Challenging ESP teacher beliefs about active learning in a Vietnamese university

ABSTRACT

This article provides insights into how participating in an action research study challenged traditional beliefs about teaching practices and led to more active learning strategies being included in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Science classes at a Vietnamese university. Recent reforms in higher education teaching and learning by the Vietnamese government have placed increased demands on universities to employ more active learning approaches to meet future global needs. In Vietnam, university teaching has generally been based upon traditional lecturing, whereas active learning requires a more student-centred approach whereby students engage cognitively in learning through increased participation and take greater responsibility for inquiring into new knowledge in meaningful and critical ways. Using a participatory action research approach, interviews, observations and planning meetings were undertaken with eight Science lecturers who were currently teaching ESP. The findings revealed how the lecturers underwent positive pedagogical shifts from traditional lecturing to more constructivist approaches to teaching and learning over the time of the study.

KEYWORDS:

• Action research
• active learning
• ESP
• teacher change
• teacher beliefs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Buu Huan Nguyen

Buu Huan Nguyen is the Deputy Director of the Center for Foreign Languages and a Senior Lecturer in English at Can Tho University. He is experienced in curriculum development in Thailand and Canada. As a Fulbright scholar, he earned an MEd at Rutgers University, in 2003. His research interest focuses on teacher beliefs and changes within the university teaching and learning context in Vietnam, where English is taught as a foreign language. He received his doctoral degree at Massey University, New Zealand in 2014.

Penny Haworth

Penny Haworth is an Associate Professor at Massey University Institute of Education where she teaches courses in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), as well as supervising PhD and Master’s thesis students. Her research focuses on teacher beliefs and pedagogic change; developing effective pedagogy for the integrated teaching and learning of content and English language; and teachers and learners in culturally diverse and low socioeconomic educational contexts.

Sally Hansen

Sally Hansen, an Associate Professor, is currently the Director of Professional Education, Institute of Education, Massey University and is responsible for a comprehensive suite of applied professional qualifications. Although Associate Professor Hansen’s 2005 doctoral research focused on teacher self-efficacy, her research interests have since expanded to include a range of related areas such as teacher learning, teacher quality, professional development, teacher dispositions, and educational policy and practice.