TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD BLENDED TEACHING APPLIED IN EFL CLASSROOM

Blended teaching has recently attracted a lot of attention from educators and researchers worldwide. In Vietnam, blended teaching has been applied at various universities in different forms. However, few studies have been conducted to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions of the use of blended teaching in Vietnam. The current study used a questionnaire to explore the perceptions of thirty EFL teachers from a large university in Vietnam. Findings reveal that EFL teachers gain various benefits and encounter different challenges when applying blended teaching in their classrooms.  Article visualizations

EFL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD BLENDED TEACHING

While blended teaching is increasingly becoming popular in higher education all over the world, the concept has recently been paid attention to in Vietnam’s context. However, under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic online teaching and blended teaching suddenly become a popular trend in Vietnamese higher education. Few studies have been conducted to explore topics related to blended learning in Vietnam and the current study was conducted to fill such a gap. This study focuses on exploring English-majored students’ perceptions toward the benefits and challenges of blended leaching in EFL classes. Participants included 440 English-majored students ranging from 18 to 22 years old coming from three study majors namely English Teacher Education, English Language Studies and English Interpretation and Translation in a multi-disciplinary university of 56 years old in Vietnam. Findings reveal that students perceived that blended learning offers them various benefits as well as some challenges. Suggestions are proposed to enhance blended learning for English-majored students in Vietnam and elsewhere.  Article visualizations

環シナ海における近世日越関係史の研究

広島大学(Hiroshima University)博士(文学)Philosophydoctora

Competition of strategy between China and India in the Indian Ocean nowadays

In recent years, the Indian Ocean Region has become central to the strategies of major global powers due to a series of geoeconomic and geopolitical factors. While China increased its influence in this region by opening up connections within the framework of the BRI, offering loans, and constructing infrastructures, India, with its "neighborhood first" policy, also preserved its traditional sphere of influence. Due to the rising strategic competition by powers, Indian Ocean Region was at the crossroads of great power competition, especially the strategic competition between China and India. The article was based on a comparative approach and simultaneously compared India and China's influence in each field in the Indian Ocean region. The analysis showed that competition between China and India in the context of the two countries still has many tensions, leading to each country's efforts to strengthen military control over the Indian Ocean region. However, this competition tends to serve as a balance between the two countries, motivating them to develop regional power rather than allowing a single dominant state to become a hegemon

Technical Efficiency and Total Factor Productivity Changes in Manufacturing Industries: Recent Advancements in Stochastic Frontier Model Approach

This paper aims to evaluate total factor productivity growth (TFPG) of Vietnamese manufacturing industries over the period 2000 – 2019. The stochastic frontier models were applied to decompose the sources of TFPG into technical efficiency changes, technological changes, allocative efficiency, and scale effects. We find that technological changes and the rate of scale component effect have been the major driving force of productivity growth in the 2-digit manufacturing industries as well as total manufacturing industry. In contrast, technical efficiency changes and allocative efficiency had negative effects on TFPG. Furthermore, TFP in the manufacturing sector has declined at an annual rate of -0.062 during the period of 2010 – 2015, then it grows continuously during the period of 2015 - 2019, with a rate of 5.4%. This study suggests that specific guidelines are required to promote productivity in each industrial sectors. For example, Industries with slow technological progress (textile and electrical products) require the introduction of new frontier technology. Government policy should encourage investments that can introduce newly developed production technology. In addition, considering allocative inefficiency, a policy to enhance TFP by improving resource allocation should be pursued, which be done by promoting free markets and lessening government intervention

Effect of Hydrolysis on Tannin and Carotenoid Contents, and Antioxidant Activity of Pouteria campechiana

The medicinal properties of Pouteria campechiana fruit in Vietnam currently have not been studied much. This study was conducted to evaluate hydrolysis's effect on the carotenoid, tannin, and antioxidant activity through the correlation between IC50 and TPC values of Pouteria campechiana extract. This study examined hydrolysis conditions, such as enzyme type, enzyme concentration, temperature, and hydrolysis time. Experimental results showed that at pectinase enzyme concentration of 0.6 wt%, cellulase enzyme concentration of 0.6 wt%, at hydrolysis temperature of 600C, and 65 minutes for hydrolysis, the study found carotenoid of 115.14±4.14 (µg/g) and tannin of 45.88±2.37 (mgTAE/g)in the extract. IC50 value (7.82±0.21 mg/mL) and TPC content were highly correlated (R2=0.98). This study's results contributed to the provision of valuable scientific data on Pouteria campechiana fruit, especially for the food industr