Author Identifier

Thi Nguyet Le

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7980-3479

Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Thesis - ECU Access Only

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

School

School of Education

First Supervisor

Nicola F. Johnson

Second Supervisor

Bill Allen

Abstract

With the rapid growth of Web 2.0 and information technology, blended learning - a combination of face-to-face and online learning - enables university lecturers to extend teaching and learning beyond the confines of their classrooms. The Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam recognised the importance of these innovations and mandated the use of information and communication technologies in higher education institutions. This directive overlapped with the Government’s policy to make English the major foreign language in the country in a response to globalisation given the springboard into the global economy English provides. As a result, two simultaneous, parallel movements are occurring in Vietnamese universities: (i) an upsurge in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL); and (ii) a focus on using blended learning (BL) for teaching and learning.

This study investigated Vietnamese EFL lecturers’ perspectives of how well they were managing their implementation of BL in teaching English to non-English major students in Vietnamese universities. The principal aim of this research was to investigate how these lecturers were dealing with, coping with, or managing the mandated implementation of BL in their teaching. Semi-structured interviews occurred with twenty EFL lecturers from ten different universities in Vietnam.

The findings revealed most of the EFL lecturers were not managing their implementation of BL in English teaching effectively while a very small number admitted their effective use of BL. Contributing to the lecturers’ implementation of BL were personal, institutional, and socio-cultural and economic factors. When the two major factors - personal and institutional - were positive, the lecturers could manage their implementation of BL effectively. The contributory socio-cultural and economic factors - especially the Confucian teaching tradition - hindered the quality of the lecturers’ implementation of BL. The study provides a framework for managing the implementation of BL effectively in English language education in Vietnamese universities.

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