This study is aimed at understanding English teaching and learning as a foreign language at the higher education level in Vietnam through the perspectives and experiences of Vietnamese teachers and students of English at Nha Trang University. Vietnam is currently faced with the challenge of seeking international integration and socio-economic enhancement in an English dominant environment with a workforce that does not speak English or speaks English poorly. Former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Michael Marine (2007) comments that one of the challenges that Vietnam has to cope with is raising English proficiency levels of the workforce since this has been a major impediment for foreign cooperation. Lee Kwan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore indicated in a visit to Vietnam that success depends on the ability to comprehend the language used in the latest textbooks, and that language is English.
Guided by critical theory and framed in a qualitative case study design relying on data from document analysis, observations and interviews of 22 participants, this study shed light on Nha Trang University as a higher education institution in Vietnam. A thematic approach was employed to analyze the data. Implications from critical theory yielded productive discussions of various problems identified in the study. Among these were: the issues of power relations especially between teachers and students; the traditional teaching model that prevailed in English classrooms; the imposition of pedagogical approaches, traditional educational ideologies, the lack of participation or the marginalization of teachers and students in the policy making and curriculum development process. The findings among others unearthed the reasons why teaching and learning English in Vietnam, especially at the higher education level, has not been successful. These should aid foreign language policy makers, curriculum designers, teachers and students of English in understanding the problem to make appropriate decisions to fix them.
The significance of the study lies in the scarcity of empirical data about English teaching and learning in Vietnam, and staging the voices of teachers and students of English that might have been marginalized in the formation of foreign language policy as well as the development of the English curriculum.