EMI Lecturers in Vietnamese Higher Education: Exploring professional development needs for teaching quality enhancement
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Abstract
As EMI (English-medium instruction) programs have rapidly increased in the context of educational globalization in Vietnam, more research is required in this field. With the aim to promote EMI lecturers’ professional development and enhance teaching quality, this study was conducted to identify needs of content lecturers in EMI setting in Vietnamese higher education in order to have a more comprehensive insight for appropriate support and policy development. Data was collected via questionnaires distributed to EMI lecturers (n=33) and in-depth interviews with seven participants (n=6). The research findings showed that EMI lecturers required professional development support, particularly to improve their pedagogical competences and English language fluency. They also expressed a wish to collaborate with colleagues. In addition, this study identified lecturers' specific needs for institutional support, with particular emphasis on teaching materials and resources. These insights contributed to the existing literature and provided helpful suggestions for supporting EMI lecturers in similar institutions.
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© 2026 The authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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