient. They
suggest that pre-service teachers need to have had a successful experience of textbook
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use. Therefore, roleplay scenarios may offer a beneficial alternative for pre-service
teachers to gain hands-on experience and reflective skills on language curriculum
topics, including textbook materials.
This section has foreshadowed some implications for the effective language
policy implementation in the Vietnamese context. Despite these merits, the study
contains some limitations that are discussed in turn.
10.4 Limitations of the Study
In any study it is important to consider the limitations of the research design and
analysis. In this study, they involve the generalisability of the findings, the time
constraints, the teachers’ professional language, the insufficient capture of individual
teacher agency, and the absence of macro-actors’ voices. These limitations are further
discussed below.
First, the findings cannot be generalized. This study has provided an insight into
a group of English primary teacher agency in only one province in Vietnam. As with
any case study analysis, the findings from this study have limited generalizability to
other educational settings although thematic generalizability may be possible. The
reason was that the participating schools and teachers were purposively sampled (see
Section 4.5.2, Chapter 4). In the investigated province, there were 15 BOETs with more
than one hundred primary schools. Each school obviously had its unique characteristics
in terms of locations, teaching facilities and resources, administrations, and students.
Even within three selected BOETs, schools significantly varied. The urban BOET
comprised ten primary schools whereas the rural BOET consisted of 17 primary
schools. The island BOET had seven schools with two educational levels - junior high
school and primary school. While some criteria were used for the school selection to
ensure the regional differences for the research purposes, the samples were relatively
homogenous and not representative. Therefore, caution should be exercised in
considering their applicability to other teachers, schools, districts or provinces with
similar demographic characteristics.
Second, the time spent on the research site was limited, approximately 12 weeks.
Within this time slot, I had to travel to and fro among three selected schools – urban,
rural, and island. While I attempted to collect as much information relating to my
research project as possible in each site, such as teaching facilities and resources,
students, administrations, and working conditions, I believe that there was still much
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information about the school site to be further revealed. If I, as a researcher, had been
able to extend my presence at each site and become deeply engaged in the school daily
activities, I could better understand the school cultures. Similarly, the time constraint
impacted the extent of my data generation with participant teachers. Although I
attempted to develop and foster a good rapport with them, which enabled me to achieve
my expected information from interviews and classroom observations, I believed that a
prolonged engagement with the participant teachers would have provided me with more
insightful perspectives into the meanings of what they said and did.
Third, the participant teachers seemed to experience difficulty and confusion in
using professional teaching language. They tended to use such terminology as
approaches, methods, techniques, or activities interchangeably. For example, they often
employed the term methods for classroom activities they presented, such as using songs,
games, groupwork or pairwork, or approaches to refer to chanting or jazzing. This
confusion of terms may have caused difficulties in the data analysis and interpretation.
In most cases, I had to consider the interview context to make sense of the participants’
intentions. In some other cases, I had to contact the participants for further clarification.
As mentioned in Chapter 4, Section 4.5.7, a brief of the findings report was sent to them
for member checking to limit the misunderstanding. Despite these measures, I believe
that this barrier may have weakened the vividness and authenticity of the interview data.
Fourth, the current study did not fully report how individual teacher exercised
their agency under the same teaching conditions. Rather, it attempted to reflect the
typical themes that emerged between the two participants in each school site. For
example, in the category of textbook policy, the report was on the common challenges
shared between the participant teachers and their ways of overcoming them. This
limitation was, therefore, less likely to capture the dynamics of individual teacher
agency.
Finally, macro-actors were not contacted in person for interviews. One reason
for this absence is that in a hierarchical system, where people in policy roles might
frequently change or move to different government departments, it was difficult to
identify the specific people involved in policy development. Another reason for the
contact difficulty was that all major policy documents (NFLP 2020 and English Primary
Curriculum) were developed before 2010, nearly five years prior to the current project.
Instead, macro-actors’ perspectives were examined through legal documents, which is
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not likely to reflect an in-depth dimension of policy-making actors’ personal viewpoints
or thought.
The study limitations discussed in this section and the complexities of teacher
agency discussed in the previous section (see Section 3.2, Chapter 3) appear to be a
fertile research landscape on teacher agency. The next section suggests some ways that
the research in this study could be extended.
10.5 Suggestions for Further Research
This section proposes several potentially fruitful avenues for further
investigations into the phenomenon in the context of language policy implementation.
First, the limitations of generalisability of the study nonetheless present an
opportunity for future research into teacher agency. Since teacher agency is contextually
bounded (Biesta, Priestley, & Robinson, 2015; Kayi-Aydar, 2015; Priestley, Biesta, &
Robinson, 2013; Priestley, Edwards, Priestley, & Miller, 2012; Pyhältö, Pietarinen, &
Soini, 2012), it is possible that even teachers experiencing the same or similar teaching
conditions or contexts might exercise their agency in different ways. Therefore, future
research could be directed towards examining the effect of the implementation of macro
policies in a variety of micro situational analyses or case studies across the nation in
order to gain broader insights into teaching English to primary students.
Second, despite the lack of consensus, theoretical perspectives on agency fall
into two broad categories: something that people have (i.e. personal capacity), or
something that people do (behaviours) (Paloniemi & Goller, 2017). This research
located itself in the latter category, where agency is seen as the way English primary
teachers ‘do’ rather than something they ‘have’. To exercise their agency, teachers need
to interact with resources, structural conditions and other actors. Because teacher
agency is dynamic, relational, multi-faceted and ongoing (Edwards, 2005; Priestley,
Edwards, Priestley, & Miller, 2012 ), it warrants further investigation from different
perspectives, such as from the theory of culturally figured worlds (Holland, Lachicotte,
Skinner, & Cain, 1998), or sociocultural theory (Lantolf, 2000).
Third, this study did not aim to address the question of whether agency is an
individual or collective phenomenon. While some scholars consider it an individual
phenomenon (Evans, 2017; Goller & Harteis, 2017), others view it as collective
(Hopwood, 2017; Pease-Alvarez & Thompson, 2014) or relational (Edwards, 2005).
Sewell (1992) argues that agency is both collective and individual. He insists that
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“personal agency is laden with collectively produced differences of power and
implicated in collective struggles and resistances” (p. 21). Future research on teacher
agency could be designed to collect empirical data to address these issues.
Fourth, internal factors such as passion, commitment, motivation, beliefs, and
prior experiences play a mediating role in manifesting teacher agency in response to the
language curriculum policy. In other words, teachers are not empty vessels when
curriculum mandates are brought into the classroom context. They have their own
repertoire of personal traits, accumulated knowledge, and experience, which shapes
their decisions and actions. According to Freeman (2016), teacher thinking is “fully
localized in their experiences and their classrooms” (p. 137), while Burns, Freeman, and
Edwards (2015) emphasise that “if a teacher could choose or decide how to teach, then
there must be some cognitive capacity governing those choices and decisions” (p. 587).
Therefore, future research could explore how teachers’ personal traits, thinking, beliefs,
and experience inform their agentic behaviour in the classroom context.
Fifth, the relationship between agency and identity is a promising topic to
explore, especially in the context of teaching English to young learners. Due to the
critical shortage of teachers in different parts of the world, many teachers who are not
formally qualified as English primary teachers are employed. Some are second-career or
career changers who may hold multi-professional identities (Anthony & Ord, 2008;
Shin, 2016; Trent & Gao, 2009). According to Holland et al. (1998), “one can
significantly reorient one’s own behavior and can even participate in the creation of new
figured worlds and their possibilities for new selves” (p. 282). Therefore, future
research could usefully examine how teachers’ multi-identities facilitate or constrain
their agency enactment or how they mobilise or make use of their previous professional
capital to exercise their agency.
Finally, while case study provides opportunity to examine policy
implementation experiences in-depth (Lochmiller & Hedges, 2017), it is not the only
approach. Ethnographic research, for instance, is relevant to exploring the agents,
contexts, and processes within language policy (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007; Johnson,
2009, 2011; Stritikus & Wiese, 2006). Ethnography is also valuable for its ability to
explore the practice of social life by “paying attention to wider structures, and to the
thoughts and feelings of agents” (O’Reilly, 2012, p. 10). In this approach, researchers
would immerse themselves into a particular culture or research site with a prolonged
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time period to observe, explore, listen, and ask questions to provide a thick description
of how language policy is interpreted and appropriated at the grassroots level
(Canagarajah, 2006; Davis, 1999; Ramanathan, 2005). Hornberger and Johnson (2007)
propose that ethnography “offers a means for exploring […] varying local
interpretations, implementations, negotiations, and perhaps resistance” in relation to
policy (p. 511). Ethnography, therefore, has potential to shed light on understanding
teacher agency enactment in language policy implementation.
Alternatively, large scale mixed method approaches, which consist of a mixture
of survey research and case study or ethnography are also worth considering for the
exploration of teacher agency. As discussed in Section 9.2, Chapter 9, teacher agency is
dynamic since their actions are not standalone but interactive with different moral
orders. In addition, in Section 3.1, Chapter 3, language policy is considered multi-
layered with the involvement of different actors. In this chapter, Section 9.5, it is argued
that all the actors involved in policy practice are deemed policy co-constructors.
Therefore, multi-participant research with the involvement of different actors including
policy makers, administrators, principals, teachers, students, and even the mass media
are recommended as another avenue for further research on the agency phenomenon as
a whole.
It seems that the topic of teacher agency is rich for further research. The research
directions as discussed in this section are envisaged to yield more empirical studies on
teacher agency, which possibly addresses the call from other theorists and researchers
(see Section 1.2, Chapter 1). In the following section, I culminate this research project
with my personal reflections as presented in the concluding remarks.
10.6 Concluding Remarks
I conclude my research project with two personal reflections on the topic of
teacher agency. One is about my own doctoral candidature and the other concerns the
teachers who participated in the study.
Four years ago, when I initially encountered the concept of “agency”, I quickly
became engrossed in it. At that time, I thought that agency was a kind of personal power
and property that everyone had. I chose this topic as the research focus because I was
curious to understand it better. I did not anticipate the complexity I would encounter as I
began to explore the literature. I was confused by the many different definitions and
approaches in the scholarly works that I read. Agency, it seemed, could be manifested
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through language, thoughts, intentions, and actions and from sociocultural, sociological,
anthropographical, and psychological perspectives.
During my candidature, the ups and downs of the research process gave me a
practical insight into what agency was. I viewed myself as a research student. However,
I kept positioning and repositioning myself as someone with self-confidence, then
someone who lacked self-confidence, or as someone with strong motivation and then
someone with no motivation at all. I constantly navigated my position in different ways
and viewed the changing doctoral situations from those varying vantage points. The
conflicting boundaries between positioning and repositioning made me struggle, resist,
change, and adapt to find a new self. I later realised that I was actually in a dilemma
about whether to react positively or negatively towards these conflicts. I lost motivation
and resisted my self-change when the struggles got on top of me. Yet I overcame and
surmounted the obstacles when I felt inspired and motivated. The choices and decisions
were up to me. In other words, I had freedom to choose the positive or negative path.
Reflecting on these personal experiences, I understood that my agency was
exercised through my actions, decisions, and choices. When I chose to activate this
power, I was exercising the two kinds of agency I have already referred to: negative
agency and positive agency (see Section 9.3, Chapter 9). Positive agency was, in my
perception, always associated with inner desires, love, commitment, and passion. With
positive agency, I became creative with what I was doing and eager to enrich my
research skills. Negative agency was when I did the work without love and passion.
In addition, I realised that agency was temporal, ephemeral, and changeable. It
switched back and forth between positive and negative over time. Despite the
fluctuations, I sensed how important it was to foster love and passion in what I was
doing. When I did not make sense of the things I was doing, I did not overcome the
challenges that stood in the way of my personal goals. I became aware that inner desires
could activate the hidden capacities – the power of agency to overcome the obstacles.
The second reflection is about the participating teachers. I believe that teaching
is an art and that all teachers are actors and actresses on the stage. They cannot practise
creative teaching without love, passion, and inner desires. Moore (2007) reflects how he
surmounted the contextual constraints he encountered and eventually achieved success
in a writing course through his passion for teaching. In a similar vein, Enever (2017)
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believes that there is a strong link between teachers’ inspiring passion in their students
and their teaching commitment. Day (2004) emphasises the importance of these traits:
Inevitably, there will be times over the course of a career, whether for personal
reasons, as a consequence of changes in policy, or as a result of the emotional
drive that committed, caring teachers put into their teaching, when initial passion
turns to frustration, fatigue, routine, and cynicism or even burn-out. Without
commitment and passion, teaching loses its heart. (p. 129)
Agency is inherent in every teacher, but it needs the right conditions for its
activation. Love and passion for teaching, I believe, provide incentives to activate
teachers’ agentic capacities and powers. Agency cannot be called agency if this capacity
remains dormant. Agency is achieved through what teachers actually do rather than
what they have.
In my perspective, teachers’ love and passion for teaching always remains in
them regardless of the external conditions. The bottom line is when and how they are
unfolded. During my visits to the research sites, the teachers shared their deep concerns
about their daily policy practices, especially when our relationship became more
intimate. Despite their daily hardships, I felt that they all had a genuine passion for
teaching, even those rural and island teachers who implemented the curriculum policy
without the professional and resource support that underpins successful policy
enactment:
[T]he task of the teacher, who is also a learner, is both joyful and rigorous. It
demands seriousness and scientific, physical, emotional, and affective
preparation. It is a task that requires that those who commit themselves to
teaching develop a certain love not only for others but also of the very process
implied in teaching. It is impossible to teach without the courage to love,
without the courage to try a thousand times before giving up. In short, it is
impossible to teach without a forged, invented, and well-thought-out capacity to
love. (Freire, 2005, p. 3)
All in all, I believe that human agency in general and teacher agency in
particular, once awakened and activated, lead to success. While many factors affect
teacher agency, the inner desires, love, and passion are fundamental. Therefore, these
traits should be fostered and nurtured so that teacher agency can be enacted for
successful implementation of educational change.
248
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Appendices
Appendix A1 Participant information statement and consent form
HREA Approval No: HC15031
The School of Education

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM

(In-depth Interviews- For teachers)
English primary teachers agency: A case study of Vietnam
Le Duc Manh
[Participant selection and purpose of study]

You (……………………………………………) are invited to take part in the
research project entitled “English primary teachers: A case of Vietnam”. I, Le Duc
Manh, a PhD candidate at the School of Education, UNSW, hope to have an in-depth
interview with you to explore your agency exercise in teaching practices. You have been
invited because you are currently working as an English primary teacher. Your contact
details were obtained by/from the email list provided by Haiphong Department of
Education and Training.
[Description of study and risks]
I would like to interview you individually. With your consent, the interview will
be audio recorded for transcription purposes only. The time and location of the
interview will be decided according to your convenience (i.e., in the classroom). The
total estimated time will be from one hour to one hour and a half.
[Confidentiality and disclosure of information]
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be
identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your
287
permission, except as required by law. If you give your permission by signing this
document, I plan to publish the results as part of my PhD dissertation, and possibly in
journal articles and at conferences. In any publication, information will be provided in
such a way that you cannot be identified.
[Complaints]
Complaints may be directed to the Ethics Secretariat, The University of New
South Wales, SYDNEY 2052 AUSTRALIA (phone (02) 9385 4234, fax (02) 9385
6222, email humanethics@unsw.edu.au. Any complaint you make will be investigated
promptly and you will be informed out the outcome.
[Feedback to participants]
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us. If you have any additional
questions later, I, Le Duc Manh (phone number: (+61) 0449720778 – Email:
z3471855@student.unsw.edu.au) or my supervisor, Professor Anne Burns, Professor of
TESOL, the School of Education, UNSW (Phone number: (+61) (0)2 9385 1983-
Email: anne.burns@unsw.edu.au) will be happy to answer them. I will be happy to send
you a summary of the findings to your email address once the results have been
analysed.
[Your consent]
Your decision whether or not to participate will not prejudice your future relations
with the University of New South Wales and Haiphong Department of Education and
Training. If you decide to participate, you are free to withdraw your consent and to
discontinue participation at any time without prejudice.
We cannot and do not guarantee or promise that you will receive any benefits for
this study
288
The School of Education
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM
(continued)
Le Duc Manh
You are making a decision whether or not to participate. Your signature indicates
that, having read the information provided above, you have chosen to participate in the
in-depth interview. Please tick the box that is appropriate to you:
 My agreement to participate in the study, “English primary teachers: A case
study of Vietnam”
 My participation in the audio-recorded interview
 My participation is voluntary
 I would like to be sent a summary of findings to my email address
…………………………… …………………………….
Signature of Research Participant Signature of Witness
…………………………… …………………………….
(Please PRINT name) (Please PRINT name)
…………………………… …………………………….
Date Nature of Witness
289
REVOCATION OF CONSENT
Le Duc Manh
I hereby wish to WITHDRAW my consent to participate in the research proposal

described above and understand that such withdrawal WILL NOT jeopardise any
treatment or my relationship with The University of New South Wales and Haiphong
Department of Education and Training
…………………………… …………………………….
Signature Date
……………………………
Please PRINT Name
The section for Revocation of Consent should be forwarded to:

Mr. Le Duc Manh, PhD Candiate of School of Education, UNSW –Email:
z3471855@student.unsw.edu.au
C/o: Professor Anne Burns, Professor of TESOL, the School of Education, UNSW-
Email: anne.burns@unsw.edu.au
290
INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN THE INTERVIEW
(For primary teachers)
(This will be emailed to participants via their common email address)
Dear………………….,
My name is Le Duc Manh, a PhD student from the School of Education,
University of New South Wales. Before my PhD study in Australia, I worked as an
English teacher at the Department of Foreign Languages Studies of Haiphong
University.
I am currently doing my research on English primary teachers’ agency in response
to a new language policy. This research has received ethics approval (number XXXX)
from HREA Panel B at UNSW and in-principle support from the Director of
Department of Education and Training. Therefore, I would like to invite you to
participate in the interview with me.
If you decide to participate, this will involve an in-depth interview, which lasts
from 60 to 90 minutes. The interview will be audio recorded upon your permission.
Your responses will be treated with strictest confidence.
Your participation in the interview is totally voluntary. Your responses will
significantly contribute to the project and therefore I am really grateful to your co-
operation.
If you have any queries or concerns, please feel free to contact me via the email:
manh.le@student.unsw.edu.au
Best regards,
Le Duc Manh, PhD candidate

School of Education, FASS,
University of New South Wales
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INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN THE INTERVIEW
(For principals)
(This will be emailed to participants via their common email address)
Dear………………….,
My name is Le Duc Manh, a PhD student from the School of Education,
University of New South Wales. Before my PhD study in Australia, I worked as an
English teacher at the Department of Foreign Languages Studies of Haiphong
University.
I am currently doing my research on English primary teachers’ agency in response
to a new language policy. This research has received ethics approval (number XXXX)
from HREA Panel B at UNSW and in-principle support from the Director of
Department of Education and Training. Therefore, I would like to invite you to
participate in the interview with me.
If you decide to participate, this will involve an in-depth interview, which lasts
from 30 to 40 minutes. The interview will be audio recorded upon your permission.
Your responses will be treated with strictest confidence.
Your participation in the interview is totally voluntary. Your responses will
significantly contribute to the project and therefore I am really grateful to your co-
operation.
If you have any queries or concerns, please feel free to contact me via the email:
manh.le@student.unsw.edu.au
Best regards,
Le Duc Manh, PhD candidate

School of Education, FASS,
University of New South Wales
292
Appendix A2 Letter of Support from DOET
293
Appendix A3 Ethnic Approval from UNSW
294
295
Appendix A4 Case study protocol
PART I. An overview of the case study

This case study aims to explore Vietnamese primary teacher agency enactment in response to a
new language policy. In particular, this case study research examines how a group of English primary
teachers in the urban, rural and island region of a province in Vietnam exercise their agentic power in
response to the primary English language curriculum introduced as part of the NFLP 2020.
PART II. Procedures for data collection
The data collection went through different stages. The first stage was with macro-level (MOET),
followed the meso-level (DOET, BOETs, and schools) and finally the micro-level (classroom context).
At the classroom level, the urban teachers were collected first, then came to the rural and island teachers.
However, it was noted that the data collection process was iterative, not linear. This diagram illustrated
the data collection procedures
Document Collections
(Macro-level: MOET)
Interviews and Document Collections

(Meso-level: DOET, BOETs, schools)
Interviews and Classroom Observations

(Mirco-level: Classrooms)
Urban teachers Rural teachers Island teachers
PART III. Guide for the case study report

This study was reported in four language policy components as identified in the first stage:
textbook use, teaching content, teaching methods, and assessment.
Within each component, the data was organised into first-order positioning (i.e., implementers)
and second-order positioning (i.e., repositioning from the first position)
In a position, the data was organised into actions / choices and factors impacting on these actions
and choices.
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Appendix B 1 Guided questions ( for DOET / BOET supervisors)
Greeting
Thank the participants for their presence at the interview
Briefly introduce the research information (aims and significance)
Indicate that participants are voluntary and participants are entitled
to withdraw at any time without prejudice.
Notify the participants of the estimated time length, security,
confidentiality and anonymity.
Remind participants that the interview will be audio-recorded
Guided questions
1. What are your views of teaching English as a compulsory subject

in primary level?
Ông / bà thấy việc dạy tiếng Anh như môn học bắt buộc từ lớp 3 như
thế nào?
2. What are your particular roles in implementing a new policy?
Vai trò của Ông / bà trong việc thực hiện chính sách này như thế
nào?
3. What is your view about the implementation of a new curriculum?
Ông / bà thấy việc thực hiện chương trình tiếng Anh mới như thế
nào?
4. What teaching methods are suggested for teachers? How flexibly
can teachers adapt these methods?
Theo chương trình mới, phương pháp giảng dạy của giáo viên được
quy định thế nào?
Ông / bà nghĩ gì về việc này?
Giáo viên được phép linh loạt với những phương pháp ra sao?
297
5. How are teachers’ teaching practices evaluated?
Việc dạy của giáo viên được đánh giá bằng những hình thức nào?
6. What resources does DOET supply to support schools?
Sở đã cung cấp cho trường những nguồn liệu nào?
7. How are textbooks selected? How are textbooks supposed to be
used in the class?
Sách giáo khoa được chọn như thế nào?
Sách được yêu cầu sử dụng như thế nào?
8. What kinds of assessments are you expecting teachers to use?
Why? How are these assessments used?
Ông / bà mong muốn giáo viên đánh giá học sinh bằng hinh thức
nào? Tại sao?
Hình thức này được tiến hành như thế nào?
9. What kinds of professional development does DOET provide to
teachers?
Sở có những hình thức nào giúp giáo viên nâng cao chuyên môn?
Closing
Do you have other points that you would like to make?
Ông / bà có muốn bổ sung thêm gì không?
If you were able to do anything you wanted to help teachers, what
would you do?
Giả sử Ông / bà có thể làm điều gì đó để giúp giáo viên, Ông / bà sẽ
làm gì?
Thank you for your time and contributions
298
Appendix B2 Guided questions for principals
Greeting
Thank the participants for their presence at the interview
Briefly introduce the research information (aims and significance)
Indicate that participants are voluntary and participants are entitled to withdraw
at any time without prejudice.
Notify the participants of the estimated time length, security, confidentiality and
anonymity.
Remind participants that the interview will be audio-recorded
Guided questions
1. What are your views about teaching English as a compulsory subject from
grade 3?
Ông / bà thấy việc dạy tiếng Anh như môn học bắt buộc từ lớp 3 như thế nào?
2. What is your understanding of the new policy for teaching English?
Ông / bà biết những gì về chính sách dạy tiếng Anh tiểu học?
3. How has the school prepared for this new policy?
Nhà trường đã chuẩn bị cho chính sách mới này như thế nào?
4. Thinking about all the subjects in the curriculum, where do you place English?
Vị trí của môn tiếng Anh so với các môn học khác trong chương trình như thế
nào?
5. What resources are provided for English teaching at your school?
Nhà trường đã trang bị những nguồn liệu nào phục vụ cho dạy tiếng Anh?
6. How does the school create opportunities for English teachers’ professional
development (for a new curriculum)?
Nhà trường tạo điều kiện cho giáo viên nâng cao chuyên môn ra sao?
7. Do you have ways for teachers to give feedback on their teaching issues
relating to the curriculum? How do you respond to them?
Nhà trường có hình thức nào để giáo viên phản ánh những vấn đề liên quan đến
chương trình dạy? Và nhà trường giải quyết ra sao?
8. How do you encourage teachers to apply new methods in teaching English?
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Nhà trường khuyến khích giáo viên áp dụng phương pháp mới ra sao?
9. How does the school supervise English teachers’ practice?
Nhà trường quản lí việc dạy của giáo viên như thế nào?
Closing
Ông / bà có muốn bổ sung thêm gì không?
If you were able to do anything you wanted to help teachers, what would you do?
Giả sử Ông / bà có thể làm điều gì đó để giúp giáo viên, Ông / bà sẽ làm gì?
Thank you for your time and contributions
300
Appendix B3 Guided questions (for English primary teachers)
Opening:
-Greeting and thank participants for sitting in the interview.
-Introduce the study aims and ask teachers for consent
1. Why did you decide to become an English primary teacher?
Tại sao Anh / chị muốn làm giáo viên tiếng Anh tiểu học?
2. What qualities should an English primary teacher have?
Theo Anh/ chị, giáo viên tiểu học cần có những phẩm chất gì?
3. What would you like your students to achieve when you teach them English?
Khi dạy học sinh, Anh / chị mong muốn học sinh mình sẽ đạt được những gì?
4. What main goals would you like to achieve yourself as a professional teacher?
Mục tiêu nghề nghiệp trong tương lai của Anh/ chị là gi?
5. What is your view about children learning English from Grade 3?
Anh / chị nghĩ sao về việc dạy tiếng Anh cho học sinh tiểu học bắt đầu từ lớp 3?
6. What are the best aspects about teaching primary children English?
Dạy tiếng Anh tiểu học, Anh/ chị thích nhất điều gì?
7. What are the biggest challenges in teaching primary students?
Dạy tiếng Anh tiểu học, Anh / chị gặp những khó khăn nào?
8. What do you know about a new curriculum?
Anh / chị biết những gì về chương trình đang dạy?
9. What supports do you need to teach English to children?
Anh / chị cần hỗ trợ những gì khi dạy tiếng Anh trẻ em?
10. What teaching methods do you use? (What challenges have you had when
you use them? How have you overcome these challenges?)
Anh / chị sử dụng những phương pháp dạy học nào? (Khi sử dụng những
phương pháp này, Anh / chị gặp những khó khăn nào? Anh / chị đã khắc phục
chúng như thế nào?
11. What resources do you use in your teaching? (What difficulties have you had
to use them? How have you overcome these difficulties?)
Anh / chị sử dụng nguồn liệu nào khi dạy học? (Khi sử dụng những nguồn liệu
này, Anh / chị gặp những khó khăn gì? Anh chị giải quyết ra sao?
301
12. How do you assess your students? Why do you assess in that way? (Do you
have difficulties with using assessment methods? If yes, what do you do?)
Anh chị đánh giá học sinh của mình bằng những hình thức nào? Tại sạo Anh / chị lại
đánh giá theo cách đó? (Anh/ chị có gặp khó khăn gì khi đánh giá bằng cách đó không?
Nếu có, Anh / chị giải quyết ra sao?)
13. Do you teach mainly in English or in Vietnamese? What are the reasons for
this?
Anh / chị dạy chủ yếu bằng tiếng Anh hay tiếng Việt? Tại sao lại vậy?
14. What are your opportunities to take part in professional development? How
useful are they to your teaching?
Cơ hội nâng cao chuyên môn của Anh / chị như thế nào? Việc nâng cao chuyên
môn hữu ích như thế nào cho việc dạy của Anh / chị?
15. What are your views about working in your school? Is English a priority in
your school? How does this impact on your teaching?
Anh / chị thấy làm việc ở trường này như thế nào? Tiếng Anh có được coi trọng
không? Điều này ảnh hưởng thế nào đến việc dạy của Anh / chị?
16. How does your principal support you when you want to apply a new
teaching method? If not, what do you do?
Khi áp dụng phương pháp dạy mới, lãnh đạo trường đã giúp đỡ Anh / chị như
thế nào? Nếu không có hỗ trợ, Anh / chị làm thế nào?
17. How do your colleagues support you when you want to apply a new teaching
method? If not, what do you do?
Khi áp dụng phương pháp dạy mới, đồng nghiệp trường đã giúp đỡ Anh / chị
như thế nào? Nếu không có hỗ trợ, Anh / chị làm thế nào?
18. If you have challenges in implementing the curriculum, do you have
opportunities in the school to talk about them?
Nếu Anh / chị có khó khăn trong việc dạy chương trình mới, Anh / chị sẽ giải
quyết như thế nào?
Closing
Anh / chị còn bổ sung gì thêm không?
If you were able to do anything you wanted to implement effectively the new
language curriculum, what would you do?
302
Giả sử Anh / chị có thể làm một điều gì đó giúp anh chị dạy tốt hơn, Anh / chị sẽ
làm gì?
Thank you for your time and contribution
Appendix B4 Classoom observations
Textbook use
Activity Yes / No Comments
Follow the task sequence

Ask students to look at the
textbook on specified pages
Use the textbook content
Use the resources available
in the textbook
Handouts
Adding inputs
External resources
Skipping the tasks
Modifying the pictures
Others:
Teaching content
Task
Content Comments
focus
Vocabulary, structure,
grammar and pronunciation
Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
303
Teaching methods
Activity Frequency Comments
Songs
Games
Group work
Pair work
Role-plays
Reading in silence
Translation
Dictation
Memorisation
Repetitions
Drilling exercises
Others
Formative assessment
Activity Yes / No Comment
Encouraging comments
Peer corrections/comments
Students’ self-assessments
Teachers’ observations/monitoring
Others
304
Appendix C Test samples
C1- Urban School
Hong bang of Education and Training THE FIRST TERM TEST

XXXX Primary School School year: 2015-2016
Mark
Full name:
_____________________________________
Class: Năm/…….Date: December ............, 2015
A/ PART I: Listening (5pts)

I. Listen and match (1pt)
one
two
three
four
five
II. Listen and circle (1pt)

1. a. hide and seek b. blind man’s bluff c. tag
2. a. an astronaut b. an architect c. an engineer
3. a. watched TV b. listened to music c. read comic book
4. a. November 20th b. November 25th c. October 20th
5. a. a birthday card b. a dictionary c. a comic book
305
III. Listen and number (1pt)
IV. Listen and tick.  (1pt)
1. a. b.
c.
2. a . b . c .
306
3. a. b. c.
4. a. b. c.
5. a. b. c.
V. Listen and complete (1pt)
A: What will we do in the (1) morning?

B: We’ll build some (2) ___________.
A: What will we do in the (3) ___________?
B: We’ll visit a small (4) ___________.
A: Will we (5) ___________ around the islands?
B: Yes, we will.
B/ PART II: Reading (2.5 pts)
Read and do the tasks
Nam lives in Tien Giang. Every morning, he gets up early. He
often walks to school. Yesterday was Sunday. Nam gots up late. He did not
do morning exercise. He did not have breakfast. He went out for lunch with
307
his family. In the afternoon, he went swimming with his father. He did not
listen to her favourite music, but he watched the programme of “English for
Kids” on TV. In the evening, he had no homework. He went to bed early.
I. Tick Yes or No Yes No
1. He often goes to school on foot.
2. He and his family went out for lunch.
3. He did not watch TV.
4. He did not do his homework in the evening.
II. Read the passage again and answer the questions:
1. Where does Nam live?
He lives in Tien Giang.
2. What day is it today?
____________________________________________________________
3. Who did he go swimming with?
____________________________________________________________
4. Did he stay up late last night?

___________________________________________________________
C/ PART III: Writing (1.5pts)
I. Look at the picture and the letters. Write the words as example:
1. basketball 2. ti _ _ r 3. Drag _ _ - Balls 4. cl _ _ k

II. Complete sentences
1. It’s a large cottage.
It’s got a large pond.
3. He likes to play c_______ . 4. We watch_______ some cartoons
last night.
PART IV SPEAKING (1pt) (5’)

Good luck to you!!!


C3
C2 – Island school
308
School year: 2015-2016
School: …………………….
Full name: ........................... Grade : 3
ENGLISH TEST
M«n : Tù Chän TiÕng Anh
(Time allowed : 40 phót )
§iÓm / Mark Lêi phª cña gi¸o viªn / Teachers’ comments
1.Khoanh tròn vào 1 đáp án A, B, C hoặc D để tìm từ khác với các từ còn lại . (2đ )
Odd one out- Circle the different one (2 pts)
1. A. student B. brother C. doctor. D. ten
2. A. are B. your C. am D. is
3. A. this B. that C. Tuan D. these
4.A. thanks B. good bye C. bye. D. New
II. Chọn đáp án đúng và khoanh tròn vào các chữ cái A, B, C hoặc D ( 2 đ )
Circle the best option (2 pts)
1.That …….. .a pen
A. am B. are C.is D.be .
2…………... is that? – That is my father .
A.What B.Who C.Why D.Whom
3.This is my …………,s he is a doctor .
A. brother B.mother C.father D.house .
4.She is …........ years old .
A. Minh B.a table C.nine D. Tall
III . Em hãy đọc kỹ đoạn văn sau ( 3đ )
Read the passage carefully (3 pts)
Hello, Iam Hoa . I am 9 years old . I live in Cat Hai . There are 4 people in my
family .
My father is a doctor . He is 40 years old . My mother is a teacher . She is 38 years
old .
My sister and I are both students .
A.Điền ( T) nếu các câu sau đây đúng và ( F ) nếu các câu sai với nội dung đoạn
văn ( 1đ )
Decide the statements are True or False (1 pt)
1. Hoa’s mother is a doctor . ..................
2. Hoa’s father is 4o years old ...................
B. Trả lời câu hỏi về Hoa ( 1đ )
Answer the question about Hoa (1 pt)
3. How old is Hoa ? -
.............................................................................................................................................
4. What does Hoa do ? -
.............................................................................................................................................
IV.Trả lời câu hỏi về bản thân của em (2 đ)

309
Talk about your self ( 2 pt)
1What is your name ? - ......................................................................................
2.How old are you ? -..........................................................................................
V. Nghe cẩn thận và điền từ còn thiếu vào chỗ trống ( 2đ )
Listen and fill into the blank (2 pts)
1. Hello, I ........................... Lan , I am ................... years old .
2. This is my .................., it is ..........................
The end
310
C3 Rural school
PHÒNG GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO HUYỆN AN DƯƠNG TERM TEST II
SCHOOL NAME: ……………………………… ENGLISH- GRADE 5
Student Name……………………………………… SCHOOL YEAR 2015-2016
Class:……………………………………………….. Time allowed: 40 phút
Listening Reading and writing Speaking Total

Mark Q.1 Q.2 Q.3 Q.4 Q.5 Q.6 Q.7 Q.8 Q. 9 Q.10
PART 1. LISTENING ( 20’)

Question 1. Listen and tick ( ). There is one example (1 pt)
0. A: Where will you be this weekend?
B:
B. C.
A.
1. Jimmy : When will …………………….. be at your school?
Jack:
A. B. C.
2. Laura: What did the …………….. do when you were there?
Tommy:
A. B. C.
3. Mary: What happened in the story?
Bob:
A. B. C.
4. Quan: What does your mother do in her free time ?
Nam:
A. B. C.
311
Question 2. Listen and number. There is one example (1 pt)
Question 3. Listen and tick ( ) or cross ( ). There are two examples. (1 pt)
Question 4. Listen and draw the lines. (1 pt)

Peter Mary Fred
Tomy Micky Tony
Question 5. Listen and write the words. There is one example. (1 pt )

Mai: What’s Tom doing over there?
Phong: He’s playing with a neighbor’s (0) ……dog…..
Mai: He shouldn’t do that.
Phong: (1) …………………… not?
Mai: Because it (2) ………………. dangerous. Tom, don’t play with the dog!
Phong: Why not?
Mai: It (3) …………………. bite you.
Phong: OK, I (4) …………………….
312
PART II. READING AND WRITING (15’)
Question 6. Read and circle the correct answers. There is one example. (1 pt)
Safety First
Accidents can happen in many places and at any
time. You should be careful to advoid them.
• Don’t play with a sharp tool like knife or pair of
scissors.
• Don’t touch animals on the street because they
may bite or scratch you.
• Don’t play with the stove because you may start a
fire.
• Wear a helmet when you are on a bike or a
motorbike.
• When an accident happens, call for help if
necessary.
0. You should be careful to advoid ……………………………..

a. accidents b. places c. time
1. …………………… play with a sharp tool such as a knife or a pair of scissors
a. Does not b. Do not c. Did not
2. You shouldn’t touch animals on the street ……………..…. they may bite or
scratch you.
a. when b. why c. because
3. You shouldn’t play with the ……………. because you may start a fire.
a. motorbike b. stove c. helmet
4. Call for ……………….. when an accident happens
a. police b. sister c. help
Question 7. Look at the pictures, read and complete. There is one

example(1pt)
doctor dentist school because has

It is very cold today. Some pupils are not in (0) ….. school …..
Among them are Mai, Trung, Phong and Quan. Mai can’t come to
class because she (1) …. …………………….a bad headache. Trung
is at home (2) ……………….. he has a stomach ache. Phong went
to the (3) …………………… because he has a fever. Quan went to
the (5) …………………….. because he has a bad toothache. Nam
isn’t happy because he misses his friends.
313
Question 8. Put the words in order. There is one example. (1 pt)
0. will / Sports Day / play / they / table tennis / on /.
-> They will play table tennis on Sports Day.
1. to / are / on / you / do / what / Sports Day / going /?
-> ………………………………………………………………………………….
2. with / what / the / you / matter / is /?
-> ………………………………………………………………………………….
3. do / what / think / you / of / story / this /?
-> ………………………………………………………………………………….
4. because / write / I’d like to / stories / children/ for /.
-> ………………………………………………………………………………….
Question 9. Look at the pictures and write the words. There is one example.
(1 pt)
Hi. My name’s Lien. I’d like to be a

Hello. My name’s (0) …Tony…. I’d nurse when I grow up. I’d like to look
like to be a (1) ………..….. in the future. after (3) .. …………………….and work
I’d like to fly a (2) ……………….... and with other people in a (4)
visit other countries. It’s very exciting. I ……………………. It’s hard work but
hope my dream will come true one day! very exciting.
PART III. SPEAKING (1 pt) (5’)

Question 10.
314
315
Appendix D. Structural orders
316
Macro Meso
Components Goal: to ensure primary Goal: to ensure the teachers’ implementation in a proper manner
students to achieve
communicative
competence (A1-CEFR)
Positioning MOET DOET BOETs Schools
teachers
All contexts:
Position Implementers Implementers All contexts: implementers
implementers
All contexts: Teachers
Teachers have to use the Teachers have to use the can flexibly use the
All contexts: to use the textbook
Duty textbooks (generative and textbooks textbooks
(no instructions or guidelines)
abstract prescriptions) (no written guidelines) (no written guidelines)
-Rural and island schools: accept the

Teachers can select the recommended textbooks from
BOETs decide the
Teachers are eligible for textbooks from the BOETs
textbooks for teachers
the textbook selections approved list Training: Rely on DOET and BOETs
Textbooks Facilities and resources: very limited
Training: Rely on
Teachers are trained on Training opportunities are
Right DOET
the textbook use limited -Urban school: Collaborate with
BOET for the textbook selection.
Sufficient facilities and Training: Rely on DOET, BOETs,
No facilities and
resources Limited facilities and and other sponsors.
resources
resources Facilities and resources: Well-
furnished
All contexts:
Teaching implementers
content -Teachers are expected to -Teachers are expected to All contexts: All contexts:
Duty
focus on listening and follow the teaching syllabus Teachers are expected Teachers are expected to follow the
317
speaking (which clearly states to follow the teaching teaching syllabus
teaching periods-units- syllabus
lessons-contents)
(no detailed instructions)
Teachers might be
Teachers may be flexible flexible with teaching
-Teachers are flexible
(This expectation is contents Urban school: Teachers can be
Right with teaching contents
expressed informally and (This expectation is flexible
(general guidelines)
orally) addressed in an
informal and oral way)
All contexts:
implementers
-Teachers are expected
-Teachers are expected to to follow CLT
follow CLT (no further translation -Teachers are expected to follow
Teachers are expected:
(General translation-almost or clarification at this CLT
-to employ
reiterate from MOET level) (no further instructions)
communicative activities
documents) -Language use: -Language use: Optional
Duty -to maximise their
-Language use: Optional Optional -Teachers are encouraged to be
language use in the class
Teaching -Teachers are encouraged to -Teachers are creative
(These expectations are
methods be creative encouraged to be (This expectation is not in a written
stated in generic terms)
(This expectation is not in a creative form)
written form) (This expectation is not
in a written form)
-No training support at island and
-Training support -Limited training support rural school, except urban school.
-No training support
- DOET English -BOET supervisors’ support -Average class size for island school:
Right -Schools decide the
supervisors’ support -Schools decide the class 15-20 students
class size
-Small class size -Average class size for rural and
urban schools: 35-50 students
318
All contexts:
implementers
Teachers are expected to
do summative and
Teachers are expected to Teachers are expected
formative assessment
implement summative and to implement Teachers are expected to implement
-Summative assessment:
Assessments formative assessments summative and summative and formative
Duty Test format guidelines
(No further translation of formative assessments assessments
-Formative assessment:
MOET documents or (No further instructions (No further instructions)
Follow the Circular 30
instructions) or guidelines)
(These documents are
abstract and general)
Right Training support Limited training support No training support No training support
319
320

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English primary teacher agency: a case of Vietnam

Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/60917 in https://

A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)

FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date of completion of requirements for Award:

Declaration and inclusion of published work

Manh, D.L. (2018). Agentic responses to communicative language teaching in

Teacher agency has become a growing research interest in language education,

ORIGINALITY STATEMENT ...................................................................................... iii

3.3.1 Overview ................................................................................................................ 40

5.4.2.4 Obligations of Assessment ................................................................................ 101

Chapter 9: Discussion .................................................................................................. 202

Figure 2.1 The ETCF framework .................................................................................... 22

BOET : Bureau of Education and Training

CEFR : The Common European Framework of Reference for Language

CLT : Communicative Language Teaching

DOET : Department of Education and Training

ETCF : English Teacher Competency Framework

MOET : Ministry of Education and Training

NFLP 2020 : Vietnamese National Foreign Languages Project 2020

Teacher agency is imperative for the process of implementing educational

Figure 2.1 The ETCF framework (theNFLP2020, 2014, p. 19)

Actions / Acts Storyline

Figure 3.2 Positioning Triangle

Figure 3.3 Repositioning Act

Philosophical worldview Strategy of inquiry

Figure 4.1 Framework for Design (Creswell, 2009)

7 urban 6 rural 2 island

Figure 4.2 The local educational system

2010-2011 322 - 296 26 - - -

4.5.2 Data collection methods

Phase 1 Policy documents collection

Phase 2 - Interviews (DOET +

(Sep- Oct, 2015) BOETs)

Phase 3 - Interviews (English

Figure 4.3 Data Collection Procedures

Actions / Within 30 and 35 minutes, I think it is enough to

2 I used some external postcards or real objects that I

Actions/ could find in the class (Hong, I-I-02)

Macro MOET decisions, circulars,

School leader 1 School leader 2 School leader 3

Figure 5.1. Data Types from Different Stakeholders

As illustrated in the above table, the syllabus seemed to be general. Teaching

Clearly, An Hong had a wide range of audio-visual equipment to support the

6.4 Summary of Data Types and Analysis

Interview Data Sources

In this chapter, I particularly focused on four policy components namely,

child-friendly activities in the class (teaching methods), and formative assessment

(assessment). Therefore, I paid attention to these expectations to see how teachers

agentically responded to them.

For example, Heineke (2015) identified teachers as implementers, resisters, and

negotiators or Li (2010) concluded that teachers acted as policy-makers.

positioned themselves in different ways in response to the four components of the

These categories and sub-categories are elaborated in the following sections.

6.5 Textbooks and Resource Use

Tam Thanh Tam Thanh

Activity Tam Thanh

7.4 Summary of Data Types and Analysis

In particular, Loc seemed to extend the activities more frequently in the

positionin Writing Vocabulary, Vocabulary, structures

Games 3 8 During the lesson In every lesson

Lan Loc Lan Loc

The analysis in this section identified three positions in relation to teaching