Speaker
Description
In recent years, Vietnam has been hampered by a persistent and widespread shortage of qualified EFL teachers despite the nation’s ambitious goals regarding foreign language teaching and learning. Such context has necessitated a deeper understanding of EFL pre-service teachers’ motivation to teach in order to better inform teacher training and retention in the profession. While the concept of motivation to teach has piqued the interest of researchers across various settings, not much light has been shed on what drives Vietnamese EFL pre-service teachers to pursue teaching as a career. Grounded in the Possible Language Teacher Selves Theory (Kubanyiova, 2009), this study adopts a narrative inquiry approach to explore how pre-service teachers make sense of their teaching choice and the impact of their perceptions of ideal, ought-to and feared language teacher selves on their motivation to teach. Through semi-structured interviews and reflective journal entries collecting participant-generated visuals, the research offers deep and nuanced accounts of how Vietnamese EFL pre-service teachers envision their future self-concepts and how these visions shape their motivation to teach. The findings indicate that these pre-service teachers enter teaching with mixed motivations, the central being extrinsic drivers related to financial incentives and career security. Future self-images are found to have a strong influence on pre-service teachers’ motivation to teach, both positively and negatively. Insights from the study offer practical implications for teacher education programs and policy makers to enhance pre-service teacher recruitment and training in Vietnam.
Biography
Thi Minh Ngoc Duong is an early-career teacher and researcher, currently working at Tran Phu Secondary School, Hai Phong City. She graduated with High Distinction from the Honors Program in English Language Teacher Education at the University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU, Hanoi). Intellectual rigor has earned Ngoc recognition in various scholarly communities, from university-level pedagogical competition and nationwide research competition to global platforms. Following a fully-funded Erasmus+ exchange at Universität Greifswald, Germany, Ngoc won First Prize at the Sixth Pedagogical Talent Competition at ULIS and was later awarded the AmCham Scholarship 2026 by the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam - Hanoi Chapter. Her research interests center on teacher education, motivation, and professional identity formation. Beyond academia, Ngoc has actively engaged in education-focused initiatives that promote quality education and intercultural learning, assuming major leadership roles at the International Collaborative Service Learning Program ULISxSCU and STEAM for Vietnam Foundation. Through research, teaching and volunteering, Ngoc demonstrates a strong commitment to educational innovation and community engagement.
Dr. Thi Lan Anh Tran is a lecturer and leading researcher at the University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU, Hanoi). She obtained her doctoral degree in 2018 from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and has extensive experience in teacher education, teacher professional development, and English language teaching in Vietnam. Dr. Lan Anh has actively contributed to major national educational initiatives, including the National Foreign Languages Project, as well as various projects related to English language teaching, teacher development, and language education policy in Vietnam. Recognized as an influential scholar in the field of ELT, she has made significant contributions through research, academic supervision, and policy-oriented work aimed at improving the quality of language education in the Vietnamese context.
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