English language teaching reforms in Vietnam: EFL teachers’ perceptions of their responses and the influential factors

EFL teachers’ perceptions of professional development activities and their effects in a non-Anglosphere context

“…As a result, students' learning outcomes strongly affect teachers' participation in PD or implementing educational innovations in their practices. Thao and Mai (2022) made their efforts to investigate the influence level of both internal and external factors affecting teachers' responses to ELT pedagogical reforms in a teaching context of Vietnam. They found that students' learning outcomes prominently affected teachers' reactions to the reforms.…”

“…The costly National Foreign Language 2020 Project could be a typical example of the Vietnamese government's strong commitment to boost the learning outcomes achieved by learners across different education levels. Yet, in any reforms, teachers inevitably play a central role, for they are the ones that execute the demanded standards in the classroom (Helmer et al, 2011;Thao & Mai, 2022). In other words, the success of such ambitious educational reforms depends mainly on teachers' qualifications and teaching performance.…”

English Language Teaching Educational Change: A Retrospective Analysis of Teacher Professional Development

“…However, as stated as a complicated interaction, it was also true to say that strengthening this interaction is not straightforward due to many influential factors. Systemized from the studies by Thieman (2000) and Thao & Mai (2020), the influential factors could include three primary levels, namely national, local, and individual level. First, as mentioned, everything changes rapidly in this era of globalization.…”

“…Thieman (2000) viewed students' learning outcomes as the chief reason teachers continue applying these reforms in their classes or stop. The answer was illustrated in the study by Thao and Mai (2020), which stated that the factor on students' learning outcomes was the most influential factor affecting teachers' responses to the reforms. The factor of students' learning outcomes as the ultimate goal or objective is not irrational.…”

“…However, after implementing the reforms, the results seemed not as good as expected (Nguyen, 2013;Le & Nguyen, 2017;Tran & Marginson, 2018;Pham & Bui, 2019). As a result, several studies were administered to investigate the factors affecting the reforming process (i.e., Harvey & Broyles, 2010;Ibrahim et al, 2013;Nguyen & Burns, 2017;Thao & Mai, 2020). However, these studies explained the surface understanding of ELT educational reforms (ERs) in terms of the influential factors.…”