Vietnamese English language teachers: insights into their language proficiency development

Abstract

1. IntroductionEnglish rose to the status of the most popular foreign language in Vietnam as early as 1990s. However, it was not until 2003 that English was officially included as an optional subject to be taught in primary education. In 2008, English was officially institutionalized in the primary education system with the projection that by 2018, 100% of students should be taught English (Vietnamese Government, 2008). In 2008, the nation-wide project 2020 was approved as the government's and MOET's latest attempt to promote English learning (Vietnamese Government, 2008). The planned outcome was to have students graduating from primary (6-10 years old), lower secondary (11-15 years old) and upper secondary (15-18 years old) schools reaching levels A1, A2, and B1 respectively of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR). For undergraduate education, the target was set at level B1, B2, and C1 for graduates from, respectively, institutions not specializing in foreign languages, college (2 year) and university (4 year) programs with a specialization in foreign languages.2. Problem StatementThe rising need for English language learning reveals severe problems, including teachers' low language proficiency and inappropriate training. Limited studies at primary school level by scholars such as Nguyen (2011) and Le and Do (2012) revealed that teachers were not sufficiently prepared to teach English at the elementary level due to their weaknesses in pedagogical skills, vocabulary knowledge and pronunciation. These weaknesses were attributed to low-quality pre-service training, the lack of an environment for language use and practice, and isolation from the professional community. They called for intensive retraining of current in-service primary teachers regarding both language competence and language teaching methodology. Teachers need to be equipped with background knowledge of theories and methods of teaching English to young learners while priority should be put on the improvement of teachers' pronunciation and fluency. Attempts should also be made to establish communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) to promote teachers' self-engagement in the continuous development of knowledge and skills.Discussing the teaching of English in Vietnam in general, Le (2007) specified the lack of well-trained teachers as one of the three inherent problems accounting for the low quality of foreign language education in Vietnam. Indeed, questions have been raised concerning the ability of in-service teachers and the quality of pre-service teacher training programs. The media reported the shocking results of a nation-wide teachers' language proficiency assessment test in which, even in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, only a fifth of those tested qualified for the CEFR's B2 level of language proficiency. In one particular province, Ben Tre, only one teacher out of 700 tested passed this threshold level. Officials from MOET and project 2020 reported that 80 000 in-service teachers needed further training as 97%, 93%, and 98% of teachers at primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary respectively were underqualified (Nguyen & Dudzik, 2013). Criticisms were made, and plans were carried out to "standardize" teachers' language proficiency. However, what is missing from all these discouraging statistics and nationwide supporting programs is an account of teachers' own perception of their language proficiency and the kind of training and support they need. Do these teachers perceive that they need to improve their language proficiency? How they maintain and develop it? What are the challenges they face? What kind of training and support do they expect? All these questions were left unanswered. As the teachers are at the center of this language policy, it is crucial that their voices are heard so their needs can be catered for.The issue of non-native English speaking teachers' (NNESTs) language proficiency development is often emphasized in the literature. …