An investigation into Vietnamese EFL teachers’ perceptions of communicative language teaching and classroom practices: a case study in a Vietnamese university

Abstract

The past few decades have witnessed an ever-growing expansion of research on teacher perception and its relation to their teaching practice. However, teacher perception about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach remains an under-researched area. In the Vietnamese context, while an increasing body of research has advanced our understanding of the implementation of CLT in the high school context, research into university teachers’ perceptions and practices of CLT and factors affecting CLT remains to be minimal. Given the mounting socio-economic pressure for universities to produce English-competent graduates, an in-depth and systematic understanding of Vietnamese university teachers’ existing perceptions and practice of CLT long overdue. This qualitative study aims to fill this research gap by investigating six Vietnamese EFL teachers’ understandings and practices in CLT in a Vietnamese university in Hanoi city. Drawing on data gathered from interviews, classroom observations for teachers and student focus group interviews and documents, the study sheds critical light on three crucial aspects, namely teachers’ perceptions of CLT theory, their CLT implementation in the classroom and factors hindering teachers’ practice of CLT. The study is underpinned by a comprehensive theoretical framework, integrating Brown & Lee’s (2015) model of seven tenets of CLT and Hofstede’s 6D cultural dimension framework (Hofstede et al, 2010). The findings of this research are examined in the light of three categories of Brown & Lee’s CLT tenets, namely overall objectives, perspectives on teaching and learning and roles of teachers and students to reveal the extent to which CLT could be implemented in the case study. The outcome of the comparison between CLT in Brown & Lee’s theoretical principles and classroom reality will be interpreted in light of Hofstede’s cultural typology. Findings from the study highlight that most of teachers demonstrated a lack of in-depth understanding of the notion of CLT and CLT did not actually happen in the classroom as planned by the program. Moreover, efforts to adopt CLT were not only impacted due to superficial issues with Vietnamese EFL education such as large classrooms, knowledge-based assessments, and insufficient teaching and learning infrastructure. More importantly, it can be ultimately influenced by overarching features of Vietnamese culture, such as large Power Distance (PD), Collectivism (COL), Feminism (FEM), Low Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) (in education), Long-term orientation (LTO), and Restraint (RES).

Date of Thesis submission	2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Jinghe Han (Supervisor) & Criss Jones Diaz (Supervisor)