Call for Interests
We, the organizers, are launching a one-year Vietnam Community of Practice (hereafter referred to as the ViCoP project). Our ViCoP aimed to provide you with a series of webinars, coaching, mentoring, and personal assistance in growing your research experience and, more importantly, enabling you to conduct actual research about those who represent some assigned categories. Your participation is very meaningful to us regarding our efforts to create many funds of knowledge for the sake of your and other teaching, learning, and researching.
In order to participate in this community, we are delighted to invite you to submit your 250-300-word paragraph of your research interests (detailed in the Package of Information below) which bring more innovative perspectives and insights into English language teaching and learning in Vietnam (please see “Requirements from your Submission” in the Package). We believe that by doing research, the EFL educators in Vietnam would be able to develop their personal, academic, and professional competence, which thus illuminate our successful efforts to transform English language teaching and learning across Vietnamese educational settings.
Themes of ViCoP
EFL teaching
Theme leaders: Huong Do, Anh Trinh, and Hanh Dinh
Works about Vietnamese EFL teachers have grown exceptionally over the last decades, especially touching many facets of sociocultural and educational settings in Vietnam. With the hopes of developing the EFL teaching populations’ employment and employability in Vietnam, many reforms have been launched and re-visited in order to make sure that not only their teaching competence but also their well-being to maintain in teaching careers are closely taken into consideration. To make a concerted effort to construct more solutions regarding how to take better care of the populations of EFL teachers in Vietnam, this theme will focus on some prominently heated topics which surround the empirical, methodological, and theoretical perspectives given the emphasis on in-service teachers’ professional development. The considered topics are, but not limited to, (i) teacher identity, teacher motivation, teacher learning, teacher beliefs, and teacher practices, (ii) culturally responsive teaching, (iii) critical pedagogy, (iv) post-method movement/pedagogies, (v) bilingual education and trans-languaging, and (vi) Vietnamese ELT policies.
EFL learning
Theme leaders: Hang Nguyen, and Khanh Bui
In line with the increasingly pressing needs of English language learning in Vietnam, there have been blooming surges in innovations made by many foreign and local parties in different forms for the sake of the Vietnamese learners’ engaging and meaningful (non-)academic experiences. In this theme, our main purpose is to explore the experiences of learners in Vietnam, underpinned by tenets derived from two flagship theories: Sociocultural Theory by Vygotsky and Second Language Acquisition Model by Ellis. Proposals should focus on topics related to Vietnamese EFL learners. Our topics of interest might be related to (i) learners’ identity, (ii) learning contexts and students’needs, (iii) learning methodology, (iv) learners’motivation, (v) classroom-based/action/practitioner research for student learning, (vi) language skills and language elements, (vii) integration of vocabulary and/or grammar with language skills, content area for facilitating students’ learning, (viii) selection, evaluation, and adaptation of learning material, (ix) language assessment.
School leaders and administrators
Theme leaders: Son Nguyen, and Huong Nguyen
As a matter of fact, school leaders and administrators have direct/indirect and positive/negative impacts on English teaching and learning in any socio-cultural contexts. We are seeking proposals for our theme on school leaders in relation to English language learning and teaching in Vietnam from perspectives of different stakeholders in the education system. The topics are intended mainly for Vietnamese policy makers, leaders, and administrators who should listen to and understand the other stakeholders’ viewpoints when enacting, implementing, and evaluating any policies or programs. Therefore, of interests are proposals which highlight the voices of and/or towards school leaders and administrators regarding the following topics, but not restricted to, (i) standard and policy implementation regarding English language education, (ii) English language curriculum planning and design at non-English-major universities, (iii) English language curriculum implementing at K-12 schools, (iv) testing and assessments, (v) professional development support, (vi) teacher recruitment, and (vii) trade unions for language instructors and related issues.
EFL curriculum and assessment
Theme leaders: Hanh Dinh, Son Nguyen, and Tung Vu
The aim of teaching and learning in current curricula of foreign language today is for communication in which the language elements (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary – “linguistic competence”) are the means and the skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing – “communicative competence”) and the learner’s cultural competence are the ends. This track provides the space for open discussion and both conceptual and empirical contribution about how the curriculum in Vietnamese contexts from K-12 to higher education has been revamped, as well as its meaning, impact, and assessment of teaching and learning. Potential topics can be (but not limited to) philosophical stances of Vietnamese curriculum, the internationalizing and glo-calizing process in curriculum design, national curriculum and localized curriculum, sociocultural factors in curriculum design, curriculum exemplars from stakeholders’ beliefs and perspectives, design of curricula artifacts (lesson plans or instructional materials) for curricular purposes, knowledge-centered, student-centered, or societal-centered elements in Vietnamese curriculum, technological integration into curriculum design, approaches in all curricular and extra-curricular activities for language learning, and curriculum assessment.
Youth Communities
Theme leader: Khanh Bui
Educators have designed and implemented participatory pedagogies with youth in recent years. This called for creation of an educational third space where families/students/ teachers/ researchers engage in advancing English language competence of a student. Similarly, Paris (2012) proposed a model of culturally sustaining pedagogy that strives to “ensure maintenance of the languages and cultures of … longstanding and newcomer communities in our classrooms” (p. 94). Inspired by these critical approaches to teaching and learning, we are looking for interests in developing participatory pedagogies with students/parents/teachers and researchers in informal community settings in the context of English language teaching and learning in Vietnam. Our approach aligns with recent educational and sociological research that highlights (i) the power of performance, (ii) community research, (iii) visual art-making and (iv) multilingual literacy practices to position youth as civic agents of change and artistic designers of new knowledge.
Education technology innovations
Theme leaders: Son Nguyen, and Tung Vu
In light of the acceleration of accessibility to education among Vietnamese EFL teachers and learners coming from many diverse cultural backgrounds, this theme attempts to explore many issues surrounding technological integration within and beyond the classrooms. Inspired by the increases regarding synchronous and asynchronous online teaching and learning (S/AO-TL), we have ultimately observed the appearance of emergency remote teaching (ERT). It is a critical response to the needs of educational stakeholders towards use of technology-related availability to support teaching and learning in an innovative manner. Some topics may involve, but not limited to, (i) Vietnamese language/ELT policy, (ii) (ERT-oriented) materials design and delivery, (iii) EFL teacher education, PD, mentoring, and coaching, (iv) digital tools, social networking, learning management platform, and virtual communities of practice for ELT, (v) digitally-influenced ELF teaching and learning, (vi) ELT-oriented S/AO-TL, (vii) identity, emotion, and well-being, (viii) research methodologies, and (ix) sociocultural and situated ELT.
Assessment
Theme leader: Phuong Cao