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AnInvestigationintoPerceptionsofVietnameseTeachersonModelsof

EnglishforLanguageInstruction

MarcusAndrewMartins

MAinTESOLandAppliedLinguistics

SchoolofLanguagesandAreaStudiesUniversityofPortsmouth

December2016

Word count: 16442

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Abstract The focus of this research is to assess the perceptions of a group of Vietnamese teachers on the models of English for language teaching. Such a study is important in order to assess whether teachers believe that adherence to native speaker models such as British or American Englishes are the most appropriate for their learners. The study builds on previous studies on world Englishes in Vietnam, which called for further research in order to gain a clearer understanding of teacher’s perceptions around the country. The research approaches adopted in this dissertation includes the mixed methods of an online questionnaire and follow up interviews with participants. The findings from this study provide evidence that teachers’ awareness of different kinds of English is growing and the need for competence in multi-cultural communicative settings is beginning to emerge as a salient point for language learners. However, the main conclusions drawn from this study show that although there is a need for awareness of non-native English varieties, the native varieties still dominate the classroom contexts and are considered the stable model for teachers to rely on for a number of reasons. This dissertation recommends that future research on world Englishes in Vietnam should be concerned firstly, with codifying the Vietnamese/English situation through corpus driven and corpus based research. Secondly, with the inclusion of more varied models of English for language instruction in the classroom context and case study research in order to investigate the effectiveness from the perspectives of both teachers and learners.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my wife, Nguyen Ngoc Suong Mai, who supported me unconditionally during this project, and gave me the energy and encouragement to persevere during even the most difficult of times. I would also like to thank the university staff and tutors of Portsmouth and the excellent support and advice they gave me during the extent of the project. I would firstly like to thank Dr. Glenn Hadikin who provided overall support throughout my entire time at Portsmouth and had much influence on my individual units and the advice and feedback he gave me on my various essays and projects. I would like to thank Dr. Mario Saraceni for his guidance, advice and support during my individual units and this dissertation project. Dr. Saraceni gave me encouragement and was always available to talk with me via Skype and e-mail when I found myself in a conundrum. I would like to thank my family, my parents and all those who have been an influence on me during my time at Portsmouth University. I would also like to thank all of the wonderful and dedicated individuals who participated in my study, whom without, much of this work would not have been possible. I would like to thank Thomas Comfort and his wife Khanh Nguyen whom I worked with closely during my studies and were kind enough to allow me to make use of their facilities during my course. I would also like to thank most of all, my students, who are my inspiration and the driving force behind my continuing pursuit for professional development and enthusiasm for my chosen profession. To you all, my sincerest thanks and love

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TableofContents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iiAcknowledgements ................................................................................................................. iiTable of Contents ................................................................................................................... iii

Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................... ivIntroduction ............................................................................................................................. vi

Research Focus ................................................................................................................................. viEnglish in the world ........................................................................................................................ viiEnglish in Vietnam: Historic ........................................................................................................ viiiEnglish in Vietnam: Current .......................................................................................................... ixOverall Research Aim and Individual Research objectives ......................................................... xValue of Research ............................................................................................................................ xi

Chapter 1: Literature Review ................................................................................................. 1History of world Englishes ............................................................................................................... 1The Models of World Englishes ....................................................................................................... 2Alternative Models of World Englishes .......................................................................................... 3English as a Lingua Franca: Intelligibility, Comprehensibility and Interpretability ................ 4English as social practice .................................................................................................................. 6World Englishes in Vietnam ............................................................................................................ 6Previous Studies on WE’s in Vietnam ............................................................................................ 7Need for further research ................................................................................................................ 8

Chapter 2: Research Methods .............................................................................................. 10Background to Study ...................................................................................................................... 10Research Strategy ........................................................................................................................... 10Participants ..................................................................................................................................... 11Data collection ................................................................................................................................. 12

Questionnaire ................................................................................................................................ 12Interviews ..................................................................................................................................... 13Justification of data collection methods ....................................................................................... 14

Framework for data analysis ......................................................................................................... 14Limitations and problems .............................................................................................................. 15

Chapter 3: Analysis and Discussion ..................................................................................... 16Description and Analysis of Questionnaire data .......................................................................... 16

Part 1: How you feel about varieties of English ........................................................................... 17Part 2: What you think about English in Vietnam and the models you use for language instruction ..................................................................................................................................... 19Part 3: Teaching materials and Pedagogy .................................................................................... 22

Description and analysis of Interview Data .................................................................................. 25Knowledge of World Englishes ................................................................................................... 26Perceptions on different models of English for language instruction .......................................... 26Perceptions on usefulness of models other than native speaker models ...................................... 27Use of World Englishes in teaching materials ............................................................................. 28

Synthesis of Data sets, Previous Studies and Literature ............................................................. 29Part 1: How you feel about varieties of English ........................................................................... 29Part 2: What you think about English in Vietnam and the models you use for language instruction ..................................................................................................................................... 30

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Part 3: Teaching Materials and Pedagogy .................................................................................... 32Chapter 4: Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 35

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 35Research Objectives: Summary of Findings and Conclusions ................................................... 35Research Objective 1: Knowledge of world Englishes among teachers in Bien Hoa City, Vietnam ............................................................................................................................................ 36

Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 36Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 36

Research Objective 2: Vietnamese teachers perceptions on different models of English for language instruction ....................................................................................................................... 37

Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 37Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 37

Research Objective 3: Perceptions of teachers on what models of English for language instruction are available other than the inner-circle models, and whether these models could offer a more contextually relevant learning experience for students ......................................... 37

Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 37Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 38

Research Objective 4: Presence of world Englishes in the teachers’ teaching materials ........ 38Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 38Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 39

Limitations and self-reflection on methodology and Analysis .................................................... 39Value of Data and Future Considerations .................................................................................... 40

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 40Works Cited ............................................................................................................................. 40Appendices .............................................................................................................................. 44

Appendix 1: The Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 44Appendix 2: Questions and statements for Interviews ................................................................ 45Appendix 3: Interview Transcripts ............................................................................................... 46Appendix 4: Interquartile range for 28 out of 30 items .............................................................. 67

Declaration .................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

TableofFigures

Table1:The3thematicpartsofthequestionnaireinstrument.................................................................13Table2:Thequestionnairepartsgroupedintothemes.................................................................................13Table3:Overallagreementlevelsof28outof30questionnaireitems...................................................16Table4:Summaryofitems3,7and9...................................................................................................................17Table5:SummaryoftheresultsfromItems1,4,8and10...........................................................................18Table6:Theresultsfromitem5.VarietiesofEnglishparticipantshadstudied...................................18Table7:Theresultsofitem6.AwarenessofdifferentkindsofEnglish...................................................19Table8:Summaryofitems11and15..................................................................................................................20Table9:Summaryofresultsfromitems12,13,14,16and20....................................................................20Table10:Summaryofitems17,18and19.........................................................................................................22Table11:Showstheresponseresultsfromitem21and22inthequestionnaire................................23Table12:Summaryofitems27,29and30.........................................................................................................23Table13:Showsthevarianceamongparticipantsinitem30......................................................................24Table14:Summaryofthefinal5itemsintheinstrument............................................................................24

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Introduction

ResearchFocus

This dissertation investigates the perceptions of Vietnamese teachers on models of

English for language instruction. The main focus of the thesis is to reveal firstly, what

knowledge of world Englishes and different kinds of English available for language

instruction, such as the British, American and numerous other varieties, the teachers currently

have, and subsequently the teachers attitudes towards the current models, which dominate the

English language teaching field in this context of teaching. The main reason behind this

research is the notion that certain models of English, such as British or American Englishes,

may not be the most appropriate for language instruction, due to the fact that language

learners in this context rarely, if at all, communicate with native speakers, as Mackay points

out ‘…for those individuals who use English essentially as a language of wider

communication alongside one or more other languages they speak, achieving native-like

competence is often not necessary or desired’ (2012, p. 29). The value of this research is to

ascertain whether the teacher’s choices of models for instruction are based on real life

communicative needs of learners. Furthermore, whether these choices raise the learner’s

awareness of how English is appropriated both locally and contextually to further

international communication with interlocutors who may or may not be considered native

speakers of the language.

In order to provide contextualization for this research, a brief history of world

Englishes from a global perspective as well as English in Vietnam and the developments of

its teaching and learning over the last few decades is the focus of the first part of this

introduction. The second part outlines the overall and individual research objectives, which

constitute the main guidelines for this dissertation. Finally, there will be an explanation of the

potential value and justification of the research and how the results could benefit both

teachers and learners in English language education in Vietnam.

It is also important to mention that this study is a continuation of a pilot study

conducted in 2015 in the same area of Bien Hoa City, Vietnam. The study conducted

previously revealed differences between the teachers’ perceptions of world Englishes, which

many seemed to agree was a good idea theoretically, and what actually happened in their

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day-to-day teaching practice in the classroom. The study received a positive review from the

course marker, which was also part of the motivation for further research.

The current study includes several changes, which were made in order to attain a

deeper understanding on the perceptions of Vietnamese teachers in this context. Firstly, this

study looks to enlarge the number of participants in order to give a broader account of

teachers’ perceptions in the local area of Bien Hoa city. However, as the study is mainly

exploratory and assesses teachers’ attitudes, and does not offer any longitudinal data, it may

only give an account at the precise time the study is conducted. Secondly, the study includes

teachers from more varied educational contexts, including primary schools, secondary

schools, universities, colleges and language centres, as previous studies in Vietnam have only

included data obtained from universities and colleges (Do, 1999, p. 31, Ton & Pham, 2010, p.

51, Tran & Moore, 2015, p. 109). Lastly, teachers were invited to join post-questionnaire,

semi-structured individual and group interviews in order to be able to discuss the questions in

the questionnaire and provide further reasons and add depth to their answers. With the

adaptation of the pilot study it is the hope of the researcher to assess more in depth how

aware teachers are of the world Englishes paradigm, how they feel about what kind of

English they teach, and whether they believe this is the most appropriate and beneficial for

their learners.

Englishintheworld

That English is an important global language is a fact now difficult to contest. Studies

estimate that the number of people learning and using English around the world in some form

or other is now possibly in the billions (Graddol, 2006, p. 100, Jenkins, 1998, p. 4, Schneider,

2011, p. 56). Crystal explains the two main reasons for the current position of English in the

world as ‘primarily the result of…the expansion of British colonial power…and the

emergence of the United States as the leading economical power of the twentieth century…

and it is the latter factor that continues to explain the world position of the English language

today’ (2003, p. 59). British colonialism, for example, precipitated the spread of English to

areas such as India, Africa, Asia, and parts of the Caribbean. Schneider provides a useful

visualisation of the extent of Britain’s colonial endeavours, and points out that ‘[The] British

Empire truly spanned the entire globe’ (2011, p. 50). The other factor previously mentioned,

is the rise and development of the USA, and subsequently, its growth and the surpassing of

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Britain in terms of population and therefore speakers of English, which resulted in the status

of English as the de-facto global language in a number of areas including, but not limited to,

politics, media and economics (Seargeant & Swann, 2012, p. 157).

In short, the two factors of British colonialism and American global economic

dominance are generally seen as the origin of how the English language first dispersed from

the relatively small domain of the British Isles (Jenkins J. , 1998, p. 39). In recent years, a

number of models have been offered to illustrate the current status of English around the

world, probably of which the most influential is that of Braj Kachru and the concentric three

circle model (1992, p. 3). Kachru’s model divides the worlds English language users by

geographical location, and labels them with the titles of Inner, Outer and Expanding circles.

The inner circle refers to nation states, where people use English as a first and dominant

language, such as the UK and the USA. The outer circle refers to nations where English was

first introduced through colonialism and then remained an important recognized language in

the nations affairs, even after independence, such as education, media and politics. Finally,

the expanding circle where English has no history in the society and is treated as a foreign

language to be studied as part of educational curriculums. A more in depth explanation of

Kachru’s model and its criticisms, as well as alternative models put forward by other

researchers, are attended to in the literature review of this dissertation.

EnglishinVietnam:Historic

Vietnam is no stranger to foreign language studies. Since before the 19th century, the

country has seen shifts in language learning policies due to changing political tides (Denham,

1992, p. 61). Historically, the main languages that have seen dominance in Vietnam’s

language learning curricula are Chinese, French, Russian and English. The end of China’s

thousand-year rule over Vietnam witnessed the rise of a national and independent

Vietnamese language more commonly referred to as ‘Quoc Ngu’ (Wright, 2002, p. 227). The

imposition of French colonialists then introduced the French language to the general

populous in the mid 19th century, although the end of colonialism resulted in a general

outlawing of French in Vietnam after the battle of Dien Bien Phu in the 1950’s. This resulted

in somewhat of a U-turn in terms of language learning policy as Chinese once again became

the foreign language flavour of the day. Further shifts are seen during the American

intervention of the civil war between the North and South of Vietnam, with the north

favouring Chinese and Russian, both nations from which it received aid during the conflict.

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This period also saw the introduction of English in the south of Vietnam, which continued

strong ties with America throughout the North-South conflict. However, and perhaps most

significantly, the fact that English would be the language learning choice of most Vietnamese

students today despite the historical context, is well known to have emerged due to the

collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent reform of the communist party’s open door

policy and economic reform (or Doi Moi) in the 1980’s (Do, 2000, p. 29).

These shifts although perhaps necessary for the development of language learning

policy in Vietnam, caused serious upheavals for the foreign language teaching population in

terms of professional development, as Phan points out ‘The sudden replacement of Russian

by English in Vietnam has caused part of the society to have negative attitudes toward

Russian, and consequently made teachers of Russian struggle for their living’ (2008, p. 83).

One of the pivotal points, which may have been fundamental in shaping the position English

language instruction holds in Vietnam today, is the moment students were first permitted to

make their own choice in the decision of what foreign language they intended to study. Do’s

1996 study reveals 68.6% of the participants strongly agreeing that English was the most

important foreign language available for study and further ‘expressed their regret at being

forced to previously study Russian regardless of their preference’ (p. 40). This particular

statistic is of prominent importance with regard to this dissertation, as the presence of

‘choice’ is regarded as an important caveat of learner autonomy, which could be inferred to

include the choice of which variety of the language the learner wishes to learn, as well as

other caveats such as learning styles and preferences (Benson, 2013, p. 107).

EnglishinVietnam:Current

Since the economical renovation and the ‘Doi Moi’ era, Vietnam has joined important

global communities, including The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in

1995 and the World Trade organization in 2007. The inclusion into these communities has

had important effects on English language learning in Vietnam despite requests by

Vietnamese delegates to include languages other than English as de facto particularly in

ASEAN language policies (Kirkpatrick, 2010, p. 12). However, these requests

notwithstanding, Kirkpatrick goes on to praise Vietnam for its expeditious adoption of

English as a foreign language over both its antecedents French and Russian (2010, p. 14).

Moreover, statistics show a significant part of the population are now enrolled in the study of

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English in primary, secondary, tertiary and private educational contexts such as language

centres, with figures of over 22 million students studying English (Dudzik & Nguyen, 2015,

p. 46). However, despite such a large number of learners, scholars and researchers report a

number of problems and issues with English language teaching and learning, including

teachers’ English language proficiency (Duong & Chua, 2016, p. 2), methodology (Hoang,

2013, p. 75) and teaching resources (Le, 1999, p. 76).

In order to address these concerns, and to promote the importance of English language

education in Vietnam, the Ministry of Training and Education (MOET) issued an initiative

with the prime minister’s approval, to improve the situation of English language teaching and

learning in Vietnam by the year 2020 (Nguyen & Phung, 2015, p. 112). The initiative more

precisely identified as ‘Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education

System, Period 2008-2020, …aims to broadly reform the teaching and learning of foreign

languages (English language recommended) across the national education system,

implementing new curriculums for teaching and learning foreign languages at all sectors and

levels’ (To, 2010). However, the plan is not without criticism and has been described as over

ambitious by researchers and news publications. For example, a case study on English

language teaching in the primary classroom found ‘tensions between policy expectations and

classroom realities [where] Students’ testimonies and classroom observations highlight the

continuation of the traditional teacher-fronted teaching which results in student

disengagement and frustrating experiences’ (Nguyen, Hamid, & Renshaw, 2015, p. 19).

To conclude, it seems that the initiative by the Vietnamese government has seen positive

results for the objective of placing English language education as a priority around the

country. However, in reality the obstacles and lack of adequate resources seem to have a

detrimental effect overall on the language learning experiences of the students.

OverallResearchAimandIndividualResearchobjectives

The overall and individual research objectives of this dissertation are as follows:

• To reveal knowledge of world Englishes among teachers in Bien Hoa City, Vietnam

• To identify Vietnamese teachers perceptions on different models of English for language

instruction

• To reveal perceptions of teachers on what models of English for language instruction are

available other than the inner-circle models, and which models the teachers feel offer the

most relevant learning experience for their learners

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• To reveal any presence of world Englishes in the teachers’ teaching materials

ValueofResearch

The value of this research is exploratory in nature. Currently in Vietnam little is

understood clearly of how teachers feel about the kind of English they are teaching, and

whether the models they use are the most appropriate for their learners according to their

needs and contexts of learning. For example, the literature on English around the world now

estimates with some authority that non-native users of English far outnumber native users,

however, English language learners in Vietnam still tend to adhere to native user norms, and

hold the native user model as the one that can ‘help them pass finals, or tests, or complete a

program’ (Ton & Pham, 2010, p. 58). This disparate connection between adherence to

academic regulations and real life communicative needs could be one reason why the native

speaker model still dominates English language education in Vietnam. Therefore, It seems

fair to infer that should teachers and policy makers awareness of the real life needs of English

language learners be made a priority rather than adhering to norms that do not benefit the

learners, it may help in future language course development, teacher training and materials

development for teaching English in Vietnam. As Saraceni concludes,

“Learning English need not be seen as a strenuous journey whose ultimate destination is the

achievement of ‘native-like’ status or a linguistic ‘visa’ into a special ‘inner circle’. Learning

English means, above all, making it easier to take part, actively and critically, in the practices

and discourses that (re-) present, (re-) construct and (re-) shape the global and local worlds

we live in” (2015, p. 299).

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Chapter1:LiteratureReview

HistoryofworldEnglishes

It should be made clear that the historical starting point of world Englishes as an

academic subject is not the same as defining the starting point of world Englishes as one or

many languages per se. The history of English as a language is not one that consists of a

clearly defined starting point nor is it a language that started as the English we know and use

today (Crystal, 2004, p. vi). It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe the history of

English as a language, and therefore this will not be attended to. However, the starting point

of the academic subject, and a dedicated journal on the subject, is somewhat easier to define.

The field of world Englishes as an ‘academic subject’ can be traced back to a

response by Kachru (1976) to an article written by Prator (1968) on the subject of varieties of

English other than British or American being used as models for language instruction. The

impetus for Prators’ argument was that the teaching of English should follow as closely as

possible the American or British native speaker’s model so as to not deviate from either

standard American or British English. Kachru’s response to Prator argued that he had ignored

the socio-cultural aspects of language contact and how language had been adapted to suit the

local needs of those it had originally been imposed upon. Both papers were peppered with

metaphoric language, with Prator using theological terminology such as ‘heresy’ and Kachru

in a similar vein with referring to Prators’ purism and intolerance as ‘sins’ (Saraceni M. ,

2015, p. 100).

This debate sparked the beginning of world Englishes as an academic subject in its

own right, and would go on to encourage cross continental debates between researchers and

scholars, some of which still continue on today (Nelson, 2011, p. 6). One such famous debate

among those to follow the Kachru/Prator response was between Kachru (1991) and Randolph

Quirk (1990), which came to be known as ‘The English Today debate’, published in the

English Today journal. According to Quirk, the deviation from standard British or American

English was not much more than ‘a fashionable trend among linguists to embrace principles

of tolerance and equality towards all varieties of English and to disregard any advantages in

trying to maintain a stable standard of English’ (Saraceni M. , 2015, p. 103). However,

Kachru then later pointed out, as he had in previous years, that ‘What is actually ‘deficit

linguistics’ (or deviation from the standard English) in one context may be a matter of

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‘difference’, which is based on vital sociolinguistic realities of identity, creativity and

linguistic and cultural contact in another context’ (1991, p. 11).

TheModelsofWorldEnglishes

The scope of world Englishes from a global perspective is now well established in

academic literature. One of the most often quoted catalysts of the world Englishes paradigm

is Braj B. Kachru, as previously mentioned, who first established a model illustrating how the

English language has spread throughout the globe in reference to ‘historical, sociolinguistic

and literary contexts’ (1992, p. 3). The first or ‘Inner’ circle of the model consists of the

nations, which use English predominantly as a first language or ‘mother tongue’ (Kachru B.

B., p. 3), for example, The UK, The USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The second

or ‘Outer’ circle shows where the English language has established itself as an additional

language alongside any indigenous languages mainly through the process of colonization, for

example, through the British colonization of India and parts of the Caribbean and Africa.

Finally, the third, otherwise known as ‘Expanding circle’ consists of areas in which the

English language has been introduced as a periphery foreign language mainly studied in

primary, secondary and tertiary educational settings, and finds no history in its local or

national context. The focus of this study is Vietnam, which falls in the Expanding circle

category.

Although this model paved the way forward towards an attitude of plurality with

regards to the English language by raising awareness of the reality that English has grown,

adapted and spread too far for anyone to claim its ownership outright, it has since come to be

critiqued for being over simplistic in terms of explaining ‘the levels of either language

proficiency or degrees of communicative competence within the circles’ (Bruthiaux, 2003, p.

169). The issue here seems to be that the model conflates geographical and political

demarcations when it may be more prudent to take into account what Bruthiaux describes as

‘sociolinguistic characteristics of English-speaking communities wherever they are found’

(2003, p. 161). Moreover, Melchers and Shaw also point out that since the models inception,

‘globalisation, migration, and the prevalence of computer-mediated communication among

people far apart from one another physically have changed the nature of interaction in

English’ (2011, p. 8). It is the purpose of this paper to focus on the sociolinguistic

characteristics mentioned previously, and more importantly, how the teachers of English in

this context perceive the various Englishes that have emerged and are gaining prominence

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around the world today, and further, whether raising awareness of global or world Englishes

would be beneficial for Vietnamese language learners. As Jenkins explains in her conclusion

‘the paradigm shift has not yet started to filter though into language teaching itself, where

much more needs to be done to raise learners’ awareness of the diversity of English’ (2006,

p. 174).

AlternativeModelsofWorldEnglishes

Kachru’s contribution to the world Englishes paradigm is undeniable, and the three

circles model was instrumental in defining world Englishes as a valid and fruitful academic

research subject (Murata & Jenkins, 2009, p. 3). However, it is not the only attempt to model

how English has developed into such a global phenomena. Other models put forward have

also contributed to the understanding of language spread, especially in reference to

colonialism and complex individual or combined variables. Schneider’s evolutionary cycle of

New Englishes or ‘Dynamic model’ describes a 5-stage process in which a new variety of

English emerges as a result of direct language contact and other combined variables (2007, p.

21). The 5 stages of the process are the ‘Foundation stage’, the ‘Exonormative stabilization’

stage, the ‘Nativization’ stage, the ‘Endonormative stabilization’ stage and finally the

‘Differentiation’ stage and Schneider explains that at each stage there are 4 factors which are

observable and include, ‘(1) Extra-linguistic factors, such as historical events and politics, (2)

Characteristic identity constructions, (3) language contact, language use and language

attitudes, or sociolinguistic factors, which cause (4) structural effects to emerge in the form of

language varieties’ (2007, pp. 30-31). Saraceni explains a significant difference between

Schneider’s Dynamic Model and Kachru’s Three-Circles model being that the former takes

colonization as a Macro phenomenon and ‘makes no distinction between different types of

colonization or ‘diasporas’ of English’ and in fact most of the emerging Englishes ‘share

underlying processes’, which contribute not only to their formation but also account for many

of their similarities (2015, p. 119).

Melchers and Shaw take a different approach in that rather than applying an actual

model to take account of how English has spread around the world, they instead look to

describe this account in terms of individual variables, and according to certain parameters.

Linguistic accounts, for example, take consideration of the norms of ‘most of the society that

use the language’ and not the norms of ‘schools, publishers or social elites’ (2011, p. 33). A

further example would be a sociolinguistic classification of a particular variety, which ‘would

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take account of the level of prestige the variety gives it speakers’ (2011, p. 35) whether it be

overt or covert according to Labovs’ (1991) distinction between the two. Saraceni concludes

that an important distinction of the Melchers and Shaw classification is

‘“[That] variables can, and should, be taken into account individually, but also that

they intersect in complex ways. A ‘situation’, for example, may well involve speakers who

have different degrees of competence and ‘scope proficiency’, use varieties to which different

levels of recognition is accorded, produce texts adhering to different norms and are based in

countries where English plays different roles.” (2015, p. 111).

EnglishasaLinguaFranca:Intelligibility,ComprehensibilityandInterpretability

The idea that the English language is no longer under the ownership of countries and

nations, whose populations acquire the language as a mother tongue has allowed for

considerable movement as to the models and standards used in its teaching. One such

movement is that of Jenkins and Seidlhofer and the English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

phenomenon. The principle idea behind this notion is that in many contexts of use, English

speakers with different first languages mainly use English to communicate with other

speakers whose first language is also not English, or as a Lingua Franca. In this sense the

language is considered an ‘international language’, a key factor of which is the ‘the right for

speakers to express their (L1) regional group identity in English by means of their accent, as

long as the accent does not jeopardize international intelligibility’ (Jenkins J. , 2002).

Intelligibility however, is not considered as straightforward as simply being

understood (or misunderstood), and Burns warns that ‘[there] is of course danger in assuming

correspondence across theoretical frameworks: choices of terminology can, and often do,

represent basic assumptions and principles that guide their user’ (2008, p. 328). The

references to theoretical frameworks here consist of Larry Smith’s (1992) account on three

crucial aspects of successful cross-cultural communication. The two other factors are

comprehensibility and interpretability. ‘Intelligibility’, refers to interlocutor’s word and

sound recognition, and in Nelson’s account is a somewhat positive, yet imperfect, move away

from the overused term ‘understanding’ (2011, p. 22). ‘Comprehensibility’, refers to how

well, if at all, the meaning is received in terms of word use in context specific situations.

Interpretability, which also contains a higher number of variables in comparison to

intelligibility (Kachru & Nelson, 2006), is designated to clarity of meaning in terms of the

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overall ‘message’ between interlocutors and includes aspects such as ‘intent and purpose of

utterance’ (Kachru & Smith, 2008, p. 63).

While English as a Lingua Franca bases itself on empirically gathered evidence, there

have also been arguments towards the concept as part of the world Englishes paradigm. For

example, Saraceni argues that ELF may be a form of substitution in the sense of one model

over another (2008, p. 22). Further, O’Regan explains how ‘[it] is common for example that

references to using English as a lingua franca metamorphose into a more linguistically and

conceptually reified formulation, so that the relativized conception of English which ‘using

English as a lingua franca’ implies congeals and ‘ELF’ becomes a thing-in-itself ‘(2014, p.

536, emphasis in original). Moreover, Berns describes and compares the differences between

ELF and world Englishes in terms of Larry Smiths’ and Jennifer Jenkins’ conceptualization

of the two paradigms, and points out rather forcefully that ‘identification of core features of

non-native speech in an effort to control language performance and guarantee the success of

this performance - even if the result is the overthrow of the tyrannical native speaker - is

simply meeting the new boss who’s same as the old boss, or the hegemony of the old with the

hegemony of the new’ (2008, p. 333).

A further aspect of ELF and other studies of how English is appropriated in different

contexts and sociolinguistic environments, which could be important for understanding

English language learning and education in Vietnam is the use of corpus driven research such

as that undertaken by Barbara Seidlhofer at the University of Vienna and the Vienna-Oxford

International Corpus of English (2009), which builds on English used in predominantly ELF

situations without interference by native speakers. Further, Hadikin (2013) provides data on

the analysis of Korean English using corpus data and, further reveals striking similarities to

the English using and learning culture in Vietnam, as he explains ‘The case of Korean

English is particularly unusual because, although all schoolchildren study English at school

and often listen to music, watch films and use English on the Internet, informal

conversational English between Koreans is rare’ (2014, p. 18). Vietnam and Korea share a

number of similarities in terms of English language education, and therefore a codification

and corpus driven analysis of Vietnamese English could produce useful results, and expose

underlying traits of how the Vietnamese appropriate English in terms of vocabulary and

syntax.

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Englishassocialpractice

The progress of world Englishes in academia and the plurecentric attitudes towards

English in contemporary times is now starting to motivate questioning the very essence of

English as a language in the world. Traditionally, for example, there was much focus on

describing and categorizing the ‘spread’ of English and how it comes to be in so many

diverse contexts globally. While this is important in order to understand the English

languages’ position, there are also differing perspectives on the actual conceptualization of

the ‘spread’ metaphor. Subsequently, alternatives such as perceptions of English as a ‘social

practice’, for example, may give a more sociolinguistic account of how English has reached

the position it is in today, as Pennycook explains ‘This (language as social practice) suggests

the need to articulate a new sense of history and location, avoiding narratives of spread,

transition, development and origins, and thinking instead in terms of multiple, heterogeneous

and simultaneous histories that the dominant historical narrative has overlooked’ (2010, p.

44).

This alternative perspective, which moves away from the original view of English

moving outward from a central location, for example, the British Isles, allows for a view of

language where the actions of doing and how successfully language is used within its

communicative social context become the focal point. From this perspective, the form of

language becomes secondary to language as a localized practice, as Pennycook argues,

‘What we need instead is a way of thinking about language as a local practice that

does two important things: it moves away from an account of language as pre-given structure

and instead accounts for language as the product of practice, of repeated social activity’

(2010, p. 114).

WorldEnglishesinVietnam

World Englishes in Vietnam is currently less than well attended to than other aspects

of English language education in general. For example, in recent research endeavours, there

has been much focus on pedagogy, materials, resources and teacher training and language

competence. However, research on world Englishes in Vietnam remains somewhat

insubstantial, and to date only 3 research projects have been conducted with specific attention

paid to world Englishes in the Vietnamese context. This raises important questions as to the

current objectives of English language education around the country. For example, should the

achievement of native-like competence as a goal for language learning be dismissed as

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inappropriate for the learners, new and more realistic goals could be set and subsequently

achieved with less detrimental effect on the learners language learning journey. Furthermore,

achievable, yet challenging goals could also help to maintain learners motivation, and

Dornyei accounts for 3 crucial aspects to be taken into account when considering setting

goals for learners, which include ‘Individual goals’, ‘Institutional constraints’ and ‘Success

criteria’ (2001, p. 61). The latter seems to be of importance as success rates for English

language learners achieving native like competence is documented as being generally very

low, and somewhat inappropriate when considering the learners context (Ton & Pham, 2010,

p. 49).

PreviousStudiesonWE’sinVietnam

As mentioned, previous studies in Vietnam with regards to world Englishes are

limited. The first study conducted by Do in 1995, did not focus specifically on world

Englishes, but aimed to reveal students perceptions towards ‘national foreign language

education policy and its related issues’ (2000, p. 31). The relevance to world Englishes in the

study were questions in the research instrument, which enquired as to the motivation for

learners to study English and their preference of which varieties they would rather study

(2000, p. 36). Interestingly, despite the larger number of learners stating preference for

mostly inner circle varieties of English, a small number opted for ‘other’, although the only

example given from the sample was ‘Chinese English’ and a slightly larger number (15.8%)

opted to speak English with a ‘Vietnamese accent’ (2000, p. 36). The results from this study

seem to show that at least some language learners in Vietnam were more than glad to express

their freedom of choice in terms of what they should be learning.

Ton and Pham’s (2010) study was more specifically oriented towards varieties of

English. The aims of the study included assessing students’ motivation for learning English

and the usefulness of different varieties of English according to the teachers and students

perceptions (p. 50). 250 students and 80 teachers took part in the study and the results

showed that mostly the students took part in English studies on the basis that English would

help them find employment or pass exams in educational contexts, and that additionally, it

would be useful to be aware of different kinds of English (p. 58). Results from the teachers

also revealed the belief that the students would communicate more with non-native speakers

outside of the classroom and so it was considered useful to have knowledge of different kinds

of English, although for numerous reasons, it would not be feasible to include these in

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classroom situations (p. 59). To conclude it was suggested that due to lack of availability of

materials, time constraints and busy schedules, it would be more prudent for students to

pursue the exploration of varieties of English other than American or British varieties outside

of the classroom, either through main stream media and the internet or ‘out of class learning

opportunities’ (p. 59).

The most recent study in Vietnam on world Englishes to date by Tran and Moore

(2015) investigated perceptions of Vietnamese teachers on incorporating world Englishes

into their teaching. The results from the study showed similarity to the study conducted by

Ton and Pham some years earlier. For example, the constraints expressed by teachers in both

studies with regards to incorporating different varieties of English in the classroom context

were almost identical (2015, p. 111). Furthermore, the benefits of world Englishes awareness

by the participants of both studies were also acknowledged (2015, p. 113). However, a

notable difference in the two studies was revealed in terms of future considerations of world

Englishes in Vietnam. While participants in the earlier study recommended that students

‘explore other varieties of English in their own time’ (2010, p. 59), as opposed to in the

classroom, in the latter study recommendations were more ample, and included comments on

‘teacher training… funded short and long term overseas courses…levels of autonomy… and

discussions and workshops on the best methods for incorporating world Englishes in specific

contexts’ (2015, p. 115).

Needforfurtherresearch

The need for further research on world Englishes in Vietnam was explicitly expressed

in the two latter studies discussed previously. Both researchers commented that future studies

should include a wider range of participants in terms of both number and context of teaching

in order to increase generalizability of results. Furthermore, Tran and Moore express the need

to include research over an increased time period to ‘grasp the breadth of views expressed’,

and additionally that ‘future studies should investigate the perspective of teachers who are

teaching English in Vietnam and are thus directly influenced by their particular social and

educational contexts’ (2015, p. 115). Moreover, the researchers express the need for analysis

of Vietnamese English and its features, as well as including the views, perceptions and

opinions from learners in order to gain a clearer understanding of world Englishes in

Vietnam. This could most obviously be achieved by corpus driven studies and through a

collection of data of real-life Vietnamese/English interactions. However, to date there is little

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evidence of Corpus Linguistics use in Vietnam, although some researchers have now started

to use corpus driven techniques to investigate aspects of Vietnamese English language use,

especially in phonological terms and in comparison to native speakers (Nguyen & Ingram,

2004).

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Chapter2:ResearchMethods

BackgroundtoStudy

As briefly mentioned in the introduction, this study is the refined product of a pilot

previously conducted in the city of Bien Hoa, Vietnam. The original questionnaire was

printed and completed in the presence of the administrator, which also limited the number of

participants involved to less than 20, although this did ensure a 100% response rate. The

current study looked to involve a larger number of teachers, and in order to increase

convenience for those participating, the questionnaire instrument was adapted for online

completion and a link sent via e-mail to the prospective participants. This did not ensure a

100% response rate, but seemed a logical alternative to deliver the instrument to a larger

number of potential participants. Furthermore, the study looked to include teachers from a

wider range of teaching contexts, including language centres and primary, secondary and

tertiary educational institutions. There was also an additional section added to the

questionnaire, which looked to reveal any presence of world Englishes and different varieties

of English in the teaching materials that teachers use on a day to day basis, and whether

teachers are actually aware of the different varieties. Lastly, qualitative data was obtained by

inviting teachers in the study to semi-structured interviews once the questionnaires were

completed. The final analysis includes triangulating the data from the world Englishes

literature, the questionnaires, and the data from the interview discussions in order to ascertain

a clearer picture of the teachers’ perceptions and knowledge of world Englishes in this

particular context.

ResearchStrategy

To reiterate, the objectives of this study are as follows

1. To reveal knowledge of world Englishes among teachers in Bien Hoa City,

Vietnam

2. To identify Vietnamese teachers perceptions on different models of English for

language instruction

3. To reveal perceptions of teachers on what models of English for language

instruction are available other than the inner-circle models, and which models the

teachers feel offer the most relevant learning experience for their learners

4. To reveal any presence of world Englishes in the teachers’ teaching materials

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The salient aims of this study, was to primarily to reveal any knowledge of world Englishes

and to assess teachers perceptions and how they feel about various kinds of English. As this

was an exploratory study by nature, a questionnaire was judged as a satisfactory method of

data collection for a broader account of teacher’s opinions. The data obtained from the

questionnaire provided the opportunity for an initial analysis to reveal any salient points so as

to formulate questions or statements for the interviews with willing participants. Moreover,

the study also looked to take account of whether teachers are using different Englishes in

their day-to-day teaching or whether, as the literature often points out, they prefer to adhere

to ‘inner circle’ norms and conventions of language use (Jenkins J. , 2009, p. 40). Finally,

there are both items in the questionnaire and the interviews, designed to reveal whether there

is any presence of world Englishes in the teaching materials, textbooks or other input modes

used by the teachers, or whether the teachers themselves include any other models of various

Englishes in the materials they themselves produce or bring into their classrooms.

The rationalization for this is while the questionnaire can provide a broad account of

opinions and preferences, the interviews could provide reasons and the opportunity to express

specific ideas and opinions, which may not have been possible in the questionnaire. Although

Dornyei (2010, p. 12) advises a certain length for a questionnaire in order to not be overly

obtrusive on a participant’s time, this particular instrument was dangerously close to being so

at a total number of 30 questions over 3 pages, and therefore, it was not considered

appropriate to include a high number of open-ended questions, which naturally take more

time to complete. This seems a fair justification for invitations to be sent to the willing

participants who felt a need to add further depth to their answers. The data obtained from

both the questionnaires and the interviews are submitted to analysis and patterns revealed are

discussed in the analysis and conclusion chapters.

Participants

The participants in this study were collected through both a personal network, and a

semi-snowball effect. Colleagues of the researcher were contacted, who then contacted other

colleagues to invite them to participate. A list of e-mails was compiled and a preliminary

letter of introduction was sent out. This gave participants a chance to understand what was

going to happen and also a chance to opt out of the study if they so wished. As the

questionnaire was produced by an online survey website (SurveyMonkey Inc., 1999), it was

deemed appropriate to send out an explanation of procedures and instructions before the

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study took place. Full anonymity was offered in this study and no personal details were asked

for in either the questionnaire or the post-questionnaire interviews. This includes information

such as gender or qualifications. The only fact that can be revealed in order to honour this

agreement is that all teachers in the study are currently employed in an English language-

teaching context. The study received a 40.9% response rate (36 submitted questionnaires out

of 88 sent invitations), and 4 of the participants were willing to attend individual or group

interviews, the audio of which can be accessed at the following link.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxXsWc24_kzoa2QzVzAxdU9sTkE

The interviews were arranged and conducted within 2 weeks of the preliminary analysis of

the questionnaire data. Two of the participants attended the interview individually, and two

attended as a pair. Unfortunately, only participants at tertiary educational contexts were able

to attend the interview. This naturally affects the generalizability of the results in the

qualitative data set. In order to increase generalizability, it would be prudent to try and

incorporate teachers from varied contexts of teaching, to gain a clearer understanding of

teacher’s perceptions in this particular context.

Datacollection

Questionnaire

This study was conducted through a mixed methods approach. Firstly, data was collected

from the online questionnaire consisting of 30 questions in total (See appendix 1), divided

into 3 thematic sections as shown in table 1. The questionnaire was designed and

administered on the website ‘Survey Monkey’ (1999). The items for 28 out of the 30 total

questions elicited responses in the form of 5-point Likert items, which range from ‘Strongly

Agree’ to ‘Strongly Disagree’. Out of the total number of questions, 2 questions in the

instrument were designed to elicit open answers from participants and are dealt with

separately from the other items in the analysis. Results and conclusions of the individual

items in the questionnaire were reached by examining the previous studies on world

Englishes in Vietnam and the conclusions drawn from the data. For example, In Tran and

Moore’s study (2015), it was revealed ‘That, to some extent, there was unequal

understanding of the term world Englishes’ (p.110), and therefore it was considered prudent

to include questions or statements in this study, to examine if this was in fact the case for the

participants. Moreover, the individual items in each part of the questionnaire also shared

thematic grouping so as to improve consistency. For example, in part 1, items 3, 7 and 9 refer

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to how English affects students; items 1, 4, 8 and 10 refer to teacher’s teaching practice and

items 2, 5 and 6 refer to awareness of world Englishes as shown in table 2.

Table1:The3thematicpartsofthequestionnaireinstrumentPart 1: How you feel about varieties of English

Part 2: What you think about English in Vietnam and the models you use for language instruction

Part 3: Teaching materials and Pedagogy

Interviews

The participants who completed the questionnaire were invited to individual or group

interviews. The interviews were informal and semi-structured. The data from the

questionnaire provided a salient list of questions (See appendix 2) and statements to guide the

discussions, although they were kept as natural as possible, in order to allow the

conversations to flow. The interviews were both voice recorded, with permission of the

participants, and a basic transcription made in order to extract information (see appendix 3),

to then cross reference with both the world Englishes literature and the data, which emerged

from the questionnaire. Although no statistical analysis, such as SPSS, was administered, as

the sample was considered relatively small, it was the weight of the qualitative data adding

depth to the broader account of teachers perceptions provided by the data from the

questionnaire that was the focus of the analysis.

Table2:ThequestionnairepartsgroupedintothemesQuestionnaire Parts in Thematic Groups Items Part 1 How English affects students 3 – 7 – 9 Teaching Practice 1 – 4 – 8 – 10 Awareness of WE’s 2 – 5 – 6 Part 2 English in Vietnam 11 – 15 Students use of English in Vietnam 12 – 13 – 14 – 16 – 20 Language skills and Testing 17 – 18 – 19 Part 3 Student Preferences 21 – 22 Inclusion of WE’s in Teaching 27 – 29 – 30 Materials and Curriculum 23 – 24 – 25 – 26 – 28 The timescale for administering the questionnaire, and conducting a preliminary analysis of

the results, lasted from June 2016 to mid August 2016. During which time, the questionnaire

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data was completed, returned and analysed for patterns and the interviews conducted,

transcribed and analysed for cross-reference with the questionnaire data.

Justificationofdatacollectionmethods

Data collection in linguistics holds a long history with regards to the use of

questionnaires and surveys. Dornyei points out that in second language research,

questionnaires are ‘One of the most common methods of data collection’ (2010, p. xiii).

The main impetus for administering a questionnaire for this study in order to gain empirical

data, was to make possible the procurement of views and perspectives of a large number of

teachers in Bien Hoa City, Vietnam, which due to time constraints and other factors such as

location, would not have been possible to conduct individually in a face to face situation.

However, while questionnaires can yield large amounts of quantitative data they are also

susceptible to problems with regards to the participants, such as central tendency bias

(Dornyei & Taguchi, 2010, p. 28) and respondent fatigue. The former referring to participants

who tend to avoid making a concrete stance on an issue, and the latter refers to when the

Likert items contain too many points to choose from and may leave the participant with a loss

of interest in the questionnaire.

Frameworkfordataanalysis

The analysis in this investigation was two pronged. Firstly, the data from the online

questionnaire was subjected to analysis by coding and sorting participant’s answers to give

median scores, and numerical value to the overall level of agreement for the 28 Likert items

(See table 3). Further, each item was analysed by using the Inter Quartile Range (IQR) to

ascertain levels of variance in each individual item (See appendix 4). Items were then

analysed for any patterns, including high levels of agreement or disagreement with any

issues, which may have produced different results in other similar studies in world Englishes

conducted in Vietnam. Secondly, the items were categorized in terms of agreement level and

checked against the interview data and cross-referenced with the literature on world

Englishes studies conducted by other researchers in Vietnam. Finally, all the data from the

three sources including the questionnaire, interviews and literature were discussed according

to the overall and individual research aims of the study.

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Limitationsandproblems

Several limitations may have affected the results of this study. Firstly, the participants

in the study, although employed in English language education in varied contexts such as

primary, secondary, tertiary and private institutions, were not grouped according to any

description. As the study ensured total anonymity, at no point during the data collection were

participants asked to give any details, for example, of age, gender or qualifications. As the

study looked to reveal teacher’s beliefs and perceptions it may have been useful to group

teachers according to certain parameters for comparison, for example, years of teaching

experience and level of qualification. Secondly, the size of the sample was relatively small so

it would be difficult to make generalizations from the results of the data, and so any

conclusions are only representative of the participants in this particular study.

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Chapter3:AnalysisandDiscussion

DescriptionandAnalysisofQuestionnairedata

Table 3 shows a summary of the general level of agreement of 28 out of the total 30

questions. These were obtained by assigning numerical codes to the Likert items, ranging

from 4 = Strongly Agree to 0 = Strongly Disagree.

Table3:Overallagreementlevelsof28outof30questionnaireitems

Items 5 and 6, as previously explained, were omitted from this analysis as they elicited open

answers from participants. These two items were first assessed and the results then grouped

together, and finally percentages were calculated to include in the final analysis and

10899

105117

00

11661

7996

12096

10797

10483

4739

7297

427781

72103

7881

91112

84

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Item1Item2Item3Item4Item5Item6Item7Item8Item9Item10Item11Item12Item13Item14Item15Item16Item17Item18Item19Item20Item21Item22Item23Item24Item25Item26Item27Item28Item29Item30

OverallAgreement

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discussion following this section. Overall, 19 items in the questionnaire instrument received

high levels of agreement, and each item was assessed both individually, for variance in

participants answers and as part of the overall thematic group.

Part1:HowyoufeelaboutvarietiesofEnglish

As shown in table 4, Items 3, 7 and 9 in the instrument were concerned with eliciting

the teachers’ views on how English can affect the learners. Items 3 and 7 received a

substantially higher overall level of agreement than item 9. According to the teachers in this

study, proficiency in American (AmE) or British (BrE) varieties of English are firstly, the

most likely to provide educational and professional opportunities for the learners, and

secondly, they are also the two varieties the students are mostly exposed to. It also seems

logical to infer that agreement with these items would result in a lower score in item 9, which

shows a lower level of agreement about students showing interest in different varieties of

English. However, it is important to note that 13 teachers agreed, and 3 teachers strongly

agreed that their students do show interest in different varieties of English, although it is

difficult to ascertain whether these interests are limited to the American or British varieties or

if they also include other varieties.

Table4:Summaryofitems3,7and9Item Overall level of

agreement 3. The American or British varieties of English are more likely to open educational and professional opportunities for my students

105

7. Students in this area of Vietnam are exposed to American and British Englishes more than any other kind of English

116

9. My students are interested in knowing about different varieties of English

79

Items 1, 4, 8 and 10, as presented in table 5, represent what teachers do in their actual

day-to-day teaching practice. Item 1 shows teachers are mostly in agreement that AmE or

BrE are the most suitable examples for students to follow, and item 4 also shows higher

levels of agreement concerning teacher’s confidence when teaching AmE or BrE in their

classrooms compared to any other variety. Item 10 shows teachers generally agree, that the

English they teach reflect the kinds of English their students are likely to encounter in their

daily lives. Finally, item 8 shows that teachers do not generally incorporate any other

varieties of English in their teaching other than AmE or BrE varieties. However, the precise

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numbers in the instrument actually show for item 8, the highest number of teachers remaining

neutral (55.8%) rather than disagreeing or strongly disagreeing.

The remaining items elicited direct knowledge of world Englishes and varieties of English.

Item 2 shows a certain level of agreement pertaining to knowledge of varieties of English

other than AmE or BrE. However, the item also showed variance towards neutrality, as 15 of

the participants remained neutral to the item. This item seems to sit in congruence with item

8, which reveals agreement with the fact that most participants do not incorporate varieties

other than AmE or BrE into their teaching.

Table5:SummaryoftheresultsfromItems1,4,8and10Item Overall level of

Agreement 1. It is important in my teaching, that I use either American or British English as an example for my students to follow

108

4. I feel more confident when teaching American or British varieties of English than any other variety

117

8. I try to use different varieties of English in my teaching other than the British or American ones

61

10. The kinds of English I teach, reflect the kinds of English my students are likely to encounter in their daily lives

96

As previously mentioned, Items 5 and 6 elicited open answers from participants on

firstly, the variety of English the teachers had studied themselves, and secondly, examples of

varieties of English of which they are aware. As table 6 shows, a high number of participants

(50%) were unsure of the variety they had studied themselves, while the remaining number

revealed they had studied AmE (26.47%), BrE (14.71%) or both (8.82%).

Table6:Theresultsfromitem5.VarietiesofEnglishparticipantshadstudiedAnswer Option Response Total Percentage (%) Not Sure 17 50% American English 9 26.47% British English 5 14.71% American and British English 3 8.82% Total 34 100.00%

The level of neutrality here is interesting, as a high number of participants were unsure of the

variety they had studied, which seems to agree with the fact that a high percentage also

showed neutrality towards incorporating different varieties into their teaching. It could be

inferred that the reason for this high level of neutrality is a lack of understanding in terms of

world Englishes. However, the results from item 5 are not clearly in congruence with item 6,

which shows that teachers are aware of a number of different varieties of English as shown in

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table 7. The figures show that a high percentage of participants reveal knowledge of mainly

the inner circle varieties of English, including British, American and Australian Englishes.

This information could be an important factor in explaining the dominance of the inner circle

varieties in English language education among the participants.

Table7:Theresultsofitem6.AwarenessofdifferentkindsofEnglishAnswer Options Response Count Response Percentage American English 19 24.68 British English 17 22.08 Australian English 11 14.29 Singaporean English 7 9.09 Indian English 5 6.49 Canadian English 3 3.90 American Indian English 2 2.60 Chinese English 2 2.60 New Zealand English 2 2.60 Philippine English 2 2.60 African English 1 1.30 African - American English 1 1.30 Asian English 1 1.30 French English 1 1.30 Irish English 1 1.30 Thai English 1 1.30 Vietnamese English 1 1.30 Total 77 100.00

Part 2:What you think about English in Vietnamand themodels you use for language

instruction

Items 11 and 15, as presented in table 8, show the level of importance, that the

teachers assign to the English language in general in Vietnam. Item 11 shows a high level of

agreement that English is the most important language in Vietnam next to the Vietnamese

language. Item 15 also shows that teachers seem to believe that the importance of

English in Vietnamese society will grow in the future, and result in the language being more

common in official capacities such as government and education. This seems to be in

agreement with, for example, the government’s 2020 language educations plans. A further

striking aspect is that item 11, while receiving the highest overall agreement out of all 28

items, in fact did not receive any disagreement or strong disagreement from any of the

respondents, while item 15 received minimal disagreement (5.88%) and neutrality (2.94%).

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Table8:Summaryofitems11and15Item Overall

Agreement 11. Next to Vietnamese, English is the most important language in Vietnam

120

15. The future of Vietnam will see English being used at every level of society, including education and government

104

The following section of the questionnaire contained a high number of items. The

overall theme to the section is concerned with students’ use of English and how English may

benefit their lives. The results from this section are summarized in table 9. Responses to item

12 show a number of teachers in the study seem to believe that learners would benefit from

starting to learn English as early as 3rd grade, or approximately 8 years of age.

Table9:Summaryofresultsfromitems12,13,14,16and20

Item Overall Agreement

12. It is a good idea for Vietnamese students to begin learning English from 3rd grade

96

13. You must have a good level of proficiency in English in order to obtain a well-paid job in Vietnam

107

14. Anyone from Vietnam who wants to study overseas must have a good command of English, even if they don’t want to study in an English speaking country (For example, a Vietnamese student who goes to study in Japan or Korea)

97

16. It is important for my students to achieve proficiency equal to native speakers of English

83

20. It is more important for students to successfully negotiate meaningful communication than pronunciation. For example, A Vietnamese person speaking with a Japanese person in English should focus on being understood, rather than how they sound

97

Although the starting age for learning a foreign language is a subject that generates much

debate among second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and scholars, ‘the earlier the

better’ concept has as of yet, mostly been refuted by evidence gathered in investigations

carried out with younger learners (Gass & Selinker, 2008, p. 124). However, despite the

evidence that this may be the case, Vietnam seems to be in union on the issue of introducing

English into the primary school system, as Nguyen reveals ‘In 1996, English was introduced

as an elective subject starting from Grade with two 40 min periods per week in provinces that

had adequate resources to do so. The policy received widespread support throughout the

country from primary schools and parents. Consequently, in 2010–2011, a pilot English (as a

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compulsory subject) primary program was implemented with four 40 min periods per week

starting from Grade 3’ (2011, p. 226).

Item 13 illustrates that teachers generally agree that a good knowledge of English is

an important part of obtaining a well-paid job in Vietnam. The results of this item seem to be

in agreement with previous studies in Vietnam. For example, Do’s study on Vietnamese

learners revealed that 91% of participants expressed that ‘a knowledge of English can provide

them with more opportunities for better jobs’ (2000, p. 41), and more recently, Ton and

Pham’s study revealed 43% of learners choosing English ‘to find a good or better job’ (2010,

p. 51). Item 14 shows further agreement that it would be beneficial for learners to have a

certain level of English proficiency in order to join educational programs abroad. These

results seem to echo the presence of English as a Lingua Franca, as it seems feasible that

although the learners have aspirations of studying in other Asian countries, the teachers tend

to believe that English would be the medium of instruction despite not being the native

language of whichever Asian country the learner decides to apply. Item 16, although showing

the lowest level of agreement in the group, still reveals that a large percentage of the

participants (47%) feel that the ultimate goal in language learning should be a level of

proficiency equal to a native speaker. These results again show congruence with the beliefs of

learners revealed in past studies in Vietnam, for example, results from Ton and Pham’s study

show that ‘students preferred to be more native-like and considered this their goal of learning

English’ (2010, p. 54). Item 20 reveals that the teachers in this study tend to believe that the

successful negotiation of meaningful communication is valued more highly than perfect

pronunciation. This result is in somewhat of a paradox when compared to items 17 and 18,

which show a clear tendency among the participants to value pronunciation over grammar

and vocabulary. However, there may be some confusion in terms of word choice in the item,

where pronunciation, intonation and word or sentence stress, are mistaken for accent and

local variations of sound in the learners language production.

Items 17, 18 and 19 focused on specific skills and standardized testing. The figures

show that the majority of participants clearly feel that pronunciation is more important than

both vocabulary acquisition and grammatical control as summarized in table 10. These results

show support for the findings in Ton and Pham’s study, which revealed 92.8% of the

participants wishing that they could achieve native-like pronunciation in the future (2010, p.

53). Item 19 shows higher levels of variance in comparison to the other items in the group.

Although a number of participants reveal agreement, others tend to lean towards neutrality

(17.65%) when considering whether standardized tests should take into account interference

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of Vietnamese into the learners English, while a small percentage (11.76%) disagree that this

should be the case. This once again finds similar patterns when compared to other world

Englishes studies in Vietnam as Tran and Moore found ‘[that] Importantly, international

tests, namely IELTS, TOEFL, and TOEIC, were regarded by the participants as an important

goal for Vietnamese students – all these tests currently privilege native varieties of English’

(2015, p. 113).

Table10:Summaryofitems17,18and19Item Overall

Agreement 17. I think knowing more vocabulary is more important than pronunciation 47 18. I think using correct grammar is more important than pronunciation 39 19. The testing of English in standardized tests such as IELTS and TOEFL should take into account interference of the Vietnamese language into English

72

Part3:TeachingmaterialsandPedagogy

Item 21 and 22 enquired as to the teacher’s perceptions of student preferences. The

results from item 21, which although show that the higher number of participants tend to

disagree that there should be more prominence on increasing learners familiarity with Asian

Englishes, still received a certain level of agreement (21.21%) from a number of the teachers.

This supports the results found in Duong’s study on Global vs. Glocal English where ‘most

of the participants…showed quite strongly that they were not ready to accept a localized

variety of English, or thought seriously about the role and the influence of such a variety.

They still had a strong bias in favor of “standard English” and its prestige for communication

and education and economic development’ (2012, p. 123). Item 22, shows a higher level of

variance among the participants in terms of whether learners should be free to choose the

variety of English they want to learn. A summary of the results can be seen in table 11. This

result shows some similarity to Ton and Pham’s study, although the researchers posited the

questions to students rather than the teachers, and found that ‘Many students said that they

were not confident enough to voice their own ideas about the matter. They thus wanted to

rely on teachers to make decisions about the most useful variety of English’ (2010, p. 56).

This as will be seen in the following section, shows some agreement with the results of item

30.

Items 27, 29 and 30 enquire as to the extent that teachers incorporate world Englishes into

their teaching as summarized in table 12. The results from item 27 show that teachers lean

towards agreement in that they use different examples from various kinds of English in their

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day-to-day teaching. However, this item is somewhat in paradox to item 8, which shows less

agreement to a similar question, although it should be considered that item 8 included

specifically, American and British Englishes, whereas item 27 only inquired as to whether

teachers used examples from different varieties without any specificity as to which examples

they may use.

Table11:Showstheresponseresultsfromitem21and22inthequestionnaireItem Overall

Agreement 21. For Vietnamese students it is more important to be familiar with Asian Englishes than with British or American English

42

22. Learners should be free to choose which varieties of English they want to learn

77

We may infer from this information that the results from item 27 could pertain to the use of

inner circle variety examples, rather than any other kinds of English. As the results show,

item 29 received the highest overall agreement level of the group. Precisely half of the

participants agreed and the other half strongly agreed that they encourage their learners to

communicate with people from different places and cultures. However, it is important to note

a certain level of accommodation in the sense that teachers may simply be answering in terms

of what they think others want to hear, or as Dornyei explains ‘respondents can have a fairly

good guess about what the desirable/acceptable/expected answer is, and some of them will

provide this response even if it is not true’ (2010, p. 8).

Table12:Summaryofitems27,29and30Item Overall

Agreement 27. I include examples from different Englishes in my teaching materials 81 29. I encourage my learners to communicate in English with speakers from different places and cultures

112

30. Teachers should be free to choose which kinds of Englishes are most appropriate for their learners

84

Item 30, although receiving a relatively high level of agreement, also shows a higher level of

variance among the participant’s responses, as presented in table 13. The results from this

item, as previously mentioned, show similarity to the results from item 22. A number of the

teachers tend to show certain levels of disagreement (18.8% and 3.1% respectively) that they

should choose the most appropriate kinds of English to teach their students, and similarly, as

per item 22, also show disagreement to whether or not the students should themselves choose

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the varieties they may wish to focus on. It could be inferred that a lack of knowledge towards

world Englishes and even perhaps a lack of confidence in asserting, which model of English

is most appropriate based on the needs of the learners may be the reason behind disagreement

for these items.

Table13:Showsthevarianceamongparticipantsinitem3030. Teachers should be free to choose which kinds of English are most appropriate for their learners

Answer Options Response Percentage

Response Count

Agree 37.5% 12 Strongly agree 25.0% 8 Disagree 18.8% 6 Neutral 15.6% 5 Strongly disagree 3.1% 1

However, it should also be considered that the dominance of inner-circle varieties as also

revealed previously, might be behind the response choices of the participants. For example,

as the participants have already shown tendency towards focusing on American or British

Englishes (or inner circle Englishes), then the choice of who should choose what variety has

in fact already been made.

The following items, as shown in table 14, pertain to the teaching materials the

participants use in their classroom contexts. The figures show items 25 and 28 receiving the

highest levels of agreement from the participants. Item 25, shows that most of the participants

feel that American and British Englishes have the most influence on learning materials in

Vietnam.

Table14:Summaryofthefinal5itemsintheinstrumentItem Overall

Agreement 23. Learners’ awareness of different varieties of English should be an important priority for language course developers and teachers

81

24. The materials I use for teaching reflect local values and culture 72 25. American or British Englishes have the most influence on learning materials in Vietnam

103

26. My textbooks contain examples of English only from British or American Englishes

78

28. The audio components of my teaching materials contain models by speakers of English from all over the world, and not just by British or American speakers

91

This result is consistent with both the results of the previous world Englishes studies

conducted in Vietnam (Ton and Pham, p.58, Tran and Moore, p.114), and a number of other

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publications with regards to teaching materials currently used around the country (Nguyen M.

T., 2011, p.27, Phan, 2008, p.138, Duong, 2012, p.124). Item 28 reveals that teachers include

audio components, which contain examples from speakers other than American or British

speakers. This result sits in somewhat of a paradox compared to the other items in the

instrument, which tend to show that inner-circle models of English usually dominate the

materials in the classroom. However, it remains unclear as to whether these components are

part of the published materials, which accompany the textbooks, or whether the teachers have

obtained the components themselves, from their own sources. Item 23 also shows a relatively

high level of agreement overall. It seems that the majority of the participants agree that

varieties of English should be considered a priority for course developers and teachers,

although it may be that teacher’s consider inner-circle varieties rather than any other. Item 24

and 26 received a much higher level of neutrality than the other items. Participants seemed

unsure as to whether the materials they used reflect local cultures and values. As will be seen

in the following analysis of the interview data, the participants in the interviews all expressed

that most, if not all, the materials used in tertiary language education in Vietnam, is produced

outside of the country, and has little relevance to the Vietnamese way of life. Furthermore,

there was a higher level of agreement for item 26 (22.58% strongly agreed and 29.03%

agreed), which expressed that American or British Englishes dominated the textbooks. This

result reinforces item 24, in as much that textbooks developed outside Vietnam are rarely

sensitive to the Vietnamese reality. This also seems to be in agreement with other studies

conducted on language course development and materials in Vietnam, for example, Duong

(2007), in a study on needs analysis of Vietnamese learners claims that ‘there were big gaps

between the materials that were provided and the real needs of the class teachers and

students’ (p.340).

DescriptionandanalysisofInterviewData

As previously explained, the results from the questionnaire instrument were examined

and a salient list of questions were complied from the data drawn from the participants

responses. The interviews were semi-structured and informal. This allowed for a more free

flowing conversation style as opposed to a question and answer session, which was intended

to help the participants feel more relaxed and speak more freely. As a result, the questions

were asked in slightly different wording as originally intended. The analysis of the data from

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the interview is assessed in comparison to the questionnaire data and the overall aims and

objectives of this study. The candidates are identified by pseudonyms.

KnowledgeofWorldEnglishes

All but one of the participants had a clear idea of what the term world Englishes

represents. For example, one of the candidates (Bao) commented that ‘world Englishes is a

combination of Standard English…from the nations where English is spoken as a first

language like the USA or New Zealand or Australia, and the others is countries that use

English like a second language, second official language like Singapore or Malaysia’.

Another (Cuong) explained ‘we have British English, American English, then kind of

Singlish, many types of Englishes’, and interestingly the third (Ha) commented on

similarities rather than differences ‘English is varied around the world…but still they share

something common among different kinds of English but we have to accept the differences

and so students can get used to different kinds of Englishes’. Finally the candidate (Hang)

who had some difficulty understanding the question about world Englishes, did seem to have

implicit knowledge of the concept, and commented about ‘the point I know different kinds of

English was in university. So I start to know about American English…so I met a lot of

people from all over the world, so they are French but they speak English so I can see some

different English, that’s so different from what I learned’. In conclusion, it seems while the

teachers may have the awareness towards the different varieties of English, in and around the

ASEAN bloc and other parts of the world, there may be less understanding for example, of

knowledge of the world Englishes academic paradigm, as the participants mainly expressed a

more practical motivation for introducing different Englishes to learners, as will be seen in

the following analysis.

PerceptionsondifferentmodelsofEnglishforlanguageinstruction

Overall the teachers seemed to have a positive outlook on different models of English

for language instruction. However, there was a general consensus that varieties outside of the

inner-circle should be something that students have awareness of, but only as peripheral to

the standard inner-circle models. Furthermore, there was similarity in that the interviewees

tended to feel, that these peripheral Englishes should be introduced only once the learners had

reached a certain level of knowledge or proficiency in the inner-circle varieties of English.

For example, once students reach a B1 level according to the common European framework

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reference (CEFR), they could be introduced to other varieties of English. Interestingly, one

participant (Cuong) used the concentric three-circle analogy to explain the idea ‘We should

have 2 or 3 circles, the first circle maybe primary students, just American English and British

English and for secondary students, maybe widen kind of Indian English or Singlish and, for

a higher level like a university student’, to which another participant (Ha) agreed ‘I also think

they should know more differences when they get a higher level, it depend on their goals and

their context with the speaking environment’. Further, Bao commented on the concept of

equality in terms of non-native speaking teachers in that ‘if we can see that, that one comes

from Philippines or China, but if that is a teacher and teaching English, they will put the

equal respect, the same respect that give for teachers who come from Britain’. Moreover,

Hang considered that raising learners awareness was of importance and commented that

‘First we can change from the opinion; about we look at about English. English is

international language so we can just to understand, to get to understand each other, to

communicate successfully’.

Perceptionsonusefulnessofmodelsotherthannativespeakermodels

The teachers revealed there were certain benefits from raising awareness of different

varieties of English. For example, to prepare students for working in multi cultural

environments, where people from varied backgrounds may be working together and using

English as a Lingua Franca. Bao commented that ‘we as a teacher, also become like a kind of

consultant for them, to give them advice that we should use this English more than that

English… like that company come from Britain, so… we will prefer them to like, dig deeper

into British English than American English’. The other interviewees made similar comments,

for example, Cuong stated that ‘what we’re going to do is to prepare our students for their

future jobs, maybe after graduation from the university they can work for an Indian company

or a Chinese company or a Singaporean company, so they’re gonna work with different types

of English, so we gonna do something that…maybe very helpful for our students, not just

focus on American English or British English’. Ha expanded on the growing influx of

foreign influence around the country and claimed that ‘Nowadays Vietnamese people

welcome a lot of countries to work together in Vietnam. So this is useful for students to know

very different kind of English’. Finally, Hang gave a personal account of a previous learners

difficulty in engaging with an outer-circle English speaker ‘my student, he graduated and go

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to work and his boss was from India. So, he told me the first time they spoke he couldn’t

understand him because his English was so different, and so difficult to understand’.

UseofWorldEnglishesinteachingmaterials

The participants all gave the same account in terms of world Englishes being present

in the materials they were supplied with by their teaching institutions. The textbooks and

materials they were issued were all based on either American or British English and

developed by mainstream ELT publishers such as Cambridge, Oxford and Macmillan. Cuong

explained a reason for this being ‘that for British English and American English, the

materials, textbooks everything, is available, we have official sources of information about

these two types of world Englishes, but for other kinds, things like Singlish, and Indian

English or Australian English, we don’t have a lot of other materials which is official’.

Further, Ha commented on the fact that international standardized tests are mainly based on

these two types of Englishes, and explained that ‘for the future I still think American and

British English will be dominant in teaching because some international exams still have

American and British system, like IELTS and TOEFL’.

Standardized tests play an important role in Vietnam, and many students strive to

achieve scores that will contribute to their professional or educational aspirations. However,

Taylor (2006) points out the changing landscape of standardized testing in terms of criteria

examiners adhere to when taking learners English into account. She explains the change from

deficit competence models based on how ‘far away’ learners are from a native speaker model

and explains that ‘this may have been true in the past, it is far less the case today. Many tests

no longer make reference to NS competence in their assessment criteria or rating scales’ (p.

52). This raises an important question as to how familiar teachers in this context are with the

standardized testing systems and any changes they have undergone during recent years.

A further interesting point in terms of standard textbooks was the difference between

educational contexts. Several of the participants explained that in primary and secondary

educational contexts the government provides standard textbooks, which are locally produced

by Vietnamese materials and curriculum designers, with some outside consultancy from

authors not based in Vietnam. However, in tertiary education this is not the case, and

universities generally rely on materials produced by the mainstream publishers. Hang

commented that the issue was also about how people approach the teaching and learning of

English and stated ‘So change the way we study, change the textbooks, change the way we

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approach English, for the recording files in materials we should focus on the, you can record

Indian, Bangladesh speaker or Korean, Chinese or Japanese speakers and so on’.

SynthesisofDatasets,PreviousStudiesandLiterature

Part1:HowyoufeelaboutvarietiesofEnglish

Theme1:HowEnglishaffectsstudents

Overall the three items from this part of the instrument show general levels of

agreement from both data sets. For example, all of the teachers in the interviews were

unanimous in the idea that knowledge of English would lead to higher opportunities for

employment and also in achieving ambitions of studying overseas. Further, it was also clear

from the interviewees that British and American English standards dominated the materials

made available for classroom purposes, so the learners were mostly exposed to these

varieties. However, there is a slight discrepancy in terms of learners showing interest in

different varieties of English. For example, one interview participant (Hang) expressed that

her learners do enquire and ask about different kinds of English, which seems to be

somewhat in paradox when compared to the questionnaire results. Another interview

participant also commented on the emergence of Vietnamese English and how English

learners around Vietnam appropriate the language in their own way, and gives examples of

how Vietnamese speakers combine aspects of the Vietnamese language into English.

Theme2:Teachers’teachingpractice

The results from these items show a number of differences between the two data sets.

For example, Ha’s comment that native-speaker competence is not ‘a clear target for

Vietnamese speakers’ could be inferred as a need to move away from BrE or AmE standards,

whereas the results from the questionnaire show that almost half (47.6%) of the participants

believe that proficiency equal to a native speaker is a viable goal for their learners. However,

there seems to be some agreement in terms of confidence levels of teachers when using

varieties more familiar to them, and Bao commented that teachers’ generally teach the variety

they were themselves taught. Finally, there is a clear paradox between data sets in terms of

incorporating different varieties into the teaching practice. All the interview participants

expressed that they introduced different varieties on English to their learners, and complied

their own sources and materials, as these were generally not available in the materials

provided by their institutions. However, the questionnaire data shows an extremely high level

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of neutrality, disagreement and strong disagreement (55.8%, 23.5% and 11.7% respectively)

in terms of teachers including outer or expanding-circle varieties of English in their teaching

practice. As previous studies in Vietnam have shown, there may be numerous constraints on

teachers to find time and resources to be able to include such materials without support from

the institutions.

Theme3:AwarenessofworldEnglishes

The final part shows some general agreement between the data sets. Most of the

teachers were clear about world Englishes and the different varieties of Englishes that have

emerged not only in Asia but also globally, and gave examples of Englishes they have

encountered. One interview participant gives an account of a lack of confidence in outer or

expanding circle English varieties in terms of instructional use due to the fact that they

remain to be codified and given academic status from which materials can be published.

However, all the participants explained how they source their own materials and bring these

other kinds of English into their classrooms for the benefit of the students. Clearly this shows

that these teachers are aware that inner-circle Englishes are no longer the only relevant

models for their learners, and exposure to other kinds of English are an important factor in

their language learning. The questionnaire items eliciting open-ended questions from the

participants revealed a number of different varieties from around the world, including the

Asian regions. However, the data also shows that a large percentage were unsure of the

variety they had studied themselves, and a large number also remained neutral to whether

they include outer or expanding circle Englishes in their teaching. Moreover, a large number

of participants also felt that the question of varieties to include in educational programs

should be a more important priority for course developers, and the interview participants also

corroborated this and advocated the involvement of Vietnamese teachers in syllabus and

curriculum design.

Part 2:What you think about English in Vietnamand themodels you use for language

instruction

Theme1:EnglishinVietnam

The data from both the interviews and the questionnaire show agreement in that

teachers feel English is the most important language next to Vietnamese and that this

importance will grow in the future as English becomes more engrained into the society. In

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fact, Bao commented that English is reaching the point where it may become a second

language in Vietnam as opposed to a foreign language. Ha commented on the fact that

although the number of Chinese speakers worldwide is growing, English will remain the

‘most popular language in the world’. Cuong however, stated that for English to develop to a

level where it is used, for example, in official government matters, or national news

transmissions, will take another ’10 or 20 years’. Hang also gave an account of a contest her

students were involved with and reported that they expressed that English ‘should be a

second and not foreign language in Vietnam’. Much like the data in the questionnaire, this

item did not receive any disagreement from the interviewees. Clearly the participants feel that

English is the most important language to be learned next to their first language and this

could be an emerging situation, similar to other Asian countries that promote English as a

first language alongside other indigenous languages, such as Singapore.

Theme2:StudentsuseofEnglishinVietnam

There is a striking level of agreement with the fact that knowledge of English can be

pivotal in obtaining well-paid employment among most of the participants in this study. Data

from the questionnaire shows an almost total agreement level with 58.8% agreeing and

29.4% strongly agreeing that this is the case in Vietnam. The interview participant’s

comments reinforced this belief and all gave examples and accounts of how English can be

instrumental in helping a student find not only employment, but also well-remunerated

employment after graduation. Hang had a slightly more critical account of the idea and stated

that the learners would need other professional skills and that simply knowing how to

communicate in English would not be enough to obtain a higher salary. And further, Bao also

added to his comments that it was not only English that was important in obtaining a higher

salary, but foreign languages in general, and these would include Korean, Chinese and

Japanese, and that due to the lack of competent Korean speakers in Vietnam, knowing a

language like Korean or Japanese could in fact increase the chance for obtaining a higher

salary than English, for example, as proficient English speakers are more common, and as

such, in less demand than proficient Korean Speakers.

Theme3:LanguageskillsandTesting

In terms of particular skills the interviewees seemed to be unanimous in that

pronunciation was of great importance to the students language learning. Although other

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skills were mentioned, such as vocabulary, accuracy and fluency, there was a clear focus that

pronunciation was first and foremost in terms of salience. The data from the questionnaire

also shows that participants overall value pronunciation highly, over both grammar and

vocabulary. The teacher’s comments are important to note for this aspect, as each of them

expressed that while it is vital to achieve pronunciation in order to make oneself understood,

this does not mean that one should aspire to achieving a certain accent or sound when

producing language. For example, Bao stated that ‘it doesn’t matter if they sound like

American English or British English or other… It does matter that you have to speak correct

English that make the others using English understand what you say’. Ha gave a similar

account and commented that ‘They do not need to imitate American accent or British accent,

I think they should change their attitudes toward accents, they should try to pronounce the

word in a correct way, this is the most important part’. The comment on attitudes seems to

indicate that what is required in this sense is that teachers should consider raising students

awareness rather than confirm to irrelevant norms or standard models of English.

Part3:TeachingMaterialsandPedagogy

Theme1:StudentPreferences

The idea that either the students or teachers should choose a variety of English for

classroom instruction was not explicitly discussed in the interviews. However, the subject

arose in the conversation and the teachers expressed that in order to reach a decision on a

variety of English that would most benefit the learners, a thorough needs analysis should be

conducted and any decisions should be based on the results so as to ensure the students

receive attention to the kind of English that best suits their needs. Further, Bao commented

that allowing the learners to choose the kinds of English most relevant to them would also

increase the learner’s motivation for study. Moreover, Cuong asserted that the English

learners are provided with should be suitable to their contexts and stated that ‘at the moment

we have one suits all, one size fits all approach and it is not suitable, its not relevant to all

provinces all areas in the country, and we just focus on this area, and for example you know,

that ‘Vung Tau’ or ‘Nha Trang’ they just work with the tourism, a lot of nature a lot of things

to focus on, and English for tourism should be there’.

There is also a paradox between the questionnaire data and the interviewees with

regards to Asian Englishes. For example, the questionnaire data shows over half of the

participants (57.5%) disagreeing that learners should be more aware of Asian Englishes.

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However, the participants seemed to have a very different idea, and argued that it was

important to raise student’s awareness of the different varieties of English in Vietnam so as to

prepare them for the multi-cultural environment that is quickly developing here. Cuong gave

particular examples ‘maybe after graduation from the university they can work for an Indian

company or a Chinese company or a Singaporean company, so they’re gonna work with

different types of English’. Although the motivation here seems heavily instrumental, there is

still a clear need on the part of interviewees to focus on multi-Englishes as opposed to inner-

circle varieties.

Theme2:InclusionofworldEnglishesinteaching

All the interviewees explained that they bring different varieties of English into their

classrooms. However, the questionnaire data shows a different account as 55.8% of the

participants remained neutral to the item enquiring whether they use varieties of English

other than AmE or BrE in their teaching. Ha commented that she sources her own audio

recordings of different speakers of English to expose to her learners, and similarly Cuong and

Bao also explained how they introduce different varieties to their learners in terms of lexis

and phonology. Hang claimed that she did not use materials that included different varieties,

and instead used her own experiences to help her learners understand differences in varieties

of English. The questionnaire data also shows that teachers actively encourage learners to

communicate with people from different places and cultures, and Hang gave an example of

how she conducts field trips to popular tourist locations in Ho Chi Minh City, where her

students approach and begin conversations with people from around the world. Further, it

seems the participants in the interview have a clearer idea that teachers are well placed to

conduct needs analysis for their learners in order to ascertain what kind of English is most

beneficial for them. This is in somewhat disagreement to the questionnaire data where

teachers show a reluctance to accept this responsibility. Ha states quite clearly that ‘I think

that English should be localized, and also they need to do some needs analysis, when they

open a course, or they introduce a training program in English’.

Theme3:Teachingmaterials

The data from the questionnaire is more varied in terms of what the teachers from the

study think overall, with participants showing agreement with the idea that, for example,

audio materials contain examples from different speakers of English from around the world.

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However, there is no specificity to whether these examples are of native or non-native

speakers of English, and it may prove useful in future research to include higher specificity in

the questions in order to elicit information from the teachers. One thing that is made clear in

the data from the questionnaire is that British and American Englishes clearly dominate the

materials used for classroom contexts. Cuong explains that the reason for this is the fact that

materials based on British and American Englishes are well established and can be more

easily accessed than resources containing examples of other varieties of English. With

regards to course and material development, the interviewees opinions are in agreement with

the questionnaire data, for example, Cuong comments that ‘We should put more first

language, I mean L1 language culture, in the material, it’s very difficult for learners, because

they’re gonna learn something differently, different from their culture. We should integrate

Vietnamese culture in the content; I mean the curriculum of their learning programs’. He

goes on to criticize the materials produced outside of Vietnam and says that ‘the personnel in

charge of the curriculum development, they’re not very good, the second thing, maybe they

don’t really understand what is going on in Vietnam, and the textbook is not very helpful for

students’. Furthermore, both sets of data show that future course, materials and curriculum

development should both take world Englishes into consideration, and include Vietnamese

teachers in the planning process so as to ensure that the needs of the learners are fully

recognized and made a salient caveat of future materials and course development.

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Chapter4:Conclusions

Introduction

The overall objective in this dissertation was to ascertain the perceptions of

Vietnamese teachers on models of English for language instruction. The specific objectives

were to firstly, reveal knowledge of world Englishes among the participants. Secondly, to

reveal the participants perceptions on the various models of English available for language

instruction. Thirdly, whether models other than inner-circle models could offer more

contextually relevant learning experiences for students. And lastly, whether there was any

presence of world Englishes in the teaching materials used by the participants.

This conclusion will revisit the objectives of this dissertation and summarize the

findings from the two data sets. As the pervious chapter was large, it requires summarizing,

hence the summary according to each individual objective of the dissertation. Further, the

limitations observed during the study and self-reflection on methodology and analysis will

also be discussed. Finally, there will be a section on the value of the data obtained from the

study and how this could offer direction in terms of future considerations and further research

on world Englishes in Vietnam. The structure of this conclusion intends to provide evidence

of whether the overall and specific research objectives in this study have been met and if

future considerations for research can be based on the results found from the data.

ResearchObjectives:SummaryofFindingsandConclusions

The data from this study shows that teachers in this area of Vietnam are aware that

English has adapted beyond the native-speaker defined models. Items in the questionnaire

provide evidence that teachers are familiar with numerous varieties of English other than

standard American or British English. Data from the interviews is consistent with the

questionnaire, which included the participants expanding on the knowledge of how different

kinds of English have emerged globally, especially within the Association of South East

Asian Nations. The study has also provided insights on the participants perceptions on the

models used to teach English in Vietnam, and as the results have shown, the native-speaker

models remain a standard yardstick to measure student’s successful assimilation of the

English language. However, the results have also shown that some participants feel the need

to raise learner’s awareness of models of English other than the inner-circle ones to give them

a better chance of communicating successfully in multi-cultural environments. Finally, there

is also evidence that standard American and British Englishes dominate the materials used in

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the classroom, and that these are the most accessible and available for use by the teachers.

The following sections will summarize more specific points according to each objective with

reference to the questionnaire and interview data, as well as the literature on world Englishes.

ResearchObjective1:KnowledgeofworldEnglishesamong teachers inBienHoaCity,VietnamSummary

The results from the data sets show that teachers are aware, that there are different

kinds of English around the world. The questionnaire data gives evidence from the items,

which elicited knowledge of different kinds of English and numerous examples were

provided, such as Chinese, Singapore, and Philippine Englishes. This was also evident during

the interviews, and the participants all gave similar examples of different Englishes they have

encountered over the years. However, there was also a paradox in that a number of teachers

were unsure of the kinds of English they had themselves studied, and it is unclear as to

whether they had gained knowledge of world Englishes during their post graduate years.

However, as the data tends to lean towards an instrumental motivation for the use of English

in Vietnam, aspects of world Englishes such as linguistic imperialism or language diversity

seem to be scarce among the participants considerations. Moreover, the idea that Vietnamese

English is beginning to emerge and those Vietnamese users of English are appropriating the

language to suit their needs, also seems to be present among the participants. However, for

professional and educational purposes, the standard native speaking English models remain

the first choice for models used by teachers in varied teaching contexts.

Conclusion

To conclude, it seems that while the participants in the study are aware of the

different kinds of English around the world that are present, this knowledge has an air of

practicality rather than theory in its essence. Rather than be concerned with the politics of

where and how English is in the world, it seems the focus tends to be more on how English

can be appropriated in its most common form, in order to maximize its potential benefits

towards improving an individual’s life. The comments on associating English proficiency in

order to ‘get a better job’ or achieve academic success tend to corroborate this view among

the participants.

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Research Objective 2: Vietnamese teachers perceptions on different models ofEnglishforlanguageinstructionSummary

The study shows that the participants mainly advocate the inner-circle varieties of

English, although showing awareness that knowledge of other varieties may also prove useful

for their learners. The use of both American and British English learning materials are clearly

favored by most of the teachers in the study, and other varieties are left to the periphery and

considered interesting but of less importance. Access and availability contribute to this and as

the comments from the interview participants show, American and British publishers produce

most of the materials provided by the teachers’ institutions. Further, although there was some

discrepancy on the subject of what variety of English the teachers had studied, it was made

clear that those, which had studied AmE or Bre felt most confident in teaching those varieties

to their students.

Conclusion

The dominance of inner-circle varieties seems to influence the teachers’ perceptions

on models for language instruction. While the awareness of other kinds of English is present

among the participants, it does not seem that this influence is strong enough to effect the

decision of what models should be used in the classroom context. The combination of market

forces in terms of material availability and the fact that American and British English are the

kinds of English learners are most exposed to seem to leave the teachers with little choice as

to what their students should be learning. Moreover, as the objectives and goals for English

language learning seem to be tightly linked to success in standardized tests such as IELTS

and TOEFL, it again becomes clear why the teachers tend to lean towards the safety of both

American and British language standards.

Research Objective 3: Perceptions of teachers on what models of English forlanguageinstructionareavailableotherthantheinner-circlemodels,andwhetherthese models could offer a more contextually relevant learning experience forstudentsSummary

This results for this objective show the most discrepancy between the two data sets in

the study. While the questionnaire data shows a clear tendency to favor inner-circle

Englishes, and clear disagreement that an understanding of Asian Englishes over AmE or

BrE could be beneficial for learners, the interview data gives more examples of how different

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kinds of English can be useful for preparing learners for English use outside the classroom.

However, a pattern emerges as the reasons for including other varieties of English remain

highly instrumental and on a practical level rather than, for example, for reasons of retaining

identity when learning a foreign language or issues of linguistic imperialism. The

questionnaire data also reveals that most teachers do not generally include varieties other than

standard Ame or BrE in their day to day teaching, whereas the interview participants all gave

examples of how they brought different kinds of English into their classrooms, and the

benefits knowledge of these could bring to students.

Conclusions

In conclusion, it seems that outer and expanding circle Englishes are left to the

periphery in terms of suitability as models for instruction. The interview data shows that

while varied kinds of English can be useful for learners, they do not meet requirements to

replace the existing inner-circle varieties of English as models for language instruction.

Comments that suggest learners should be made aware of Asian Englishes or varieties other

than inner circles kinds when they reach a certain level of proficiency in the standard AmE or

BrE seem to reinforce that inner-circle varieties are the most appropriate at this time for the

participants in this study. Moreover, lack of materials featuring world Englishes or the

codification of expanding and outer circle varieties of English make it difficult for teachers to

find the time to prepare examples and input for classroom appropriation.

Research Objective 4: Presence of world Englishes in the teachers’ teachingmaterialsSummary

Data from both interviews and the questionnaire reveal that inner-circle Englishes

dominate the materials used by the participants of the study. It was revealed that tertiary

educational institutions differ from high school and primary school in that materials are more

localized for younger learners, but for university level students, there is a reliance on

materials produced by mainstream ELT publishers such as Oxford and Cambridge. These

naturally feature speakers and examples from native varieties of English, although the

teachers reported that this seems to be changing and that the books and audio components

now feature more varied kinds of English from time to time. However, it seems clear from

both data sets that when compared to the amount of inner-circle Englishes featured in the

materials, this is somewhat unequal. There was evidence that teachers are now including

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outer and expanding circle Englishes in their teaching and take the time to source and

produce these materials themselves.

Conclusions

The main issue with materials seems to be availability and whether or not the

materials are from official sources. The teachers are naturally concerned that the materials

they use for their learners should equip them with the kind of English that will either

contribute to them finding suitable employment or pass standardized tests. However, the

awareness seems to be present that although these varieties of English may be important for

their learners, raising awareness of other varieties is also important to prepare them fully for

life outside of the classroom, and as such, some of the participants actively take the time to

prepare materials based on the kinds of Englishes they feel their students most need to be

familiar with. Moreover, there is a consolidation of opinions in the data from the study that

future development of language courses and materials should involve Vietnamese teachers in

the process. There seems to be a need to change to a bottom-up paradigm in terms of policy

for language education. This may be more evident in the future when the governments 2020

language learning plans are submitted for final analysis and the conclusions of success or

failure are drawn.

Limitationsandself-reflectiononmethodologyandAnalysis

There are a number of limitations to this study, which should be observed. Firstly,

there were issues of the wording in the questionnaire instrument, which may have caused

confusion for the participants and therefore, affected the overall results. Moreover, there is

the issue with the actual organization of the instrument, which may have been improved by

grouping items together into thematic groups so as to improve the reliability of the Likert

items, and form a valid Likert scale. Secondly, the number of teachers’ participating in the

study was small, and so it would be absurd to make generalizations from the data drawn from

this study to the whole country. Moreover, the participants in the study were not grouped to

any kind of categorization; which may have contributed to a clearer understanding in the

overall analysis of the data. Finally, the interviews although semi-structured, may have been

improved by more expert guidance of the conversation and kept more on point towards the

salient observations of the instrument data.

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ValueofDataandFutureConsiderations

The limitations notwithstanding, this study has revealed that the participants are

clearly aware that there are many kinds of English other than inner-circle kinds. As

awareness is a key issue in world Englishes and that the teachers have also expressed that

their learners need to negotiate themselves through multi-cultural environments, which may

or may not include AmE, BrE or native speakers of any kind, the need for inclusion of world

Englishes in language education in this context seems to be growing. This data has provided

a snapshot of teacher’s perceptions and given the teachers a chance to state their situation and

explain what they teach in their classrooms and the reasons for their choices. While world

Englishes provide an ‘interesting’ direction in terms of diversifying classroom content and

keeping learners motivations high, there seems to be an implicit attitude that maintaining the

status quo and that a focus on American or British Englishes, or any native speaking variety

already provides the learners with a stable foundation of English, which will ultimately serve

their interests both educationally and professionally. Moreover, there are considerations of

whether outer or expanding circle Englishes should be introduced at particular stages of

language learning, in order to better prepare learners for life outside educational paradigms.

This seems like a practical starting point for the introduction of world Englishes in the

classroom context, and could provide the impetus for case study research in the future to

investigate its effectiveness. Further, the fact that a number of candidates in this study

revealed that there is such a thing as Vietnamese English, and that the language has begun to

be appropriated into Vietnamese life, could also provide a research agenda into a corpus

based study of English users in Vietnam and how the language is used in reality. Further, a

corpus of Vietnamese English could be beneficial not only towards understanding English in

Vietnam more clearly, but also for use in course and materials development. It seems that this

would not only eliminate the issues of non-relatable materials for the learners, but also offer a

more contextually relevant learning experience, and provide them with the English that they

need in their particular context of learning.

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Appendices

Appendix1: TheQuestionnaire Part 1: How you feel about varieties of English

1. It is important in my teaching, that I use either American or British English as an

example for my students to follow.

2. I am aware of different varieties of English other than the American or British

standard ones.

3. The American and British varieties of English are more likely to open educational and

professional opportunities for my students

4. I feel more confident when teaching American or British varieties of English than any

other variety

5. Which variety of English did you learn? If you are not sure, please type ‘not sure’

6. In the spaces provided, please note down any varieties of English you are familiar

with

7. Students in this area of Vietnam are exposed to British and American Englishes more

than any other kind of English

8. I try to use different varieties of English in my teaching other than the British or

American ones

9. My students request instruction and advice about different varieties of English

10. The kinds of English I teach, reflect the kinds of English my students are likely to

encounter in their daily lives

Part 2: What you think about English in Vietnam and the models you use for language

instruction

11. Next to Vietnamese, English is the most important language in Vietnam

12. It is a good idea for Vietnamese students to begin learning English from 3rd grade

13. You must have a good level of proficiency in English in order to obtain a well-paid

job in Vietnam

14. Anyone from Vietnam who wants to study overseas must have a good command of

English, even if they don’t want to study in an English speaking country (For

example, a Vietnamese student who goes to study in Japan or Korea)

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15. The future of Vietnam will see English being used at every level of society, including

education and government.

16. It is important for my students to achieve proficiency equal to native speakers of

English

17. I think knowing more vocabulary is more important than pronunciation

18. I think using correct grammar is more important than pronunciation

19. The testing of English in standardized tests such as IELTS and TOEFL should take

into account interference of the Vietnamese language into English

20. It is more important for students to successfully negotiate meaningful communication

than pronunciation. For example, A Vietnamese person speaking with a Japanese

person in English should focus on being understood, rather than how they sound

Part 3: Teaching materials and Pedagogy

21. For Vietnamese students it is more important to be familiar with Asian Englishes than

with British or American English

22. Learners should be free to choose which varieties of English they want to learn

23. Learners’ awareness of different varieties of English should be an important priority

for language course developers and teachers

24. The materials I use for teaching reflect local values and culture

25. American or British Englishes have the most influence on learning materials in

Vietnam

26. My textbooks contain examples of English only from British or American Englishes

27. I include examples from different Englishes in my teaching materials

28. The audio components of my teaching materials contain models by speakers of

English from all over the world, and not just by British or American speakers.

29. I encourage my learners to communicate in English with speakers from different

places and cultures

30. Teachers should be free to choose which kinds of Englishes are most appropriate for

their learners

Appendix2:QuestionsandstatementsforInterviews

• Have you heard of the term ‘World Englishes’ before? • When you were a student, what kind or variety of English did you learn?

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• Do you introduce your students to any Englishes apart from BrE or AmE? • Do you feel there would be value for the students in introducing other kinds of

English? • Would you like to see more emphasis on WE’s in Vietnam? How could this be done? • How would you raise your students’ awareness of WE’s? • What kinds of English do your students ask you about? If any? • Who do you think your students will be using English with in the future? • Do you think it is always an advantage for students to study standard British or

American English? • Do you ever include examples of English other than British or American ones when

you teach your students? • Do you think there are benefits for the students you teach to be familiar with how

English is used in other Asian countries? Why/Why not? • Do you think it would be beneficial to include a wider variety of Englishes in the

learning materials we use in Vietnam? • Do you think English in VN will gain or lose importance in the future?

Appendix3:InterviewTranscripts Mr Bao Interviewer: Have you heard of World Englishes before? What do understand by this term? Bao: World Englishes is a combination of Standard English…from the nations where English is spoken as a first language like the USA or New Zealand or Australia, and the others is countries that use English like a second language, second official language like Singapore or Malaysia. So world Englishes is something like we don’t pay a lot of concentration on just the first, on the language, the English language, like the standard, I call the Standard English. Interviewer: What do you see as a Standard English? Do you see it as one kind of English? Bao: Yeah… For example, some people they prefer American like, err, the Standard English, the other they may prefer British English, like the Standard English. It means when we say something different, we say something different so they don’t accept that. Interviewer: So if we move away from British/American English, have you had much experience with other Englishes? Bao: Of course, like Vinglish. Nowadays become more and more serious. People like to compile what belongs to Vietnamese language and what belong to English and we combine into one. Their purpose is to get familiar with English, but not that Standard English. Their main purpose is get familiar and make the other people in Vietnam easier to understand. Interviewer: Do you think that when we use British/American English that, that is quite difficult for our students to understand? Maybe because American/British English are so connected to the cultures of those countries?

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Bao: Yes, there are some difficulties for those students who don’t know much about the American/British culture. So they may find a bit more difficult than those who had more knowledge about the cultures. I saw my students don’t understand why you may use this but not use that. After I explained about the culture it was easier for them to understand. Interviewer: When you switch from teaching the language to teaching a little bit about the culture, how do your students react? Are they interested in learning more about the culture? Bao: Yeah they found it interesting. But err, I think it’s not switching, it’s just like, interpreting the culture to teach the language, because the main purpose of my activity is that I use culture to make my lesson more understandable. Interviewer: Do you ever bring other kinds of English into your classroom? Bao: Yes, I have. I once teach them English speaking class, but I want to teach them vocabulary, specific topic first and err in terms of that I use err some… some words belong to American English and I give them the variation of that word in British English and Australian English, like for example some kind of accent, like G’day mate, or something like that, so, yes I have, I have several times. Interviewer: In terms of real life needs.. I mean we know that Vietnam is you know, it’s now a very solid part of the ASEAN region, and there’s a lot of talk in English language literature, err, teaching literature, about the fact that nowadays in English there’s a much higher number of NNS than NS, and so the argument is why are we teaching NS English to students who are not going to communicate with NS? For example, Vietnam does a lot of business with other ASEAN nations and they usually use English to communicate. So how does that impact into your teaching and trying to connect what your students are learning to what they are going to be using in real life? Bao: So as far as I know, it’s true that the number of people who are NNS is much higher than the NS. So it’s like ten times higher. So its come to me that many times I, a question I ask is should I teach them global English, global English I call, or just, we have to concentrate on English from American or British people. So I feel that that we…nowadays it’s a fact that people usually prefer the native speaker of English than the non-native speaker of English. Interviewer: Is that your experience with your students? Bao: Uh Yes I, I say.. in my students yeah. They also prefer… like they feel more interesting, they feel more useful with talking with the erm native speaker because they find more useful. That’s what I found. And err, the other languages centers, uhm, that I’m teaching at, they also prefer, they also looking for more and more people come from America, England or Australia or somewhere like that, that uhm, they found that the student want, do want to learn from them, not from the Vietnamese who speaking English, like me. Interviewer: So students do request an American or British standard of English more than they do other kinds of English? Bao: No, it’s not request, it’s…offer, I mean prefer.

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Interviewer: Ah ok so it’s a preference, on their part. Bao: Ya… like, it could be better if this, than that. Interviewer: OK, sure. So if students could choose a kind of English to study they would choose American or British or Australian? Bao: Hmm. I don’t think they have many choices. Interviewer: Oh, you don’t think they have a choice? Do you think they SHOULD have choices? Bao: Uhh Yeah I think they should have a choice for them. It would be better if they have… if they prefer somebody that they like, than the other, because, the motivation also come from the feeling of usefulness. Interviewer: Right, ok, so I mean if a student found Singaporean English more useful than British English because they were interacting more with Singaporeans than British people, they would feel that’s much more useful for them? Bao: Yeah, so related to that, one more idea is that we as a teacher, also become like a kind of consultant for them, to give them advice that we should use this English more than that English…err… and we should, it should be depended on the English that they use in real life after graduation. For example, if they want to work in that company or this company… they using… like that company come from Britain, so uhh… we will prefer them to like, dig deeper into British English than American English. Interviewer: How do you place the importance of studying English over other languages? Bao: It’s a fact that English is… err… more and more important in Vietnamese economy and the other social life, so err… especially in the government’s direction, they put more focus on developing English proficiency level from a very young age. So they put a lot of money they put a lot of effort put a lot of human resources into developing English, So I see that I realize that English is seems to be the second language of Vietnam than the other languages so its very important for the student to recognize that importance of English than the other language even though Vietnam we have many many other languages to learn like uh nowadays many people study Japanese Korean Chinese, are also important but not that important like English, its irreplaceable. Interviewer: Do you think that the need for other foreign languages, as well as English, in Vietnam will grow? Bao: The demand of those other languages is growing its true. English as well. But I think for about 30 years to come, English is still the most learnt language in Vietnam Interviewer: OK, so moving into the specifics of learning English, in terms of skills, what are your thoughts on the importance of skills, do you think one skill is more important than any other?

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Bao: I myself, believe that communication purpose is that make the other understand what we mean. So, and , the most popular way to use it is… like… speaking English so… but in order to make… conduct a good speaking.. err.. good conversation… err… the pronunciation also very important. But err… that is I think… we have to mention about the accuracy… accuracy and fluency of speaking skill… so… nowadays, we… uhm… usually put more focus on the fluency, so that’s err… the more confident and how fluent they speak is more important than they pronounce correctly, something like that… its also important but the more important is that the student have to… speak like… naturally… and fluently… something like that. Interviewer: Do you feel there is sometimes a misunderstanding between pronunciation and accent? Bao: Yeah I agree. They sometimes feel like err… How… how can you pronounce this word in American English? How can you pronounce that word in British English? So they usually get confused about that. Interviewer: Do you think it beneficial that we raise their awareness that in fact it may not matter whether it sounds American or British but rather to make sure that they are understood, in terms of meaning and intelligibility? Bao: Yeah I agree is doesn’t matter, I strongly agree, it doesn’t matter if they sound like American English or British English or other… It does matter that you have to speak correct English that make the others using English understand what you say. Interviewer: What do you think of course books and textbooks that we are using here in Vietnam? Bao: Nowadays, textbooks are like… err… it’s like a jungle for me, because there are too many kinds of English course book for us to choose. But if we can fully understand whom we are teaching, what do they need to learn? So, the more we get that understanding, I think the better we choose the correct course book. But, just, there are some course book that err… we... err… that are recommended, especially, which are from... the like… the qualified publisher, like err… Cambridge, Oxford or Macmillan. There are many other course books for English learner, but they are composed by the non-native speaker… writer. Interviewer: What do you think about those? Bao: I think its uhm I think the course books we also have to make clear that there are many kind of text book that are developed for specific skills or are developed for the language knowledge; like grammar or semantics or syntax or something like that so its not very… it doesn’t really matter who writes the book, but it really matters for the one who comes from the English speaking country that makes the skills book, speaking or something like that, so I think its really important for us to see who writes the book we want to use. Interviewer: You mean the author? Why do you think it’s important to know about the author? Bao: The author and the publisher, because we have, if we are teacher and we use many kinds of books, we can see that there are just few authors that they use the teaching methodology into their materials, that I see very effective in our class, that we can follow the, like the

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consequence? Uhh follow the procedure… of the text book that we don’t need to… find more sources or something, that we just mainly based on those books to use, and we found that its very effective in our class, so after those class we found that there are better author than the other. Interviewer: Okay, so do you mean strictly from a methodology perspective? Bao: Yeah, the methodology and the cultural knowledge, that also very important to say because some other books, if we don’t know about that country its very difficult to use that book, for example, I once look at the face to face book, so the pictures, its like the sociology, that we need to understand, why they use elephant instead of horse, to mean that word, for example, oh I could eat a horse, to…to mention that you are really hungry, but in Vietnam we don’t eat horse, we just eat like, buffalo or cow or something like that but if they just use a series of pictures that belong to that culture its very difficult for the Vietnamese student or other countries t understand, Interviewer: Do you think Vietnamese teachers should be more involved with designing materials for Vietnamese students? Bao: There is a very clear idea from the government, especially in education and training affairs, that they, you don’t need the format that English speaking speakers to design the book for the students especially from students from grade 1 to 12. So a majority of the authors, of the books that are used in pubic schools, they use just very localized English course books that are designed by Vietnamese, but they also get consultants from English speakers, but mainly, as far as I know, is that the professor and associations who are qualified to write the book for students. Interviewer: But not at university level? Bao: Not at all, I get to know a lot of university students from other universities. They use a very wide range of course books that come famous publishers like Oxford and Macmillan. Universities are very different. Interviewer: Is there a connection between having high English proficiency and getting a good job? Bao: Its partly true, but not specifically English, but other foreign languages. If you have a high proficiency level of that English that that company need, its very true that you will get a good job. Not only English, but other, like Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Many of my students who already worked in those companies told me that if you can have like high level of English or Korean, who work for Korean companies, so you can get double. I mean like double but at the same position. But I want to add one more thing, that English, specifically, is not that high demand now, than before. Because, nowadays, as you know, a lot of people, I think everyone knows English, so uh, now for example, me I know a lot of English but if I work for that company who communicate in English its not that high a salary. For example, because of the needs of Korean speaker in Vietnam is very small, so that’s why they put the salary high because they need to find a good job but a good job is hard to find. But the good English speaker nowadays is not hard to find, there are many, so I just lower my salary down but I still have my worker.

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Interviewer: Ah, so because they can’t find so many Korean or Japanese speakers they increase the salaries. Bao: Yeah they increase and its very obviously high. Interviewer: Has that influenced what students choose as majors? Bao: Yeah of course, nowadays, in our university the students have a choice to study the foreign language, I mean second language, like English is their first language and they have to choose the other language, either Korean, Japanese, Chinese and French, although French nowadays is not like fashionable anymore. But the fashionable choice is now is Korean. Interviewer: Yes I’ve noticed a lot interest in my students in all things Korean. Bao: Yes, its like Korean is acting cool. But actually its for the students only, but for us and others we just need what we need to use. Interviewer: Do you feel more confident using American or British English? Bao: That’s also an issue you need to care about, is that the history of learning English of the teacher, and what teachers used in the daily (?), that will effect all the students in his or her class, for example me, myself, I studied American English, not only American English but mostly American English in my university, so, because my teacher taught me that so I studied that, but after I graduated, I feel that I need to study more, like British English, and nowadays I feel more comfortable using… listening to British English than American English. I feel more interesting like the accent, is really kind of fun for me. Interviewer: How can we raise awareness of other Englishes for students? So one way for me I think is that we bring many kinds of various kinds of English into our lesson, and then when it comes to that word or this word, we can give them more explanation that that is from American or that is from Britain but its ok to use both. But that’s ok because nowadays it’s a blurred line between Englishes. Interviewer: So how about other varieties, Singaporean or Indian Englishes? Bao: That’s very, very important, because I myself, experienced one situation, if I got more familiar with the other Englishes, I can get my job. About 5 years ago I got my first interview as an assistant in a company and the boss was Korean, and his English was very different from American English, The accent and they way they used English was very difficult to understand. And the other companies I got an interview with from India, and no offense, but the Indian speaking English like very, it feels like a foreign language to me. Its about pronunciation, accent and intonation. Like the intonation is not correct like what I studied. Like the stress on English in usually on the first syllable but they stress the last syllable, I didn’t understand Interviewer: How about now?

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Bao: Now I get more used to it, with the English from the other countries, like Japanese English, I say Korean English, Vietnamese English, and Indian English especially. Interviewer: Should we prepare our students for other Englishes? Like Indian and Japanese English? Bao: I think so, we need to bring more Indian English into our classes Interviewer: So, how would we do that? Bao: Yeah we should put more like especially the input, like listening and reading stuff, not reading different from listening, we should collect the listening files and materials from other sources that come from news or conference, international conference where we have many kinds of speakers. But we should put them in a specific topic, just not put into every level; we should put them into stronger level. Interviewer: So, after a certain level of proficiency? Bao: So I myself believe the student from the first year or second year need to strengthen with the Standard English. And when they know English sufficient enough for them to use then we can put more input from the other sources that use Korean or Indian English. I think the purpose of that issue (world Englishes) is that we can raise awareness of Englishes and not English, I think it does effect on many aspect of life, not only teaching, like us teachers but the student as well, if we can see that, that one comes from Philippines, China but if that is a teacher and teaching English, they will put the equal respect, the same respect that give for teachers who come from Britain. Miss Hang Interviewer: Have you heard of world Englishes before? Hang: Could you explain the question? Interviewer: I mean whether you are familiar with the different kinds of English around the world. Hang: I start learning English in grade 6 Interviewer: How old were you then? Hang: 10 or 11 Interviewer: Do you know what kind of English you studied? Hang: I think when I study in secondary and high school we studied British English, and even when we come to university, we still studied IELTS so that’s British English. But now the point I know different kinds of English was in University. So I start to know about American English. And when I finished my university, I go to teach and then I started to work, and I was a receptionist. When I had just finished studying, so I met a lot of people from all over

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the world, so they are French but they speak English so I can see some different English, that’s so different from what I learned. Interviewer: What other people did you meet? From what other places? Hang: Uhm, French and Asian countries, Korea, Japan, Germany., and a lot of people. Interviewer: And you always communicated in English with these people? Hang: Yes, they speak English and I can see that their English is not the same from what I learned. The words or the pronunciation, the way they pronounce and they even have some, some ways to use the vocabulary, they even use some a different way so I can see that’s, it’s very interesting, very exciting, I can see the difference and I can recognize, I can see that its so different, but I can understand. Interviewer: And even though all of you had different first languages, it didn’t interfere with your communication with them? Hang: Uh, at first, when I wasn’t… didn’t get familiar to that kind of pronunciation, It was difficult, now when I was used to listening, how they speak, so I can understand them. After A while I got used to it. If I didn’t understand I ask them to say again. And if didn’t understand again I asked them to write it down or spell the words. Interviewer: So, were they using verbs and nouns differently from how you use them? Hang: I think the most difference was about the pronunciation, and some vocabulary. I remember I met a French Person who said I need to go to ‘Ospital instead of Hospital and I didn’t understand, so they explained, used some gestures and helped me understand. And I also learned some French so I can speak French a little bit, inn French language they don’t pronounce ‘H’ so that’s why. The way they use to talk about time, instead of half past nine they say Nine thirty. Or quarter after six they say six fifteen. Interviewer: Do you think the way people use English who have different first languages; do you think Vietnamese teachers are interested in that? Hang: Yeah I think they will be interested when they find the differences from the American accent or the British accent. As I told you when I studied in high school, in the textbook, we just used British English. So we can find some other ways or some other pronunciation is so different, and they can find the differences and maybe the first time they can get some obstacle, but they can find a lot of differences and I think its very interesting, and I do not focus on only 1 pronunciation, like in British accent I can show my student how the people in America say this word, and how the difference from other people when they pronounce this word, the same words, but different pronunciation from people in other countries. Interviewer: Do you bring different kinds of English into your teaching? Hang: Yes actually I did, I also chose the ways a word is pronounced in different ways, but not much.

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Interviewer: In the materials you use in class, do they contain examples of different Englishes? Hang: No not really, they just use British or American English Interviewer: Do you gather your own materials to show different kinds of English? Hang: Just a little, just through my own experience really Interviewer: Do your students ask you about different kinds of English? Hang: Yes they asked me about those kinds of questions, but they just ask me why, because when they experience an example, so they may be difficult to get and they don’t understand so they ask me, so I also explain to them how words pronounced by American or for example, Bangladesh, so… yeah Indian Englishes too Interviewer: Do you think it’s important to raise student’s awareness of different Englishes? Hang: Yes I think so, we should. I also heard my students, he graduated and go to work and his boss was from India. So, he told me the first time the first time they spoke he couldn’t understand him because his English was so different, and so difficult to understand. Actually I can see that from study in high school or uni even here there is no material, to talk about the differences in English between the people speak from their first mother tongue like Indian, how they speak or if they are French how they speak English and even Vietnamese how they speak English. It’s not in the books, just in experience like in the environment life. Just in working environment, and they can see and they get used to hearing and listening and get familiar to that kind of sound. So the core value is that you can communicate to the person you are talking to, just, if you can understand you can communicate well I think that’s, you got successful things. Interviewer: So as long as you understand and they understand, that’s the most important thing? Hang: Yes Interviewer: So if that’s how we feel, why do you think we focus so much on American or British English? Hang: Actually I don’t know. For the first time, any… a lot of materials and a lot of books and even for education we just see… That’s British or this is American… and we even have the materials, American English File, Just… only for American. Or another book just for British English so we just focus on American English or you can focus on British English so when we meet and Indian-speaking English, we don’t understand. Interviewer: Do you think that is something that needs to change? How could we do that? Hang: I think we need to change, if we want to get… because, I can read in materials, that English doesn’t belong to American or British people, English is an international language, so it can be used for everyone, all over the world so we don’t need to focus on American

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English or British English because I see a lot of tests or a lot of materials, a lot of text books just complied or edited for British and American accents. Interviewer: You think that’s something that should change? Hang: Yes Interviewer: How do you think we can do that? Hang: First we can change from the opinion; about we look at about English. English is international language so we can just to understand, to get to understand each other, to communicate successfully. So change they way we study, change the textbooks, change the way we approach English, for the recording files in materials we should focus on the, you can record Indian, Bangladesh speaker of Korean, Chinese or Japanese speakers and so on. Interviewer: And use this in our classrooms? Hang: Yes I can see that the different way they use English to make my students more interested more excited Interviewer: So do you think English is still a very important language in Vietnam? Hang: Yes, you know in my student we have a contest to talk about the important role of English, my students declared in that contest, that English should be a second language in Vietnam not a foreign language. Interviewer: Are your students aware of the difference between a second and foreign language? Hang: The second language it means when I go to work I speak English and everyone has to speak English it means you speak bilingual, if you don’t want to use mother tongue you can speak English at home even. Interviewer: Like Singapore? Hang: Yes, yes like that. But in Vietnam foreign language means you just use it for specific environment, or specific situation. Interviewer: The materials we use in primary and high schools are quite different form University? Some are locally produced? Hang: In secondary school and high school I can see, it is produced locally, and I think, it’s edited by Vietnamese authority. Interviewer: Do you think there is any difficulty with the materials not produced in Vietnam? Hang: When we study English we have to teach we have to use to change from beginning to end; we just change the leaf of the tree and not the root. If you change at university so what

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about the primary and secondary school? They have to do the same thing, so actually they are learning from not official materials for learning English Interviewer: What do you mean by official? Hang: I mean these materials, for the whole country. We call that official because it’s from Vietnamese education publisher Interviewer: So what about the non-official? What’s that? Hang: It means some other schools, they can use their own materials not the same as we use for the whole country, and they can choose any material that they think is suitable for their students, but that’s for private school. They use 1 material for the whole country for state schools Interviewer: Do you think the Oxford and Cambridge books; give the students what they need? Hang: I think what you say, that’s the reason why the Vietnamese are producing their own materials, to get more familiar with their lifestyle. But I think children from all over the world, they are the same, at the same age they have the same interests, for example they like cats and animals… so you can share something in common for the children all over the world, so if something is different in the material in the text book, I think its fine, its ok and if they can learn something different about the world I think it’s an interesting thing. I think they can get more in the materials and some way to get students to get some interesting and new things in the textbook, and I can see some textbook from publisher like Macmillan or Oxford, they edit the material for children and even children in America or Vietnam they can learn they can get through the textbook, its very colorful, but students in university, need something higher, they want to do something for its suitable for their knowledge their age and their interests. The students in university they want to talk about something in love, or lifestyle, or extracurricular activities or student affairs, so the material should edit to fix for same age the same level, I think its better. Do you enjoy using the textbooks you use? Hang: Some yes some no, I use World link for my students but I don’t like the material, I don’t think its familiar, or some texts are so long, its not suitable for the level. It’s very difficult to teach the material for students, they cannot understand or follow the instructions or exercises. They don’t understand the language in the book; there aren’t many activities for students so they get bored. Interviewer: Do you think there is a connection between a good level of English and getting a high paid job in Vietnam? Hang: I think the purpose of learning English in Vietnam is mostly, for getting a good job and getting a higher salary. Interviewer: Do you think its true that if you have a good level of English you will get a high paid job?

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Hang: My cousin, when he studied in a famous University in Vietnam, and he’s very smart, but when he started a job in a big company, they got him a course for English, with a certificate and now he’s very rich because of that. Interviewer: What do think will happen with English learning in the future here? I believe it will become a second language in Vietnam. Even here our rector wants all the staff to use English at work, like a second language How about other languages? Do you think other languages will also gain importance here? Hang: In this city, it’s an industrial zone, so a lot of countries invest in this city, and people are learning other languages, not English, but English is the first choice, always the first choice than the others.. Interviewer: Do you think that situation will change? Hang: I don’t think it will change, I think English is always the first choice in the future. Interviewer: Do you value any skills over any other skill in learning English? Hang: I think pronunciation is really important Interviewer: Do you think that there is a misunderstanding on the part of learners between pronunciation and accent? Hang: I think it doesn’t matter about accent, if you sound American or British. For pronunciation, I mean the way we pronounce a word, if you cannot pronounce correctly; you cannot understand what people are saying. That’s the problem for my students for example, ‘extra’ they pronounce ‘Esstra’ so they can’t understand when they are learning listening skills they can’t write them down, if they don’t understand they cannot listen correctly. Also they will speak incorrectly, and the most important thing is they have to understand each other. If they cannot say correctly, they cannot speak correctly and that’s the reason why they will not understand each other when they communicate Interviewer: How do you think we can bring different Englishes into our classrooms? How do we prepare our students in your opinion? Hang: Although I say that American or British English, we shouldn’t just focus on that, the way we should follow the standard American or British, and you should know another way to pronounce from different ways and different people in the world, but just know that and don’t follow it. Interviewer: Do you think because Vietnam is in Asia, there should be more of a focus on Asian Englishes? Hang: As I told you the standard is American or British English, other ways can be introduced but not followed.

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Interviewer: Do you ask your students whom they communicate with in English outside the classroom? Hang: Yeah, the students at first they usually communicate with their friends in English in the classroom. And teachers as well… and then when they go to work they can communicate with colleagues and their boss. And if they have other activities, they can go to get another one to communicate Interviewer: So are they communicating with people from other countries? Hang: Actually, some tell me that they have friends in other countries. Interviewer: Do you encourage that? Hang: Oh yes I even took my students to HCMC to district 1 and there are a lot of tourists there, and I ask the students to say hello, and start a conversation. Interviewer: Were they nervous? Hang: Yes they were at first. But I have to prepare for them and give them spirit. I took them to parks and museum and ask them to start a conversation with a stranger. Some people were very friendly and spend even a whole morning to talk tot eh students and we recorded it and then when we finish and come back we play it and see what they can learn from the conversation. Cuong and Ha

What does the term World Englishes mean to you? Cuong: I’m really interested in the term world Englishes because it is very popular these days and people pay more attention to these things because we have British English, American English, then kind of Singlish, many types of Englishes. Its better for us and English learner to find out more information about… so that we can just pay more attention when teaching in our classes, we can suggest, recommend introduce our students something interesting some kind of differences among different languages different kinds of Englishes. So the student can learn you see, much better. OK, and how about you? Ha: Yeah I also agree with that idea, and I think that the English we, we have to accept that English is varied around the world and what the teacher should do to better understand and introduce the differences but still they share something common among different kinds of English but we have to accept the differences and so students can get used to different kinds of Englishes. Do you know what kind of English you learned as a student?

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Cuong: Actually as a young student, I knew that there were two types of English, American and British English… uhh no more. These days, with other kinds like Indian English or something, they became more popular and uhh so my students nowadays they know about these things, but we didn’t know about them. So, The lectures came to class, with either American or British accent, so we tried to recognize the differences. Ok, so how about you? Ha: Oh, I uhm when I was in high school and also university I used to study British English, but I was also introduced to other kinds of English, like American or Australian English, and my teachers also introduced some other like Indian English, and Singlish. Do you think teachers in Vietnam are interested in the different kinds of English, or if this knowledge will be useful in the future? Ha: Nowadays Vietnamese people welcome a lot of countries to work together in Vietnam. So this is useful for students to know very different kind of English and this will be useful for students and teacher to teach the students the difference between the English. Cuong: I agree with the idea because uhh I think what we’re going to do is to prepare our students for their future jobs, maybe after graduation from the university they can work for an Indian company or a Chinese company or a Singaporean company, so they’re gonna work with different types of English, so we gonna do something that uhh maybe very helpful for our students, not just focus on American English or British English. Do you introduce different varieties of English to your students? Ha: Yes, I do. And uhm the majority of the English I teach in the classroom is British English and some American English. But I introduce some listening tasks for other Englishes like err Korean people speaking English and Indian people speaking English and and something like that. How about you? Cuong: For me, sometimes, I introduce uhh some interesting points, however, there is concern that for British English and American English, the materials, textbooks everything, is available, we have official sources of information about these two types of world Englishes, but for other kinds, things like Singlish, and Indian English or Australian English, Uhh we don’t have a lot of other materials which is official, we cannot do, and maybe people in Singapore they’re not so sure about the contents of their kind of Singlish, they just know that the way that they pronounce English differently in that country but I think that in terms of grammar, writing, everything, reading, normally, mostly the same with American English, I think that the differences are only just the pronunciation and the structure sometimes. And one more thing, I and Miss (Ha) deal with interpretation, we deal with those kinds of classes, and in those classes we tell our students they should listen to different kinds of English, maybe from China, Iran, Russia, because when you work in a multi cultural environment there are so many things there, so we should be familiar with them when you are students, from, from now.

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Do you think American or British Englishes will dominate the materials in the future? Cuong: not really, I think things will change because, other types of English are developing, maybe for Singapore for example, they’re thinking of writing more materials, focus on they that they, form the English language there maybe. I mean that each country is gonna have some kind of adaption or modification in the way that they use English. Ha: Actually the textbooks or materials, people pay more attention to the writing. And I think as well that the writing share something in common, and even people do not pay attention to differences between English and American in writing. But for the future I still think American and British English will be dominant in teaching because some international exams still have American and British system, like IELTS and TOEFL. How do you feel about the materials you are using for your students now? Cuong: Actually we haven’t got a way to go, and we just use to be honest, the government just uses different types of materials. And they think that focus on the framework, like maybe CEFR for example, but they haven’t discussed a lot about maybe the textbooks and there are a lot of things for them to do, because they’re not so sure about where they would like to go and how they would achieve the objective, for example. What do you think about that? Ha: I also agree with the idea. I think that the textbook in Vietnam follow and adapt some material, I don’t talk about the high school, I talk about maybe the college program they still adapt some material from Oxford or Cambridge and they still follow the American and British English and now they adapt some other Englishes, but for the Vietnamese speakers of English I think that its not really clear target … Cuong: you see normally, they just kind of editing work just compile material something interesting, they put all of them together, but I’m not so sure about the unity of the contents there, whether it link together Do you think the content is suitable for Vietnamese learners? Cuong: Yes, that is a very big problem. We should put more first language, I mean L1 language culture, in the material, it’s very difficult for learners, because they’re gonna learn something differently, different from their culture. We should integrate Vietnamese culture in the content; I mean the curriculum of their learning programs. So do you think it would be more beneficial if Vietnamese teachers were more involved in designing materials for use in Vietnamese language classrooms? Ha: Sure, I think that Vietnamese teachers should involved in the syllabus design and I also think that Vietnamese people, Vietnamese students should from the foreign culture, but also they need to, the domain of the textbook should be suitable for the Vietnamese learner. Like ‘subway’, Vietnamese people do not have subway, so they cannot understand or imagine. What do think is going to happen with this in the future?

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Cuong: I think that uhh, in terms of textbook, this is a very big problem over the past 20 years, we have different types of textbook for English students in Vietnam. From primary and secondary school, high school, but people I mean, those scholars are from other countries, they don’t appreciate the value of these kinds of textbooks. Firstly, the personnel in charge of the curriculum development, they’re not very good, the second thing, maybe they don’t really understand what is going on in Vietnam, and the textbook is not very helpful for students. Do you think at some point English will permeate everyday Vietnamese life? Cuong: well think of the case of Malaysia, right, one country but they have two separated parts right, but Singapore, the government I mean the leader, would like just to develop English because he though that English could help develop the country, but the leaders of Malaysia, didn’t think so, he focused on something else, the national language, and ten years later, 20 years later, the leaders realized that their policies were not very successful. So I think that for Vietnam, we should have an official policy for the whole country, English should be a very important second language in daily communication, required for supermarkets, other things for example, I think so. So how about laws, and TV news being written and transmitted in English? Cuong: ah, nationwide? I agree with the idea but they need around 10 to 20 years to do that job. Ok, but do you think that is something that would be good for Vietnam? Cuong: Very good. Because I realize that other countries, like the Philippines, they use English in almost all of the daily communication, but they don’t lose their national language or identity. They keep all of them and they develop two kinds of languages. First language and second language, First language is like for kind of family communication and second language for work or kind of friendship and other things, like Singapore, we have Chinese and, English mostly. And they can speak fluently the two languages. Ha: I Agree that Vietnam do not have the environment or Vietnamese student do not exposed to the English speaking environment. But I think there is a need for the student to speak English in the future if Vietnam wants to develop. But it should start from the master plan, from the policy makers, by err, the government should put English into the programs and then they have to welcome other countries to develop the economic and then Vietnam, Vietnamese should uhh start speaking more English Do you think the teachers should be involved in these processes? Ha: I think they have to change, because for education policy they should have to listen to the teacher and those who are teaching now. Yeah. So do you think that the policy makers should make their decisions based on for example, research by teachers in their classrooms? Cuong: I don’t think that the politicians should not join in project, because over the past several decades, they almost dominate everything in education, maybe as you said, they

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know nothing about education, but they just make some kinds of law, we have to do this, this and this, and in many cases they may not care what is going on in reality. So we should change, like in other countries, education should just focus on, educators should just focus on those things. Do you think we should focus on the needs of the students in the area, for example, this area is very industrial with little or no tourism. So should we tailor how we teach English to our context? And our student’s context? Cuong: Yes, we should. Actually at the moment we have one suits all, one size fits all approach and it is not suitable, its not relevant to all provinces all areas in the country, and we just focus on this area, and for example you know, that uhh ‘Vung Tau’ or ‘Nha Trang’ they just work with the tourism, a lot of nature a lot of things to focus on, and English for tourism should be there… Ha: also I think that English should be localized, and also they need to do some needs analysis, because they open a course, or they introduce a training program in English. Cuong: I think that English is gonna change, the fact is that it is changing. Its changing here in Vietnam, just think about as a native speaker of English from the UK, you came here and lived here for several years, and you yourself change the way you pronounce, and use the structures, if you just pay attention to the way you use English, it is much easier for students than those guys who have just come to Vietnam, they use a lot of kind of jargon and slang or something, very difficult for students, and maybe the way that they deliver the information, kind of go around the corners, but for you, you go directly to the point, because you know that you know that you should not waste your time, yeah, they will not understand what you wanna say. Yes I see a lot of reliance on idioms and slang in native speaker use. Cuong: You know, you are like a Vietnamese who can speak English fluently (Laughter). Not English anymore. I take that as a compliment, to be honest. So you both seem to think that the future will see English gaining importance in Vietnam… Ha: Yeah I think so.. Even though languages like Chinese and Spanish are also gaining importance around the world. Cuong: we have nothing to do with Spanish here; we focus on Japanese, Korean and Chinese. But I’m sure they wont be as popular compared to English Do you agree?

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Ha: Yeah I agree with that. I think so. I always think that English will be popular in the future, although the number of Chinese speakers is increasing, English will still be the most popular language in the world. Cuong: Let me add one more detail, a Japanese, when he has a meeting with a Korean, in Vietnam, What kind of language are they gonna use? Of course English right? Not Vietnamese… As we have discussed before, non-native speakers now far outnumber native speakers, so why should we focus on native standards if they are now in the minority? Cuong: Maybe I think about the official user of the language, you said we have no grammar book from, we mentioned Chinese language, Chinese English or Singlish, they don’t write grammar book… But do you not think in the future there will be Vietnamese English, and we can standardize it and codify it, and develop materials from it? Cuong: In that case uhm, the language is, in that situation, would mostly based on English and American English, so it just can, uhm, mean that, its framed on American English, its just some kind of modification, I don’t quite remember the word but several years ago I read about it, it just part of a big (?) not a new language or they don’t really have some kind of identification, identity… Ha: I think that uhm, American and British English is still considered as the standard, because the starting point from the English subject is from the English textbook, which is written by some native speakers. And it is a long history of that. So it is still considered Standard English now. And now for Vietnamese speakers I think if we have Vietnamese English but its still have a long way to go. And it is a long process of adapting. Do you think it is a worthy process? As Vietnam has highly proficient users of English already, should they be undertaking the task of compiling grammar and vocabulary materials for tuition? Cuong: Maybe, for Indian English or Singapore English, for example, at the moment we say that there are more similarities than differences. When you compare Singlish or any English with American we have more similarities right? But in the future in Vietnam like if we have more differences than similarities maybe, we gonna form something else to show our identity, that we can speak kind of different language not English anymore, right, but not now, maybe 20 years for example. Ha: I think the students should not be taught about a lot of differences, but they can be, the teacher can raise their awareness, to some points, differences, the popular differences, so that they can perceive the language from the other speaker rather than British or American speakers. Do you think it’s true that knowing English can get you a higher paid job? Cuong: In more cases it is. For example, you have a bachelor degree in Engineering, and you can speak English well. So you can work in Nestle for example..

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So would you not need two bachelors? One in Engineering and one in English? Cuong: No just one, and then you can just have a, you can learn IELTS 6.5, for example, or you can speak English good enough so you can communicate effectively in your working environment. So you can be very successful. Ha: I still think that uhm, if you have English, you have a higher opportunity for getting a job. But to have a higher pay in my personal point of view, I still think they need to have some professional skills, but the problem is the professional skills for the new graduates, they need to learn more because the school do not teach them the professional skills, so if they have English in the beginning they will have more opportunity, and err, the common point of view is that people will have a high salary but its not necessarily true. Cuong: Because they all use English, for example, you work in a Japanese company, and everyone there, only speaks Japanese in the company, however, if you can speak English well, you will be responsible for working with other counter parts… But what if you can speak Japanese well? Is it not of equal value? Cuong: Of course, it’s the same, in fact we can say that English is the most popular, and most important but we cannot say it’s above other foreign languages. Do you agree? Ha: Yeah, I agree, if they can have English, for example if they do not work in the Korean company, they can work for Japanese company or Thai company, but if they just have one language like Korean, they can just work for Korean companies only. Cuong: so more flexibility right… So you do believe that knowing English creates more opportunities for someone in Vietnam Ha: Yes Cuong: Yes much more than Japanese, Korean or Chinese. Why do you think pronunciation is so important for students? Cuong: for me I think because they don’t listen to English speakers quite a lot they rarely listen to maybe the way that they speak English I mean that their listening practice is limited so its very difficult for them to develop their pronunciation. For me for example, im not quite good in pronouncing but it I’m much better when compared to some people, because I practice listening almost everyday, I listen to VOA and BBC especially, Bloomberg television for example, as long as I can hear something in English from a native speaker of English So you think its important to listen to native speakers? Cuong: Yes if you don’t listen you will never improve your pronunciation

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Ok, so what do you think? Ha: Yeah I also think pronunciation is important but uh, not so important that it is the first priority, for erm learning English. The problem is that the students like the idea that student do not have to practice listening, so they just speak English at their own experience, yeah, so it is difficult to hear and it is even difficult for the native speaker to understand their English, so I think that they can speak right, and speak clear is enough, they do not need to imitate American accent or British accent, I think they should change their attitudes toward accents, they should try to pronounce the word in a correct way, this is the most important part… How about vocabulary? Ha: Yeah erm vocabulary is also an important component of learning English, so I think it’s also important for the students to develop their vocabulary There are concepts and words, directly translated from Vietnamese to English, which may have little or no meaning to native speakers; do you perceive this as Vietnamese English emerging? Cuong: Yes, actually they integrate cultural aspects in the language that they use. And sometimes they try to make everything become clearer for the students, so just clarify giving examples, which are available in the country that they are teaching, in the environment they are living, so the students can understand. Ha: I also think that language, English language is something that lives, so uhh, some definition or some concept, that just emerge nowadays, so the student need to learn and even the English speaker need to learn, for example, ‘I Google’ or ‘I Facebook’… that never happen before. Do you think the Vietnamese will appropriate English in their own ways? Ha: Vietnamese learner come across with the same process, but it’s not in a high level, because Vietnam we have our own geographical features and our biography feature so the English should be different from the other countries. So we should have our own Vietnamese English. Cuong: actually I’m sure that all of these things naturally happen, when it comes, you know for example, a process, you know 10 or 20 years ago, the Singaporean maybe didn’t think they were gonna form something like Singlish, so we cannot say that something will happen say in 5 years or 10 years or 50 years, something like Vinglish, I just know that the way the construct English language differently that from other language or native speaker of English, for example they say ‘banNANA’ not ‘BAnana’, you know when you just read about constructivism, the way that they construct the term, the word, differently, their way not the popular way that people often use. Do you think that if they do things their way that helps them retain their identity?

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Cuong: actually this is not kind of showing their identity, its just they way that they can do to survive in the environment, for example, the rector of my university he went to Chicago, and he lost his way, he didn’t know what to do, he tried his best to use all of err, just combine all the words together, maybe its broken English, but just to survive in that environment, that’s it. They themselves don’t try to speak so, to say so, but they don’t know something else, they don’t know how to pronounce correctly the word, for example, Do you think if we introduce world Englishes that it should be at a certain level? Cuong: We should have 2 or 3 circles, the first circle maybe primary students, just American English and British English and for secondary students, maybe widen kind of Indian English or Singlish and for a higher level like a university student they should know, but I think that ah, in some cases they may not care about world Englishes, but however they may need it sometime sin their life, maybe at the moment they think Singlish is not important for me, I have no communication with Singaporean but in the future maybe in an unexpected situation he’s gonna use English to talk to some guys from Singapore, maybe… so we’re thinking about our future, and as an English learners we should know all of them but at a high level only Ha: I also think they should know more differences when they get a higher level, it depend on their goals and their context with the speaking environment. Yeah it depend on the context Do you think students are aware of why they are studying English and what they are going to do with it after they graduate? Cuong: I think that’s something we should think over because; they are not motivated to learn those things. For example they think that they are gonna be a teacher of English, in a primary school, and they think just focus on American English and British English, and then become a teacher of English, no more. Ha: I think we should introduce a certain amount; we do not need to… yeah little by little…

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Appendix4:Interquartilerangefor28outof30items

Item number Median IQR

1 3 0

2 3 2

3 3 2

4 3 1

7 3 1

8 2 1

9 2 1.25

10 3 1

11 4 1

12 3 2

13 3 1

14 3 1

15 3 .25

16 3 1

17 1 1

18 1 1

19 2 1.5

20 3 2

21 1 .5

22 2.5 1

23 3 1

24 2 1

25 3 1

26 3 1

27 3 1

28 3 1

29 3.5 1

30 3 1.75

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