VietTESOL International Convention 2026

In Vietnamese English teacher education contexts, pre-service teachers have limited opportunities to engage with the wider international ELT community and to access current pedagogical discussions beyond textbooks and lectures. The increasing availability of open educational resources (OER) such as webinars, talks, interviews, and online lectures by leading ELT scholars offers new possibilities for connecting student teachers to wider ELT communities. However, practical models for integrating OER in ELT teacher education remained underexplored. This study therefore explores how pre-service English teachers engaged with major ELT theories through a multimodal video project entitled Big 10: Learning from ELT scholars. Drawing on accessible online resources from influential ELT authors, the project required students to create 90-second videos about key pedagogical ideas and their application into classroom practice. The study aimed to explore how participants reinterpreted ELT theories through multimodal video creation and how they connected theory to practice within the Vietnamese teaching contexts. Employing a qualitative classroom action research design, the study collected weekly student-created videos over a 12-week period, together with end-of-project reflective writings. The findings from thematic analysis of student reflections and multimodal analysis of videos show that student teachers experienced a shift from traditional teacher-centered views toward more communicative and learner-centered approaches to language teaching. The process of creating short videos encouraged participants to critically interpret and apply theoretical concepts in meaningful and contextually relevant ways. The study highlights the potential of OER and multimodal digital projects to support theory and practice integration.