Trends in Teaching and Learning English in Vietnam: Implications for the Future Dr. Lillian Utsumi & Dr.

Doan Thi Nam-Hau CHEER for Viet Nam - Traversing Borders: Viet Nam Teacher Program Abstract In this paper, researchers Doan and Utsumi present the results of a study, using mixed methods that examined current teaching methods and practices in English language teaching. Spanning five major universities in Vietnam, data were collected from multiple sources, including focus groups, interviews, classroom observation, and questionnaires. Results show a shift in teaching and learning practices, challenges to managing system changes, and perceptions of staffing and resource shortages, including financing. The researchers and workshop participants will explore the implications of this study in light of MOETs Education Plan to accelerate and improve the teaching and learning of English in Vietnam as one of several pathways for economic equity in the global community. This paper discusses the results of a 2008 study on a compilation of English language teaching (ELT) practices at the university level in Vietnam. Conference Paper Limitations For the purposes of this presentation, we present only the research methods and summary of combined findings. An Executive Summary of the full research report will be posted on the CHEER (Culture, Health, Education, and Environment Resources) website, www.cheerforvietnam.org. CHEER, the sponsoring organization for this study, is a non-profit organization based in the United States. One of CHEERs major educational activities is Traversing Borders: Viet Nam Teacher Training Program (VTTP). The objectives of VTTP workshops are to improve the quality of English language instruction (ELT), to provide participants with first-hand experiences and opportunities to apply best practices in ELT to their own classrooms, to promote teacher collaboration and leadership, and to deepen cross-cultural understanding between the Vietnamese and American teachers. CHEER forged partnership with several universities to implement these workshops.

THE STUDY Methods This study obtained descriptions of practice from five universities using a mixed methods approach of surveys, interviews, and observations. The use of mixed methods--qualitative and quantitative-- allowed us to gather data about a complex behaviorthe act of teaching--through multiple perspectives and settings. Quantitative data collection methods included the use of teacher and student surveys. Qualitative data collection methods encompassed teacher and student focus groups, individual interviews and classroom observations. Direct observations in classrooms provided data on teaching practices in the naturalistic setting (Merriam 1998). The combination of methods enabled us to uncover trends in the practices and challenges of English language teaching. These methods also provided participants with a voice on potential solutions to the challenges of English language teaching. Together, the multiple sources enabled us to weave of broad tapestry of teaching in Vietnam. Triangulation of the multiple data sources enhanced the confidence of our results. The essential questions guiding this study were: What do teachers and students report are the teaching practices used in English language teaching at the university level? What do teachers and students report are the challenges to teaching and learning English? What do teachers and students propose as solutions for improving English teaching in Vietnam? Site Selection and Access Five public universities that offer programs in English, pedagogy, and American Studies were invited to participate in the study. These five sites represent a cross section of regions in Vietnam-- northern, central, and southern and a mixture of urban, provincial, and rural settings. We obtained access to the universities through Ministry of Education and Trainings (MOET) agreement to co-sponsor this study. MOET sent an official letter of introduction directly to the five universities acknowledging endorsement and support for this research study. We then contacted each university requesting
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their participation. The Rectors and/or Presidents at all five universities agreed to participate and facilitated our site visits. We provided each university with detailed information and documentation about the project. Each university established a contact person to serve as liaison for our site visits. We visited the five universities from March 18 March 31, 2008 and spent approximately two to two- and-half day at each site. Participants Participants at each of the five universities included teachers and students for a total of 178 teaching faculty and 110 students. Teachers - Each university organized one to two informational meetings for us, based on their staff numbers and schedules. From each information meeting, we selected 8 12 volunteers for the Teacher Focus Group. Criteria for Focus Group participation required at least one teacher from each of the following courses: beginning English, advanced English, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and American Studies. Each university had at least one Teacher Focus Group; several had two. From the informational meetings, an additional four volunteers were selected for individual interviews, for a total of 20 teacher interviews at the five universities. Observations of classroom teachers were arranged by the University liaison person. We requested to see certain kinds of classes at each university so that in total, we would observe a cross section of courses offered, as well as a cross section of students, including beginning, advanced, and students who represented ethnic groups. Students A total of 110 students participated in the study. Forty-two students participated in the focus groups--eight students at each of four universities and 10 at another. On the surveys, 68 students consented to participate out of the 81who visited the survey website. Three students elected not to participate. Students were invited to participate in the survey and focus groups from the 18 classroom we visited. At each of the classroom we observed, a few minutes were set aside prior to the beginning of class for information about the study. Students, by a show of hands, volunteered to participate in the focus groups at a designated time and campus venue. For survey participation, we provided a handout about the survey website for students to pick up at the end of class.

Data Collection Methods Survey Questionnaires Surveys contained specific questions about commonly used teaching practices, described in the literature on ELT (Brown 1993; Nunan 1999; Larsen-Freeman 1999). Eight questions collected teacher and student demographic data; three were related to student motivation, language learning behaviors, and achievement. Nine questions related to teachers pedagogical background, teaching practices, and professional growth and development. Two questions focused on technology and other resources. Two questions asked about challenges to teaching. As an example, we had one question about the use of multiple strategies during lessons and offered 16 ELT practices that included memorization, journal writing, questioning, lecture, repetition, pair-share, group work, brainstorming, graphic organizers, games, songs, warm-ups, role playing and/or readers theater, oral reading, teacher assigned projects, and student selected projects. On another question, we asked about practices teachers used to address differing student abilities within a classroom. Response choices included wait time, open-ended questioning, pair-share, small collaborative groups for specific activities, heterogeneous grouping, tutoring outside of class, and the use of multimedia. To design the survey and the response types, we utilized Survey Monkey, internetbased survey software, to design, collect, and analyze the results. Response formats included multiple choice, rating scales, and open ended comments. Question responses most items were randomized for each survey taker to eliminate any suggestion of value-laden hierarchal ordering. We experienced one major difficulty with the online delivery system. Many survey respondents informed us that they had trouble submitting their online surveys. The Survey Monkey support unit thought that the problems stemmed from cookie and/or security settings on individual computers. Although we sent fixes to those who contacted us, we know many simply gave up. We are certain that this problem impacted our response rate. Teacher and Student Focus Groups - Focus groups discussions were initiated by open-ended question that resulted in free-flowing and lively conversations. Sessions were approximately 45 minutes in length. All teacher and student focus groups were asked the same questions. The first was, Whats easy about teaching? Anticipating that teachers would expect more direct question about teaching practices, we sought a less structured discussion about teaching. This
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question first surprised them, but immediately stimulated for a stream of responses. A large number of teaching practices, goals, and professional aspirations were embedded in these conversations. The same occurred with the second question, Whats difficult about teaching? All sessions were recorded on audiotape and transcribed. Individual Teacher Interviews - In the personal interview, we also encouraged the free flow of comments. We began each interview gathering personal and educational background information. We used similar open-ended questions as the focus group questions. The personal stories from these qualitative interviews added depth and meaning to the quantifiable response choices on the survey. Classroom Observations Eighteen classroom observations were made. The two researchers conducted the first four observations jointly in order to ensure interrater agreement. Observations were recorded on a Lesson Observation Protocol we devised. Lesson components consisted of section headings--lesson focus, lesson introduction, lesson delivery, observation notes, and lesson closing. There was a final section to record a post-lesson debriefing with the instructor. In a separate observation notes section, we noted behaviors related to grouping efficacy, evidence of scaffolding, checks for understanding, student engagement, and use of technology and/or other resources. Although we had a linear outline, we made no assumptions that any lesson would follow either the sequence or the sections on our protocol. At the end of each lesson, where possible, we held a 15 minute debriefing session where instructors commented on aspects of the lesson or answered any questions we had about the lesson. Upon returning to the U.S., we summarized the teacher/student talk and interactions. We typed up detailed lesson scripts and the debriefing notes. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from our protocol. Data Analysis In order to bring order, structure, and meaning to the mass of qualitative data we collected (Marshall and Rossman 1989) we mined the written transcripts for broad patterns, themes, and categories (Miles and Huberman 1994). Distinct themes fell into these groupings: teaching practices, challenges, solutions, and goals/aspirations. Within each broad theme, we then probed the data several additional times achieving greater specificity each time. For teaching practices, we grouped similar practices under a general category. Thus, pair/share, triads, small group work, and teams were grouped as Grouping. The following exemplifies
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this process. When teachers posed questions about what students knew about a topic, or did a short activity as a lead-in to the lesson, the short description we wrote from the transcript might have been T asked questions about songs Ss liked. We then characterized this and strategies like this as tapping prior knowledge. The researchers spent more than 100 hours working jointly on the mining/coding process, coding, recoding, checking, rechecking, and referring back to the original transcripts when ambiguities arose (Miles and Huberman 1994). For practices, we analyzed both the pattern and frequency of responses, by individual sites and across all sites. We used Excel to code and sort data. In our analysis of the classroom observations, we took our notes and recreated scripts of teachers lessons. As part of our data analysis, we added a section to the lesson script titled teaching strategies. We then extracted strategies from the lesson script and practices described in the special observation notes section and listed them. By taking all of the practices from all of the classroom observations, we created a large list of practices observed across all five sites. The frequency of practices was then identified. Also, based on the roles of the teachers, students, lesson delivery, we formed categories for teaching styles. Survey results yielded quantitative descriptions about specific teaching and assessment practices, use and availability of technology and other resources, and professional development practices and needs. Analysis was made simple through the quantified results provided by the survey software program. These results included counts, frequencies, mean tendencies, and displays of comment fields, which were downloadable in a number of formats. In some cases, we used SPSS for means and standard deviations. We sorted and coded open-ended responses and comments using Excel. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS These preliminary findings represent just one section of the entire report which includes an introduction, literature review, and detailed findings from each of the six data sources: teacher survey, teacher focus group, teacher interview, classroom observation, student survey, and student focus group. The combined results yielded the following: 1) Teachers report that traditional practices are still used in classrooms across the five universities. Students agree somewhat, but reported that mostly traditional practices are in place.
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2) Teaching practices demonstrate a shift toward more communicative approaches. All groups, except students agree with this statement. 3) Most teachers in this study report using a combination of practices. These practices, when arranged on a continuum, range from traditional, teachercentered practices to a mid-range combination of teachercentered/communicative practices to student-centered/communicative practices. 4) All groups report similar findings on challenges: teaching and learning practices, resources and facilities, workload, and policy. 5) Proposed solutions addressed resources and facilities, teaching practices, university program, policy and institutional support, and teacher learning and development.

Findings on Teaching Practices The following results are preliminary summaries of each of the datasets. Teacher Survey: Survey results showed that the most frequently used practices were teacher movement to monitor student work, asking open-ended questions, student groupings, brainstorming, lecture, and warm-up activities. Teachers used the chalkboard, textbooks, workbooks, visual aids and library resources most as teaching tools. Students agreed with the statement that teachers used a variety of methods in their classrooms. Group work was identified as the most frequently used teaching practice, followed by questioning. Other practices used by teachers several times over five sessions included brainstorming, teacher-assigned projects, pair-share, lecture, memorization, repetition, oral reading, and warm-up activities. The least used practice was songs. Students marginally agreed that classroom lessons were informative or interesting. Teaching resources most frequently used were textbooks, workbooks, chalkboards/whiteboards, and tape recorders. Teacher Focus Groups: The results across all teacher focus groups revealed a shift toward more communicative approaches to ELT compared to traditional practices. Practices most associated with communicative approaches were mentions 39 times out of 59 references to practices, compared to 20 references to traditional
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approaches. Communicative practices included strategies to improve student motivation, grouping, computer-assisted language learning/multimedia, and taskbased learning, and problem-based learning, use of authentic materials, linking English to students lives, open-ended questioning, role-playing, and critical thinking skills. Teacher Interviews: From the 19 teacher interviews, more than 50 different practices were identified. About 61% of all references to teaching practices involved communicative approaches. These included teaching to cultural contexts/comparative cultures, comparing literary works, grouping students, having students generate questions, mini-projects, task-based learning, use of internet and technology, active learning, activities to motivate and lower affective filter, extending lessons, critical thinking tasks, developing student learning autonomy, and others. Classroom Observations: Observations of teaching practices were grouped into 11 distinct categories out of a total of 143 observed instances of practices. We did not include seven that occurred between one to three times over the all observations. The most frequently observed practice was scaffolding, which included pre-view review, vocabulary, cultural terms, check for understanding, and use of L1, key points, clarifying questions, lesson debriefing, and charting. Scaffolds were distinguished from comprehensible input which consisted of more visual inputs, such as pictures, photos, diagrams, and maps, and body language cues such as gestures and facial expressions. The second most frequently observed practices were traditional practices characterized by exclusive adherence to textbooks, textbook/workbook combinations, error correction, whole-class recitations, and lecturing with some questioning, but with little to no opportunity for student response or interactions. The third most frequently observed practice was questioning that included posing general questions to generate student opinions and comments, questioning with additional probing, Socratic-type questioning to elicit higher order or abstract thinking, and student-generated questions. Two instances of questioning focused primarily on eliciting correct answers. Ten occurrences of grouping, prior knowledge, technology, and teacher circulation were observed in the 18 classroom observations.
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Student Focus Group: Across all focus groups, students mentioned very few teaching practices except some mention of grouping, brainstorming, and teaching questioning. They all agreed that old methods of teaching dictation, grammar, memorization, and repetition were still predominant in their pre-college experiences and some of their current classes. Although students overwhelming reported they wanted to communicate effectively, they expressed conflict about newer practices, given the need to pass national exams. Findings on Challenges to Teaching Teachers reported challenges in implementing practices that address student needs, such as motivation, multi-level classes, learning communicative teaching strategies, creating student-centered lessons, and developing student autonomy. Teacher Focus Group: Across all focus groups, teachers revealed five major areas of challenges. In priority order, the challenges related to teaching practices, government and university policy, workload, resources and teacher learning. Challenges in teaching practices included difficulties in implementing practices that address student needs, such as motivation, multi-level classes, large classes, learning communicative teaching strategies, creating student-centered lessons, and developing student autonomy. The lack of an English environment was a huge challenge. Policy challenges included difficulties implementing MOET mandates, excessive curriculum requirements, poorly prepared pre-collegiate students who seek university matriculation, the salary system for teachers, and the inadequate funding of education. Workload challenges revealed that teachers lacked time to adequately prepare lessons, conduct research, and engage in their own professional growth and development. Resource challenges involved both physical and human resources. Physical resources referred to library resources such as books, authentic texts, and ESP materials, and high quality computer laboratories and multi-media platforms. Teachers indicated several shortages of both qualified teachers and native-speaking teachers. Teacher learning challenges consisted of how to design effective lessons, how build student confidence, and how to teach communicative skills. Teachers also identified
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their own professional challenges of exposure to the differing English language cultures, confidence in their own fluency and communicative competence, confidence in their teaching ability, and keeping current with technology. They also found the opportunities to study abroad a challenge. Teacher Interviews: Teachers revealed challenges in resources, policy, practices, teacher learning, and workload, in priority order. Resource challenges were identical to the teacher focus groups. What was not mentioned in the focus groups was the inadequate funding for library book purchases and lack of materials such as teachers guides, answer books, and ESP tapes and supplementary materials. Policy challenges most frequently mentioned were concerns with the credit-based system, the implementing of systemic change without prior study and support, teacher evaluation processes, class size, graduation rates, academic articulation, and teachers salary structure. Challenges to teaching practices were identical in content to the focus groups. The priority rankings differed slightly. Teacher learning challenges were identical to the focus group results. Two additional challenges were identified in the interviews: 1) teachers have had to learn English in an English-poor environment without adequate language modeling, and 2) the lack of opportunities for sharing knowledge and practices. Workload challenges were the same as the focus groups but added problems related to multi-campus teaching. Teacher Survey: Challenges to practices involved the need to explore methods and strategies for increasing classroom opportunities for communicative practice, creating a more student-centered learning while meeting university and national mandates, and increasing students listening and speaking skills. Resources challenges were similar to those identified in the teacher focus groups and interviews. Teacher additionally identified the lack of professional organizations for language teachers, access to professional meetings and conferences, access to professional journals, and access to authentic materials from different English speaking countries.

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Student Focus Groups: Students identified their own learning challenges, especially in the area of speaking. Pronunciation, intonation, and the rhythm of English were particularly challenging. Students relied heavily on translation from Vietnamese to English, which impeded their fluency. They also disclosed challenges with regional dialects, lack of confidence in speaking, shyness and fear of making mistakes, and lack of opportunities to practice English outside of the classroom. Traditional educational practices challenges were mentioned by all groups related to their schooling prior to college. They agreed that the only methods used in their pre-college English training were dictation, grammar rules, memorizing and repetition. They added that the old teaching methods were still in place, as opposed to more communicative teaching practices. They emphasized that society preferred old methods of learning languages. Expectations for the teacher were to help students pass tests. Expectations for students were to learn lessons by heart even when they didnt understand the content. Study load challenges focused the course load of 10-11 courses per semester. This load left students little or no time to complete assignments, prepare class presentations, study independently (i.e. research), and learn new vocabulary. Very importantly, the heavy load prevented them from researching scholarships to study abroad. All groups cited the quantity and quality of resources as severe challenges. Limited library hours impacted having a place to study and a place to access books and resources. However, the librarians lack of knowledge about English language books and resources was also a major challenge. The other challenges were identical to those expressed by teachers. Student Survey: Survey results show that the challenges faced by students were the same as identified by teachers. Not mentioned were opportunities to interact with native speakers of English and career counseling. Resource challenges based on student comments include the unsuitability of course books and the lack of locally, well-trained and qualified English teachers. Findings on Solutions to Educational Challenges Teachers and students offered the solutions in the following areas to address current challenges in the daily teaching and learning English: practices, institutional support including resources, and teaching growth and professional development.
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Teacher Focus Groups: Teacher revealed 75 solutions of which the top three areas in order of priority were institutional support, practices, and teacher learning. MOET or University Policy Changes Teachers proposed the following solutions to improve teaching and learning: equalize educational quality across Vietnam; raise entry level examination standards for admission into English language programs; allocate adequate funds for program development; provide systems-wide support for implementing the credit-based system; improve teacher preparation programs to develop highly qualified teachers; teach English beginning at 3rd grade through secondary with a focus on increasing communicative skills and reducing language anxiety; establish language centers for children; replace textbooks with those that reflect the change from teacher-centered to student-centered practices; provide greater emphasis on ESP classes for business, finance and economics; teach more content subjects in English; establish a reward/system as incentives to teaching excellence; offer greater access to research opportunities and advanced degrees; increase support for curriculum development/syllabus building; increase professional resources, such as journals; and equip classrooms with modern technology. Changes to the role of teaching and learning Teachers would like to see new models of teaching: student-centered learning activities, language rich environments for students to learn English; a change in students habits of learning from passive to autonomous; more communicative teaching approaches; greater student-teacher interactions to change students mindsets about traditional teacher roles. Changes to teaching practices Teachers proposals emphasized maintaining high standards of practice, focusing on improving the quality of practices, rather than acquiring many practices; improving curriculum and materials; creating benchmarks to measure student outcome, providing coaching/mentoring to new teachers; co-teaching with native speakers; learning from effective practices used in other countries that can be adapted to the Vietnamese context; personalizing course syllabi, especially, to meet the needs of ethnic students; peer tutoring ; and greater use of grouping to address students differing ability levels; and use of online meetings to discuss coursework. Teacher growth and professional development - Teachers suggested the following: use reflective practice to improve classroom teaching and course syllabi; use student feedback to inform teaching; learn from each other through classroom
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observations; meet in small professional learning communities to share experiences; conduct regular teacher performance and course evaluations and engage students in the evaluation process. Teacher Interviews: Teacher cited 59 solutions of which to top three areas, in order of priority, were practices, institutional support, and teacher growth and professional development. Practices Teachers proposed similar solutions as in teacher focus groups. Solutions not mentioned in the teacher focus groups included the following: Focus on students passing international exams such as TOEFL to prepare them to compete in the world economy; teach English in grade 3 for an hour a day, and teach content subjects in English at the college level; and instruct students time management skills, as well as how to become self-regulated learners. To assess student outcome, teachers suggested the following solutions: establish frequent compulsory teacher/student conferences to monitor, assess and measure student learning outcomes, use student portfolios; expand the use of e-mail to discuss assignments and issues; keep a reflective journal on lessons to serve as an assessment tool for teaching effectiveness and changes needed. Policy and institutional support Teachers suggested the following for systemwide improvements: change the educational system to teach students how to become independent learners; change the traditional methods of grammar rules to and adopt the communication as a major goal of foreign language instruction; focus on how to teach rather than what to teach; encourage MOET to balance out education quality and equity in Vietnam; increase greater transparency and accountability at the university level; ensure that the universitys mission is known to all with clear goals and objectives; align the university academic program to meet the economic growth demands of the country; maintain articulation with businesses or organizations to ensure a well trained and educated work force; decrease teacher workloads by allocating time for teaching, time for improving their professional knowledge, and time for conducting research; increase support for expanding teachers professional knowledge base; reduce class size; retrain primary and secondary teachers with emphasis on communicative skills--pronunciation, grammar and language culture context; improve teaching practices of college instructors to meet students needs; establish relations with international universities; improve the teaching quality of new teachers; provide regular teacher training courses to update methods; provide opportunities to study abroad; provide tutors or
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teaching assistants to help teachers and students; reduce class size; and reduce student workload; and change text books. For teacher growth and professional development, teachers proposed the following: provide conference opportunities and practical workshops and training; establish professional learning communities to share practices; exchange ideas with international peers; and establish greater network with teachers in the United States. Teacher Survey: Teachers offered 37 solutions hey would like to see. These are, in priority order: access to international organizations and meetings; greater opportunities to share knowledge and practice; increased support for expanding their professional knowledge base; increased training on curriculum development/syllabus building; greater research opportunities; and support for advanced degrees.

Student Focus Group - Students recommended improvements in student university programs, teacher knowledge and teaching skills, and facilities and resources. Improvements in student program include: emphasize a practical focus of English rather than a theoretical ones; revised core courses for teachers of English; create a movement to encourage people to learn English; provide native speaking teachers in speaking classes at the university, expand the English Speaking Club and obtain more student volunteers from English speaking countries to work with Vietnamese students; host students from English speaking countries; make road signs in both Vietnamese and English and accurate English road signs at the university; student career counseling services, posting of scholarships and study abroad programs; establishing contacts with local companies for internship, work-study for students; Improvements in teacher practices and knowledge include: improve teaching strategies for learner autonomy and research opportunities; focus on teachers role in motivating student learning by teaching language learning strategies; increase curriculum integration and cultural study, increase age-appropriate and interesting lessons; increase listening and speaking skills and balance between four skills, increase a variety of classroom activities, task-based project, PLB, heterogeneous grouping, collaborative grouping, high order thinking class discussion. Improvements in facilities and resources include integrating all libraries into a large one with more staff and hours of operation, subscriptions to professional journals and acquisition of films, including Hollywood movies; increase access to print
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media, employ competent library staff with knowledge of English, and increase language lab time. Policy and institutional support - Begin teaching English earlier in the elementary grades; change the current English assessment system, , including university entrance exams; raise the importance of English in learning other subjects; establish exchange programs with the United States for 4th year students; and establish university guidelines to encourage students to speak English on campus; and replicate successful programs at other sites.

Summary The results of our data show a shift in teaching and learning practices on a continuum that ranges from very traditional teacher-centered practices with little to no communicative activities to non-traditional student centered practice with high levels of communicative activities. Distinct themes emerged into the following groupings: teaching practices, challenges, and solutions. We found alignment between teachers and students, on the need and vision of improving English communication skills. Spanning five universities, faculty members were making major efforts to implement changes in teaching practices. Many teachers were attempting to use new and innovative methods to advance their students communicative competence. Additionally, there was a growing emphasis on methods to meet learners unique needs. We found high levels of commitment and dedication by teachers of English to meeting the educational needs of their students and their country. Students were vocal, critical and pragmatic about their needs and learning conditions. While we did not include administrator findings in this report, we wish to note that administrators were making strong efforts to address the demands and training needs to advance Vietnams goals. Despite these positive efforts, our findings also identified major challenges and obstacles to the teaching and learning of English. These were consistent across all sites in four broad areas: 1) teaching and learning practices, 2) teacher development needs, 3) resources and facilities, 4) policy and institutional support. Please note that this report represents only a partial depiction of the large study. A full discussion of these findings, implications, limitations of the study, and recommendations for further study are included in the full report.

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