INVESTIGATING EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF IMPLEMENTING ACTIVE LEARNING TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING SPEAKING

Active learning (AL) is widely implemented in Asia including Vietnam. However, to date, research on this method seems to be scarce, particularly in the context of Vietnam. This study aims to investigate teachers' perceptions of AL and its principles in teaching English speaking. In addition, the study also explores teachers’ attitudes about AL implementation and their concerns about applying this method to their teaching context. Ten teachers of English teaching at a university in the Mekong Delta, South of Vietnam participated in the study. A semi-structured interview activity was employed to collect data. The results showed that the teachers generally had a high level of understanding of AL teaching principles and showed positive attitudes toward the implementation of it. The results also revealed teachers’ concerns about implementing AL. In particular, three problems of large class size, students’ mixed language proficiency and time limitation were addressed. Accordingly, possible suggestions for a better implementation of AL in teaching English speaking in Vietnam and similar contexts elsewhere will be provided.  Article visualizations

Impacts of Payment for Forest Ecosystem Services on Local livelihoods in A Luoi District, Thua Thien Hue Province, Viet Nam

This paper analyses the impacts of the national Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) policy in A Luoi district, Thua Thien Hue province, Viet Nam. There are mixed impacts of PFES in A Luoi district. While some surveyed households have experienced increases in income since PFES, for many other incomes have fallen. Our findings show PFES impacts on local communities and individuals are limited because most forest areas are managed by state agencies, leaving only 17.9% of PFES payments being channeled to these groups, while the rest goes to state government agencies and commune people’s committees. This disparity in PFES payments has further widened the income gap between state agencies and local households.  PFES payments currently contribute little to household incomes, averaging only 2.64% of total earnings. PFES has little impact and additionality in advancing land tenure security and reducing natural forest product exploitation for generating income as impacts are similar to those found in non-PFES villages. PFES poverty reduction impacts vary from village to village, but in general, percentages of poor households receiving PFES payments range from 1% to 59%

VOLATILITY IN THE CRUDE OIL AND NATURAL GAS MARKETS

This dissertation consists of three essays which explore the determinants and properties of actual and implied volatilities in the crude oil and natural gas markets. The first two essays examine the causes and behavior of price volatility in the US crude oil and natural gas markets. I theorize and find that (1) the crude oil and natural gas markets are characterized by volatility persistence, (2) in the crude oil market, a negative shock has more impact on future volatility than an equal positive shock whereas in the natural gas market, predicted volatility increases more following a positive shock than an equal negative shock (3) crude oil volatility is lower at higher prices, (4) there is a day-of-the-week pattern in both markets, (5) OPEC meeting announcements and the Petroleum Status Report releases cause increased volatility in the crude oil market, (6) surprises in the change in natural gas in storage cause increased volatility in the natural gas market, (7) natural gas volatility tends to be higher during and immediately after bid week, (8) there is a month-of-the-year pattern in natural gas volatility, (9) natural gas volatility tends to be higher on winter days when the temperature is lower than normal, and (10) the conditional covariance and correlation between crude oil prices and the value of the dollar vary over time. In these two essays, I develop and employ an improved procedure for testing and quantifying the hypothesized volatility determinants within a GARCH type model.The third essay examines the structure, characteristics, and determinants of implied volatilities (IVs) calculated from crude oil and natural gas options from September 1999 to June 2006. In several ways, the behavior of IVs in these markets is opposite to that observed in most financial options markets. Crude oil and natural gas IVs tend to increase as the options approach expiration. There is a positive "skew" pattern in natural gas IVs and long-term crude oil IVs in which IVs tend to be lowest at low strike prices and increase monotonically with strike prices. There is a time-of-the-year pattern in that natural gas IVs tend to be higher for options expiring in winter and crude oil IVs tend to be lower for options expiring in summer. Oil and gas IVs tend to decrease from Friday close to Monday close. After May 2002, natural gas IVs tend to decrease following the release of the Natural Gas Storage Report. A negative futures return has more impact on crude oil IV than an equal positive return while a positive futures return has more impact on natural gas IV than an equal negative return. IV is a fairly efficient forecast of future volatility in these markets but its forecasting power differs across terms-to-maturity and strike prices

Internationalization Process of Siemens AG_ The case study of Siemens in Vietnam

Siemens (or Siemens AG) is one of the world largest MNCs with its core business in high technology and its representation in more than 200 countries/regions in all over the global and approximately 85% of its revenue comes from outside Germany (Siemens AG, 2016). Siemens transnational activities started very soon in 1850, only two years after its establishment in 1847, by starting its representative in London. Recently, South East Asia is the region with the highest growth rate and Vietnam which considered as a typical of emerging markets play an important role in this growth. Siemens’s first presence in Vietnam was in 1979 when it installed two steam turbines for a paper company. In 1993, Siemens Vietnam was officially established and since then, the company successfully implemented many key infrastructure projects and has steadily increased its market presence in the country (Siemens Vietnam, 2014). Combining this information background of the company and the major internationalization problems rose above, this dissertation examines two main research questions in order to describe the internationalization process and strategy of Siemens in Vietnam: • Which entry mode was selected when Siemens entering Asian market, especially Vietnam • How they manage and control its operation in Vietnam and fit into its overall corporate strategy

Exploring Cultural Intelligence’s influence on performance of multicultural teams within a Vietnamese empirical setting.

Masteroppgave(MSc) in Master of Science in Business, International business - Handelshøyskolen BI, 2016RELEVANCE. Increasing globalization at the workplace leads to the frequent use of multicultural teams. Thus, over the last century, a vast number of researchers have been looking for ways to enhance team performance in general and multicultural team’s performance in particular. Despite that, there have been a substantial number of studies dedicated to investigating of the influences of cultural diversity and Cultural Intelligence (CQ) on team performance in multinational corporations (MNCs), focusing on the context of developed business environment such as the USA and small markets have so far been ignored. Thus, the scope of this study is limited to the multinational corporations in the Vietnamese empirical context. GOAL. The goal of this thesis is to shed light on the impact of cultural diversity and Cultural Intelligence on performance of multicultural teams (MCTs) in MNCs in Vietnam. Furthermore, this thesis also investigates the role of CQ as a moderator of the relationship between cultural diversity and team performance. RESULTS. The empirical results are in this thesis gathered by use of online survey, which is a popular methodological trend in qualitative research. The survey is in English and back-to-back translated in Vietnamese. Some findings found are in accordance with previous studies. In contrast, some results show different interesting patterns experienced in practice by respondents in the Vietnamese setting. Firstly, we tested the relationship between cultural diversity and team performance. In line with our expectations, we found that cultural diversity has a negative effect on team performance. However, CQ was found to have no significant moderating effect on this relationship. Moreover, results indicated that CQ positively impacts MCTs’ performance. And finally, this thesis also found that nationality, gender and business experience also impact team performance in the Vietnamese empirical setting CONTRIBUTION. We hope this study can contribute to the under-researched area of the relationship between cultural diversity, CQ and team performance in MNCs in Vietnam. It will be not only a potential support for future researches, but also an assistance to managers in MNCs to enhance the MCTs’ performance. Keywords: Cultural Intelligence, cultural diversity, team performance, multicultural team (MCT), multinational corporation (MNC), Vietnamese setting

FRESHMAN EFL LEARNERS’ ANXIETY IN SPEAKING CLASSES AND COPING STRATEGIES

This study aims to investigate what speaking anxiety freshman EFL learners encountered in their classes and what strategies they used to reduce their anxiety. A mixed methods approach was employed to collect the data, including a questionnaire following the quantitative method and individual semi-structured interviews following the qualitative method. The participants were 185 freshman EFL learners at several universities in the Mekong Delta. The combination of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale developed by Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope (1986) and the theories about three kinds of anxiety proposed by Ellis (1994) was adapted to measure freshman EFL learners’ kinds of speaking anxiety in classes. Additionally, the five categories of coping strategies in Kondo and Ling (2004) were adapted to measure the participants’ coping strategies for reducing their speaking anxiety. The results of the study showed that the participants encountered all three kinds of speaking anxiety including trait anxiety, specific-situation anxiety, and state anxiety in classes. Furthermore, the study also indicated five kinds of strategies utilized by the participants to reduce their anxiety in speaking class namely preparation strategies, relaxation strategies, positive thinking strategies, peer-seeking strategies, and resignation strategies. From the results, it was also indicated that preparation strategies were used more frequently than the other strategies by the participants in speaking classes.  Article visualizations

Dynamical behavior of damaged railway sleeper subjected to moving loads: Parametric study of crack properties

This study investigates the dynamic responses of cracked beams placed on a visco-elastic foundation and subjected to moving loads. Utilizing the Euler–Bernoulli beam model, the behavior of the beams is characterized, accounting for multiple open cracks on one side with varying depths. Through the application of Fourier transform techniques and Green's function, the dynamic response of the beam is analytically determined in the frequency domain. Furthermore, an analytical model for railway sleepers is developed by integrating them with a periodically supported beam model. This integrated model enables efficient computation of the dynamic behavior of damaged sleepers, where cracks are present at specific locations. Additionally, a calculation model utilizing the finite element method is established and compared with the analytical model. The parametric study shows the influence of crack properties on the dynamic beam responses

The Visible Light Activity of the TiO2 and TiO2:V4+ Photocatalyst

TiO2 and vanadium‐doped TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by using the hydrothermal method. The V doping contents are 0.0; 0.1; 0.3; 0.5; 0.7 and 0.9% molar. The vanadium‐doped TiO2 nanoparticles have identical anatase phase with an average crystal size of 10‐20nm. The oleic acid and ethanol solvents with different molar concentrations can make spherical nanograins, or stick form grains, which influence the photo activity of the materials. The absorption spectra of doped samples exhibited long-tailed absorption in the visible light region above 380nm. The visible light photocatalytic activity was evaluated by the degradation of phenol aqueous solutions; after 360 min. under the visible irradiation, the normalized concentration of phenol decreased to 9%

The evolution of Green Belt concepts in Hanoi\u27s regional planning, 1960-2023

This article analyses the evolution of Green Belt concepts in Hanoi from a historical perspective. Through the comparison between international concepts and the practical planning local during 1960 - 2023, this paper aims to answer three main questions related to the Green Belt: First, when was the Green Belt theory introduced to Vietnam? Second, what lessons were there in the process of being introduced into Hanoi? Third, why has the Green Belt theory not been successful in practical planning? This article uses fieldwork methods and comprehensive analysis and divides three different periods: the first period (1960-1998), the second period (1998-2011), and the third period (2011-2023). The planners have found many ways to enhance Greenbelt’s role, from changing perception to changing form toward flexibility, but Greenbelt theory still can not be put into practical planning. This article adopts a comparative historical planning perspective to examine the adaptability of planning applications across diverse contexts, with a specific focus on the paradigm in the UK where this theory originated and has successfully adapted through numerous policy and institutional changes. Hanoi’s green belt had faced various challenges arising from ambiguity in green belt identification; the development of appropriate frameworks tailored to local conditions for managing the green belt as a cohesive entity, and consideration of the overall urban development layout with a long-term perspective