Dancing, Google and fish sauce: Vietnamese students coping with Australian universities

ABSTRACT

This study examines the language, academic, and socio-cultural concerns of 24 Vietnamese international students (PhD, master’s and undergraduate) studying in universities in Sydney, Australia. Alongside the obvious linguistic concerns, the salient issues that emerge from this study draw attention to the struggles these students face to adapt to different educational norms, and particularly the varied expectations of supervisors, the different coping strategies these students use to overcome linguistic and other concerns, and the broader socio-cultural domains that support their studies. This study contributes to an understanding of Vietnamese international students, a growing cohort in Australia and elsewhere. Its findings provide insights that shift the focus away from the “difficulties” faced by international students and the institutional responses (or lack thereof), towards understanding their agentive modes of accommodation in the context of their degree programmes and their other lived experiences which include foods and ways of living.

KEYWORDS:

• Vietnamese international students
• overcoming linguistic issues
• adapting to supervisors
• fitting in and getting by

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Vietnamese international students who participated in this research, and the Endeavour Australian Awards for granting the first author a six-month post-doc fellowship in Australia which had made this research possible. Thanks are additionally extended to the School of Education, University of Technology, Sydney, for providing access to databases and other resources during the fellowship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bao Trang Thi Nguyen

Bao Trang Thi Nguyen is a lecturer at the Department of English, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University. She obtained a PhD degree in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and a Master degree in Applied Linguistics at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her recent research interests focus on international education, language and culture. Her other interests include task-based language teaching and learning, task design, learner proficiency and SLA.

Alastair Pennycook

Alastair Pennycook, FAHA, is Distinguished Professor of Language, Society and Education at the University of Technology Sydney, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo. He is the author of numerous award-winning books, including Metrolingualism: Language in the city (with Emi Otsuji), Language as a Local Practice, Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows, and The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language (Routledge Linguistics Classic).