VietTESOL International Convention 2026

This presentation examines how Vietnamese university content lecturers negotiate the boundary between teaching disciplinary content and supporting students’ English use in English-medium courses. It addresses a recurring tension in higher education: content lecturers are expected to teach through English, yet many may not identify as English teachers or view grammar correction, pronunciation work, and general language instruction as part of their professional role. Drawing on research on teacher identity, content-language integration, and lecturer agency, the presentation develops a qualitative study design for investigating how Vietnamese lecturers define, justify, and manage these role boundaries. The presentation focuses on three issues: how lecturers describe their primary responsibility as disciplinary teachers, what kinds of language support they consider acceptable or unacceptable, and how institutional expectations shape their sense of responsibility for students’ academic English development. It argues that role boundaries should not be treated as lecturer resistance or language deficiency alone. Rather, they reveal a wider policy and pedagogical problem concerning how English-medium programs distribute responsibility between content lecturers, language specialists, and institutions. The presentation offers implications for more realistic and collaborative language-sensitive teaching support.