Speaker
Description
This presentation invites participants on a journey into the heart of meaningful language education, where adaptive expertise is the gold-standard of teachers’ professional practice. Rooted in Vietnam’s Foreign Language Teacher Competencies (FLTC) (BGDĐT, 2020), the session draws on several chapters in "Vietnam’s Foreign Language Teacher Competencies in Practice" series to explore how ELTs can rise to the challenges of a changing world. By blending creativity with principled action, adaptive expertise enables teachers to not only survive but thrive—responding to diverse learner needs, fostering equity, and teaching English as a global lingua franca with vision and heart. Like bamboo in a grove—flexible, resilient, and deeply rooted in local soil—teachers grow stronger together, supported by the FLTC as a shared foundation for professional practice.
Using teacher stories, we will explore how sustainable and globally-ready ELT is made possible through reflective practice, communities of support, and commitment to local relevance. Teachers are not passive implementers of curricula; they are active, resilient change agents. This session is a call to courage, to curiosity, and to care— and an invitation to grow as adaptive experts for the good of Vietnam’s teachers and learners.
Biography
Diana L. Dudzik is an independent scholar and teacher educator from the US. She is the series editor of the new four-book series "Vietnam’s Foreign Language Teacher Competencies in Practice" in collaboration with leading Vietnamese ELT educators (in press). Diana has supported English teaching and teacher development throughout Vietnam for over 30 years.
