VietTESOL International Convention 2026

In the current landscape of EFL higher education in Vietnam, university lecturers are increasingly required to manage extensive administrative responsibilities, quality assurance procedures, and institutional reporting tasks alongside their teaching duties. Such demands often constrain opportunities for meaningful pedagogical engagement and contribute to emotional exhaustion, reduced professional satisfaction, and teacher burnout. Although reflective practice has traditionally been associated with instructional improvement, limited attention has been paid to its role in supporting teacher wellbeing and sustainable professionalism in high-pressure academic environments.

This qualitative study explores how EFL lecturers employ reflective practice as a coping and resilience-building strategy in response to administrative overload. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight lecturers at different career stages from a public university in Vietnam. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to examine participants’ perceptions of administrative workload, professional identity, and reflective coping practices.

Findings reveal that an “always-on” institutional culture and excessive bureaucratic demands negatively affect lecturers’ sense of professional agency and work-life balance. However, lecturers who engaged in regular reflective activities, including peer discussion, reflective journaling, and brief “micro-reflections” during teaching, demonstrated stronger emotional resilience and greater connection to their pedagogical values, thereby fostering long-term career sustainability. The study proposes an integrated reflection framework that can be incorporated into high-workload teaching contexts and highlights the importance of institutional support in promoting teacher well-being and sustainable professional practice in EFL higher education.