Speakers
Description
This study explores how students and teachers at a public high school in Ho Chi Minh City have responded to the revised National English Exam 2025. With a mixed-methods survey design, data were collected from 91 students and 9 teachers to examine both the difficulties they encountered and the strategies they adopted to cope with the new exam format. The findings reveal that students struggled primarily with limited vocabulary, test-related anxiety, and unfamiliar question types, while teachers faced difficulties related to instructional time, material availability, and uneven student readiness. Despite these difficulties, both groups demonstrated adaptability— students adjusted their study habits and content focus, while teachers revised instruction, assessments, and materials. By incorporating both perspectives, the study sheds light on how school-based actors interpret and respond to top-down exam reforms, a dimension that has received limited empirical attention in Vietnam. The in-depth findings offer empirical support for washback theory, assessment-driven learning, and self-regulated learning, and point to the need for greater institutional support to facilitate effective adaptation in high-stakes testing environments.
Keywords: National English Exam, exam reform, washback effect, assessment driven learning, self-regulated learning, student and teacher adaptation, high-stakes testing.
Biography
Le Thi Van is a lecturer at Saigon University, specializing in English language education. Her research interests span educational technology, professional development, learner autonomy, employability and the development of transferable skills for the modern era. She is particularly interested in how both teachers and students respond to the evolving demands of education in a time of rapid social and technological change. She has published in Scopus-indexed journals and regularly contributes to collaborative research projects that promote innovation, inclusivity, and sustainability in language education. Her teaching and research are deeply rooted in ethical principles, with a strong commitment to transparency, participant protection, and responsible academic inquiry. In addition to her scholarly work, she is also actively involved in mentoring undergraduate research and designing practice-oriented, learner-centered curricula. In this study, she served as a co-author, taking primary responsibility for the research design, data analysis, and meticulous editorial development of the article.
