VietTESOL International Convention 2026

As Vietnam repositions English from a foreign language subject toward a more functional second language within educational establishments, classroom practices must increasingly support meaningful communication, learner autonomy, and adaptive language use. Project-based learning (PBL) has been widely regarded as a key feature in competency-based English education owing to its emphasis on authentic language use and learner-centered instruction. Similarly, formative assessment has been found to promote learning by providing immediate feedback, fostering self-regulation, promoting peer collaboration, and guiding instructional modifications. However, notwithstanding the alignment with competency-based curriculum reform, PBL implementation in Vietnamese high school EFL classrooms, known for their exam-oriented contexts, remains a challenge by the dominance summative assessment practices. This leads to the scarcity of context-sensitive frameworks demonstrating the operationalization of formative assessment within textbook-based project tasks, leaving language educators with limited practical guidance for classroom implementation.

This conceptual study draws on document analysis of literature related to formative assessment and PBL in combination with curricular analysis of a specific project task selected from the Vietnamese high-school English textbook, Tiếng Anh 10. Guided by assessment-for-learning principles, the paper explores the systematic integration of formative assessment into project work to enhance competency development within the Vietnam’s evolving English language education landscape.

The paper presents a classroom-ready framework in which rubric-guided assessment, structured peer feedback, teacher observation, and iterative revision are incorporated into a textbook-based project task. By reconceptualizing assessment as a continuous learning process rather than a summative endpoint, the framework seeks to reinforce the pedagogical potential of PBL while aligning classroom assessment practices with Vietnam’s transition toward more communicative and functionally oriented English education.