Speaker
Description
Vietnam’s language education policy shift toward repositioning English from a foreign language to a second language has renewed attention to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in higher education, particularly its role in preparing students for disciplinary, professional, and intercultural communication in a globalised economy. However, limited empirical attention has been paid to how ESP teachers themselves understand and enact course design within Vietnamese university contexts. Guided by Graves’s course development framework, this qualitative study explores current practices of ESP course design and implementation through semi-structured interviews with 15 ESP teachers from eight Vietnamese universities. The findings indicate that ESP course design is shaped strongly by top-down institutional requirements, while teachers exercise limited but important agency through classroom-level adaptation. Teachers commonly position ESP as a bridge between General English, disciplinary learning, workplace communication, and future English-medium instruction; however, their accounts also reveal conceptual ambiguities around academic and professional communication goals. Although teachers value authentic and workplace-oriented ESP, their accounts suggest that workplace communications are often conceptualised as the performance of professional tasks, rather than as situated interaction involving intercultural, relational, and pragmatic judgement. The study argues for clearer curricular pathways from General English to ESP and EMI, more systematic needs analysis, and stronger institutional support for contextually responsive ESP teacher development.
Biography
Thu-Nguyet Nguyen is currently a doctoral candidate in Education at Central Queensland University, Australia. She completed both her Masters in English Linguistics and Bachelors in English Language Teacher Education at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University. Her research interests include critical discourse analysis, English and Vietnamese language education, and language teacher education.
Thi-Thanh-Lan Bui is a lecturer at the Faculty of English at Thuongmai University, Hanoi, Vietnam. She holds an MA in Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching from Vietnam National University. With experience in teaching both General English and English for Specific Purposes (ESP), her current research interests focus on English Language Teaching Methodology and Linguistic Studies.
Thi-Huong Nguyen is an English Language Lecturer at the Academy of Security Engineering and Technology (ASET). She earned a Bachelor’s degree in English Language Teaching from University of Languages and International Studies in 2010 and a Master’s in English Linguistics from Hanoi University in 2016. Her research focuses on applied linguistics, discourse analysis, and language education.
Thi-Thuong Tran is a lecturer of English with more than ten years of teaching experience at Hanoi Law University, where she has taught both English-major and non-English-major students. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English Language Teaching from University of Languages and International Studies, VNU. Her research focuses on innovative approaches to English language education and the enhancement of teaching quality in higher education.
Thi-Bac-Binh Dinh is a senior lecturer of English at the Banking Academy of Vietnam, with over 30 years of teaching experience. She specialises in English for Specific Purposes (ESP), focusing on English for the finance and banking sector. She has published some research articles and papers on ESP, exploring innovative teaching methods and curriculum development for specialised English courses.
| Affiliate type | University |
|---|