No abstract

No abstract

In education across the world the curriculum plays a very important part, as it guides student learning and helps to realise what the teacher has planned. A lot of research has been conducted on curricula; however, few studies have investigated the Bachelor of Business English (BBE) curriculum and even less focusing on Vietnamese universities. This project aimed to investigate the present curricula of BBE at Vietnamese universities to gain important understandings about the purposes of the curriculum of BBE. The project adopted an interpretivist, qualitative approach using document analysis to investigate BBE curricula. Information about the present curricula was collected from the official websites of Vietnamese universities and was analysed using thematic coding. The findings revealed that the present curricula of BBE, which is a national curriculum framework, is influenced by the curriculum theories of Bobbit (1918) and Tyler (1949). In addition, the results show the components of the BBE curriculum has been influenced by a Chinese influenced BBE framework. And yet, interestingly, today there is a focus on English language competence, rather than Chinese or Russian language competence. Nevertheless, the key findings reveal some concerns with the present BBE curriculum in Vietnam.

In 2014, the Australian Government established the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) to advise on how teacher education programmes could ensure new teachers were adequately prepared for the classroom. Following this, the Australian Government endorsed a key recommendation of the TEMAG Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers report, the inclusion of specialisations in primary Initial Teacher Education (ITE). This research was conducted at an Australian public university that, in 2016, had embedded specialisations in a revised primary teacher programme structure and was one of the first ITE institutions in Australia to graduate primary teachers with a specialisation. Using a mixed-methods case study design with convenience sampling, this study sought to investigate these primary graduates’ perceptions of undertaking a specialisation in relation to the development of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge in the specialist area, as well as perceived employment advantages. This research took place over 4 years with participants having completed a Bachelor of Education (Primary) at least three months prior to participating. The participants reported benefits to having completed a primary specialisation but expressed concerns about their preparedness to teach their specialisation and whether it would result in any advantages for employment. Recommendations from the participants included teaching practice in their area of specialisation, consideration of specialist skills and changing the timetabling of the specialisation in the programme. Ultimately, there is a need for ongoing research in this area to determine the extent to which primary specialisations deliver the intended outcomes and impacts at both the policy driver level and the university level.