Speaker
Description
Research engagement is increasingly promoted in TESOL teacher education as a way to support professional learning, critical reflection, and inquiry-oriented teaching. However, less is known about how pre-service TESOL teachers experience learning to conduct research when it is embedded in compulsory coursework. This study explores the emotions and agency of Vietnamese pre-service TESOL teachers as they completed small-scale group research projects in a required undergraduate research-methods course.
The study draws on written reflections collected at key points across a one-semester course and semi-structured interviews with selected students. The dataset included 25 pre-service TESOL teachers, with closer analysis of seven core participants who completed both written frames and interviews. Data were analysed thematically, beginning with participant-level case summaries before developing cross-case themes.
Findings suggest that research learning was emotionally turbulent. Students reported anxiety, confusion, frustration, exhaustion, relief, and cautious confidence as they narrowed topics, revised methods, interpreted data, and responded to feedback. Their agency emerged through constrained adjustment rather than full autonomy, including simplifying research designs, seeking lecturer or peer support, redistributing group roles, and deciding what could realistically be completed. The study argues that TESOL research-methods courses should support not only methodological knowledge, but also students’ emotional navigation, feasible decision-making, and future engagement with classroom inquiry.
Biography
Long Hoang Nguyen is a third-year undergraduate student in English Language Teacher Education at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University. His academic interests include pre-service teacher learning, research engagement, classroom inquiry, and the role of emotions in teacher development. He is particularly interested in how English language teachers learn to connect theory, research, and classroom practice in ways that are meaningful and context-sensitive.
He has developed interest in TESOL through coursework in teaching methodology, lesson planning, classroom observation, micro-teaching, and practicum-related experiences. He has also participated in international English language teaching conferences in Vietnam, Thailand and China, where he had opportunities to engage with educators and researchers from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds. These experiences have strengthened his interest in teacher professional learning and research-informed teaching.
His current research focuses on how Vietnamese pre-service TESOL teachers experience learning to conduct research in a compulsory undergraduate research-methods course. The study examines students’ emotions, agency, and future engagement with research as they complete small-scale group research projects. Through this work, he hopes to contribute to discussions on how TESOL teacher education can better support pre-service teachers in developing research awareness, managing uncertainty, and viewing research as a possible resource for future classroom inquiry.
| Affiliate type | University |
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