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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 reportwill 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 deepencross-cultural understanding between the Vietnamese and American teachers.

CHEER forged partnership with several universities to implement these workshops.

http://www.cheerforvietnam.org/http://www.cheerforvietnam.org/

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THE STUDY

Methods

This study obtained descriptions of practice from five universities using a mixed

methods approach of surveys, interviews, and observations. The use of mixed

methods--qualitative and quantitative-- allowed us to gather data about a complex

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 inEnglish language teaching at the university level?

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

What do teachers and students propose as solutions for improving Englishteaching 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 crosssection 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 18March 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 812 volunteers for the Teacher Focus Group. Criteria for Focus Groupparticipation 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 18classroom we visited. At each of the classroom we observed, a few minutes were

set aside prior to the beginning of class for information about the study. Students,

by a show of hands, volunteered to participate in the focus groups at a designated

time and campus venue. For survey participation, we provided a handout about the

survey website for students to pick up at the end of class.

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Data Collection Methods

Survey Questionnaires Surveys contained specific questions about commonly

used teaching practices, described in the literature on ELT (Brown 1993; Nunan

1999; Larsen-Freeman 1999). Eight questions collected teacher and student

demographic data; three were related to student motivation, language learningbehaviors, 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, internet-

based survey software, to design, collect, and analyze the results. Response formats

included multiple choice, rating scales, and open ended comments. Questionresponses 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.

I ndividual Teacher I nterviews- 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 ObservationsEighteen classroom observations were made. The two

researchers conducted the first four observations jointly in order to ensure inter-

rater agreement. Observations were recorded on a Lesson Observation Protocol we

devised. Lesson components consisted of section headings--lesson focus, lesson

introduction, lesson delivery, observation notes, and lesson closing. There was a

final section to record a post-lesson debriefing with the instructor. In a separate

observation notes section, we noted behaviors related to grouping efficacy,

evidence of scaffolding, checks for understanding, student engagement, and use of

technology and/or other resources. Although we had a linear outline, we made no

assumptions that any lesson would follow either the sequence or the sections on our

protocol. At the end of each lesson, where possible, we held a 15 minute debriefingsession 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 wecollected (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 resultsincluded 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 thesix 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 acrossthe 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 communicativeapproaches. All groups, except students agree with this statement.

3) Most teachers in this study report using a combination of practices. Thesepractices, when arranged on a continuum, range from traditional, teacher-

centered practices to a mid-range combination of teacher-centered/communicative practices to student-centered/communicative

practices.

4) All groups report similar findings on challenges: teaching and learningpractices, 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 usedthe 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 wereinformative or interesting. Teaching resources most frequently used were

textbooks, workbooks, chalkboards/whiteboards, and tape recorders.

Teacher Focus Groups: The results across all teacher focus groups revealed a shift

toward more communicative approaches to ELT compared to traditional practices.

Practices most associated with communicative approaches were mentions 39 times

out of 59 references to practices, compared to 20 references to traditional

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approaches. Communicative practices included strategies to improve student

motivation, grouping, computer-assisted language learning/multimedia, and task-

based learning, and problem-based learning, use of authentic materials, linking

English to students lives, open-ended questioning, role-playing, and critical

thinking skills.

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

practices were identified. About 61% of all references to teaching practices

involved communicative approaches. These included teaching to cultural

contexts/comparative cultures, comparing literary works, grouping students, having

students generate questions, mini-projects, task-based learning, use of internet and

technology, active learning, activities to motivate and lower affective filter,

extending lessons, critical thinking tasks, developing student learning autonomy,

and others.

Classroom Observations: Observations of teaching practices were grouped into 11

distinct categories out of a total of 143 observed instances of practices. We did not

include seven that occurred between one to three times over the all observations.

The most frequently observed practice was scaffolding, which included pre-view

review, vocabulary, cultural terms, check for understanding, and use of L1, key

points, clarifying questions, lesson debriefing, and charting. Scaffolds were

distinguished from comprehensible input which consisted of more visual inputs,

such as pictures, photos, diagrams, and maps, and body language cues such as

gestures and facial expressions.

The second most frequently observed practices were traditional practices

characterized by exclusive adherence to textbooks, textbook/workbook

combinations, error correction, whole-class recitations, and lecturing with some

questioning, but with little to no opportunity for student response or interactions.

The third most frequently observed practice was questioning that included posing

general questions to generate student opinions and comments, questioning with

additional probing, Socratic-type questioning to elicit higher order or abstract

thinking, and student-generated questions. Two instances of questioning focused

primarily on eliciting correct answers.

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

were observed in the 18 classroom observations.

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Student Focus Group: Across all focus groups, students mentioned very few

teaching practices except some mention of grouping, brainstorming, and teaching

questioning. They all agreed that old methods of teaching dictation, grammar,

memorization, and repetition were still predominant in their pre-college experiences

and some of their current classes. Although students overwhelming reported they

wanted to communicate effectively, they expressed conflict about newer practices,

given the need to pass national exams.

Findings on Challenges to Teaching

Teachers reported challenges in implementing practices that address student needs,

such as motivation, multi-level classes, learning communicative teaching strategies,

creating student-centered lessons, and developing student autonomy.

Teacher Focus Group: Across all focus groups, teachers revealed five major areasof 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 learningchallenges 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.

Workloadchallenges 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 challengeswere 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 loadchallenges 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 ofresources 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 challengesbased 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 ChangesTeachers 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 practicesTeachers 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 andprofessional development.

Practices Teachers proposed similar solutions as in teacher focus groups.

Solutions not mentioned in the teacher focus groups included the following: Focus

on students passing international exams such as TOEFL to prepare them to compete

in the world economy; teach English in grade 3 for an hour a day, and teach content

subjects in English at the college level; and instruct students time management

skills, as well as how to become self-regulated learners.

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

frequent compulsory teacher/student conferences to monitor, assess and measure

student learning outcomes, use student portfolios; expand the use of e-mail to

discuss assignments and issues; keep a reflective journal on lessons to serve as an

assessment tool for teaching effectiveness and changes needed.

Policy and institutional support Teachers suggested the following for system-

wide improvements: change the educational system to teach students how to

become independent learners; change the traditional methods of grammar rules toand 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 professionalknowledge, 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.

Forteacher 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 withinternational 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 Vietnamesestudents; 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 4

thyear 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 tono 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 emphasison 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 fourbroad 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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