Lecturers and students' perception of efl policy and practice at a higher education institute

Abstract

Preparing human resources towards intensive integration into the world economy and especially the ASEAN community after 2015 has been a top priority for the Vietnamese government. A comprehensive national project on foreign language improvement has been implemented throughout Vietnam since 2008. Teachers and students' English language proficiency is assessed on the Vietnamese six-level scale of English Language Proficiency (ELP). From 2015, the project focused on enabling non-English majored university students to achieve level 3 (B1) in the Vietnamese six-level scale of ELP. Achieving this aim is at present a big challenge for many universities in Vietnam due to existing EFL policies and teaching practices at these higher education institutes. This paper reports the results of an investigation into teachers’ and students’ perception of EFL policies and practices at a higher education institute in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected by the use of questionnaires and interviews. Results shows that most participants hold a positive perception of the effectiveness of the EFL policies implemented at the researched university and the Vietnamese six-level scale of ELP was not frequently integrated in English teaching. The proposed pedagogical practices were reported to be highly valued by lecturers, but students found them less effective. Data from interviews indicated that to help non-English majored students achieve B1 in English, the researched university should implement the Vietnamese six-level scale of ELP in English teaching curriculum.