Speakers
Description
With the backdrop of Vietnam’s broader transition from English as a foreign language to English as a second language, this collaborative autoethnography explores nuances in understanding EMI readiness perceived by lecturers/ teachers in higher education settings. We, two Vietnamese practitioners involved in different stages of EMI through teaching and curriculum building at private universities, reflect on our professional experiences to ask: How is EMI readiness experienced, negotiated, and constrained by teachers and university systems in Vietnam? Drawing from a theoretical synthesis of sociocultural perspective to teacher agency development in educational practices (Emans et al., 2025) and mapping it with the ROAD-MAPPING framework for EMI education (Dafouz and Smit, 2016), we conceptualise EMI readiness as an ecological and multi-level construct shaped by teachers' perception of their capacity, language policy, institutional support, disciplinary demands, and everyday classroom practice. Through the shared vignette and reflective dialogues, we interrogate how teachers exercise agency when national language policy is enacted within university systems that are not yet fully prepared for large-scale EMI implementation. Our reflections reveal frictions between teacher readiness and system readiness, particularly in assumptions about students’ language knowledge and academic proficiency, uneven pedagogical support, the gap between curriculum aspirations and classroom realities, and technological intervention. This paper offers an insider, practice-based account of EMI in Vietnamese higher education and argues that sustainable readiness depends not only on improving individual teacher competence, but also on creating institutional conditions that enable teacher agency, pedagogical decision-making, and systemic alignment.
Biography
Le Ngoc Thao Nguyen (PhD.) is a lecturer and researcher with a decade of experience in higher education and English language teaching. Her teaching career has been rooted in International Relations faculties across both public and private universities in Ho Chi Minh City, where she has designed curricula and delivered courses through English-medium instruction. She has also taught specialized English for International Relations students, with a focus on academic reading and critical thinking. Her current research interests in ELT explore the intersections of teacher agency, curriculum design, and institutional readiness for EMI in Vietnamese higher education. She holds a PhD in History and Politics from the University of Nottingham Ningbo China and an MA in Global Politics from Aberystwyth University. In addition, she has earned CELTA and DELTA certifications as part of her ongoing professional development.
Dau Ngoc Minh Trang has been a lecturer at Van Lang University, Vietnam, since 2020. She teaches General English courses to undergraduates working toward a CEFR B2 proficiency level, while also serving as Manager of Quality Assurance at the Van Lang Language Institute. In her dual commitments, she combines classroom teaching with institutional oversight, ensuring that language programs meet accreditation standards and align with international benchmarks. She holds an M.A. in TESOL from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and has developed strong expertise in English-medium instruction, quality assurance, and accreditation processes. Her professional interests extend to the broader development of higher education in Vietnam, where she seeks to integrate practical experience in teaching and quality management with academic research. Through this approach, she explores the nuances of policy implementation and institutional readiness in Vietnamese higher education.
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