EFL HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHERS’ RESPONSES TO ELT PEDAGOGICAL REFORMS IN THE MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM

In the era of globalization and internationalization, educational change, specifically English language teaching (ELT) pedagogical reforms, has been paid more attention to by language researchers. In Vietnam, ELT pedagogical reforms or educational change has been considered as an essential area. How the teachers respond to the reforms is very important; therefore, this study was conducted to investigate this issue. Questionnaire and interviewing were used to collect data from 102 English foreign language (EFL) teachers working in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The study was aimed to investigate teachers’ responses to 15 types of ELT pedagogical reforms, introduced by the Ministry of Education. The data, analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0, showed that the teachers accepted the ELT pedagogical reforms in their teaching. Specifically, adapting teaching materials from different sources was supported most. However, some types were resisted, especially designing tests based on the Vietnamese Standardized Test of English Proficiency (VSTEP) framework.  Article visualizations

A Decade of Researching on Professional Development in a Graduate Program: A Systematic Review

This paper aims to provide a logical and comprehensive systematic review of MA students’ theses related to professional development (PD) in an educational institution in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. This systematic review used a qualitative method to analyze 28 unpublished PD theses (2010 – 2020) in a graduate program of a public tertiary institution in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. There were four main research concerns, including (1) research aims, (2) research methodology, (3) findings, and (4) limitations of the theses. After the review, a list of strengths and weaknesses of these studies is found, evaluated, and presented in this article. The review shows that these studies did contribute diverse knowledge and practices of PD in the educational system of Vietnam, particularly in the Mekong Delta. On the other hand, the data collection instruments and research designs needed improvement to a certain extent. Specifically, observations were not used much in the theses. Besides, the candidate researchers overused a descriptive research design for their theses. Thanks to the analysis, some implications and new ideas for further research in PD are discussed at the end of this paper.

MEDICAL STUDENTS’ EVALUATION OF AN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES COURSEBOOK: A CASE IN VIETNAM

The current study investigates students’ evaluation of the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) coursebook taught at a medical college in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. After using it for a year, the users, including medical students and their teachers, have given some unofficial feedback on the book. This study provided insightful official information about how its student users perceive the coursebook they were adopting. Data on the evaluations of the ESP coursebook were gained from questionnaires administered to 166 students majoring in nursing and pharmacy in charge of ESP programs. Semi-structured interviews were employed with four students to get more specific apprehension. The results of this study indicated that students were satisfied with the ESP coursebook in terms of the covering of four skills, the presence of vocabulary and grammar, relevant content, understandable social and cultural context, suitability for mix-level students. In addition, participants perceived that communicative skills were not sufficiently presented, examples in grammar were not more interesting, the illustrations were not diverse and enough, and the cover was simple but not appealing. Suggestions regarding the pedagogical implications for the adoption and evaluation of the coursebook were discussed

English Language Teaching Educational Change: A Retrospective Analysis of Teacher Professional Development

The importance of English has demanded the introduction of English language teaching (ELT) educational reforms (ERs) in the Vietnamese context. However, the results of these reforms did not satisfy Vietnamese educators; as a result, many studies have explored the related issues, but almost none of them emphasized English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions of the necessities of the reforms. Accordingly, this current study was conducted to fill in the aforementioned gap. Driven by that emphasis, this qualitative study used semi-structured interviews as a data-collecting instrument. Regarding the studied sampling, six EFL high school teachers from Southwest Vietnam were recruited as the interviewees. According to the findings of the present study, teachers in Vietnam strongly perceived the need for ELT ERs. Besides, the reforms were fundamental to help catch up with the era of globalization. At the conclusion of the paper, some discussions focusing primarily on teacher training issues and educational implications, as well as suggestions for future research, were presented

Tertiary students’ preferences on extracurricular activities for English learning: Voices from the field of Advanced Program in Biotechnology

In Vietnam, where English plays a vital role in the country’s development, extracurricular activities for English learning are considered an effective reform for enhancing citizens’ English proficiency. Previous studies have showed the positive impact of extracurricular activities on language learners’ outcomes. Yet, almost none of them has investigated students’ voices about what, how, when, and where they want these activities to be organized. This current study was employed to fill that gap in the field of biotechnology (advanced program). A 77-item questionnaire was sent to 148 students who learned biotechnology in an advanced program at a tertiary institution in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The results indicated the students preferred mental activities (M=4.00) to others. Moreover, they would like to travel to experience cultures from English-speaking countries (M=4.11). Further extracurricular activities were encouraged to be organized on their university campus (M=3.63). The students also preferred short-term activities at weekends to those that were organized over a long period. The study proposed a model for further extracurricular activities at the end of this writing

Policies on Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities in Vietnam

This article traces the history of inclusive education policy development, laws that have been promulgated, and the dissemination of policy and legal rights and responsibilities through conferences, seminars and university coursework in Vietnam since 1995 when the responsibility for educating children with disabilities shifted from the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to the Ministry of Education and Training. Numerous standards of practice related to roles and responsibilities and recommendations for improvemtns in policy and practice are shared as well as lessons learned from external evaluation efforts that will be valuable for further development and refinement of poilicies to forward inclusive education in Vietnam

NEW DISSIMILARITY MEASURES ON PICTURE FUZZY SETS AND APPLICATIONS

The dissimilarity measures between fuzzy sets/intuitionistic fuzzy sets/picture fuzzy sets are studied and applied in various matters. In this paper, we propose some new dissimilarity measures on picture fuzzy sets. This new dissimilarity measures overcome the restrictions of all existing dissimilarity measures on picture fuzzy sets. After that, we apply these new measures to the pattern recognition problems. Finally, we introduce a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method that used the new dissimilarity measures and apply them in the supplier selection problems

Fuzzy Equivalence on Standard and Rough Neutrosophic Sets and Applications to Clustering Analysis

In this paper, we propose the concept of fuzzy equivalence on standard neutrosophic sets and rough standard neutrosophic sets. We also provide some formulas for fuzzy equivalence on standard neutrosophic sets and rough standard neutrosophic sets. We also apply these formulas for cluster analysis. Numerical examples are illustrated