The factor of students' learning attitudes undoubtedly affects their learning outcomes. This study investigates factors influencing Vietnamese students’ attitudes toward English learning in a tertiary institution in the Mekong region to help local educators enhance the quality of teaching and learning English in this region, considered a “low-land” in the education of Vietnam. This study was conducted qualitatively, using structured interviews to collect data from 69 first-year students. The study revealed that internal and external factors affected the students’ attitudes. Regarding the internal factors, students’ self-confidence, risk-taking willingness, anxiety, curiosity, and awareness of the importance of English in their future considerably impacted their attitudes towards English learning. On the other hand, the study found some external factors, including teaching and learning materials, content, curriculum design, and teacher-related factors, including teacher personalities, professional knowledge, teacher communication, and teacher attitudes. Some discussions, pedagogical implications, and recommendations were displayed at the end of the current paper.

This paper reports the findings of a comparative case study which investigates EFL secondary teachers' perspectives regarding information and communication technology (ICT) adoption and integration in the context of English language teaching (ELT) in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The research questions set out to examine the current teaching practices with ICT and the factors influencing the teachers' uptake of ICT. The participants were EFL teachers from secondary schools in two provinces: Dong Thap and Can Tho. Fifty participants completed the questionnaires, ten of whom contributed to semistructured interviews. In addition to findings about the influence of ICT infrastructure and facilities, indications are that school culture has significant impact. The implication is for policy makers and educational administrators to support and encourage staff to adopt and integrate ICT in their teaching practices and to be aware of possible drawbacks of using ICT in English language teaching. Technologies such as computers, the Internet, software, and applications have been widely used in every aspect of society, and they are increasingly used in educational contexts. Vietnam, a developing country in Southeast Asia, has transformed its educational system in accordance with the global tendency to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into education. To foster the implementation of ICT in education, particularly in teaching English, the Vietnamese government and the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) have issued policies and invested in ICT infrastructure nationwide (

Professional development is considered as an essential element in improving teachers’ competencies which, in turn, enhance students’ learning outcomes. In order to provide useful input for the design of more effective and productive professional training programs, this small-scale study was conducted to investigate EFL lecturers’ strengths and weaknesses, and their needs for professional development. Seventeen lecturers were recruited for this descriptive study; they provided information via questionnaire and four of them participated in semi-structured interviews. The English Teacher Competency Framework was mainly used to explore the lecturers’ strengths and weaknesses on five domains, namely knowledge of subject, knowledge of teaching, knowledge of learners, professional attitudes and values, and practice and context of language teaching. The semi-structured interview was employed to get more information about their needs for professional development. Almost all EFL lecturer participants in this study reported a high level of confidence on all domains. The common PD activities that the lecturers need more training or sharing refer to their teaching (e.g. teaching language skills, techniques for classroom management and groupwork management, designing lesson plans for mixed ability class) and their own learning (e.g. reading professional materials and resources, participating activities related to professional community, observing colleagues’ teaching, and attending seminars, workshops or conferences). The findings from this study raise the lecturers’ awareness of their own strengths, weaknesses and needs as well as inform training program developers and administrators in designing appropriate professional training programs and suggest related research areas in the future.

EFL high school students’ low level of participation is reported as a problem commonly found in English speaking classes. This study aims to investigate high school students’ perceptions of suggestions for promoting students’ participation in English speaking classes. Questionnaires and interviews were employed as data collection instruments of the study. 206 EFL high school students from three grades in a high school in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam responded to the questionnaire and then 6 of them participated in the semi-structured interview sessions. The results strongly endorsed that “promote students’ self-confidence”, “make learning tasks stimulating and the way teachers present tasks”, “establish a supportive and caring relationship”, and “create a pleasant classroom climate” were significant strategies promoting students’ participation. The results of the study are expected to contribute to the comprehension of teachers’ strategies to enhance students’ participation in English speaking classes. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0727/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

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