Following are findings about the teachers’ social and educational background as well as their assigned roles in the course design project.
Thu
Thu graduated and started her career in an English Faculty in the university in 2005.
She was part of English Division A that is officially in charge of English programs for first-year students, and taught English language skills to these students during the time she worked there. She also taught Studies of English Speaking Countries or Translation in some semesters. Thu did not show much passion about learning about teaching English as second language (TESOL) or about Linguistics even though it is what she needed to fulfill; what she really enjoyed is something more inspiring.
During the first five years when she worked in the faculty, she was involved in a project of designing materials for online English courses which, she said, were not as big and significant as this design project. After that, she went to Belgium to pursue
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her Master’s degree in education management, which she thought fit well her interest.
Thu was not much affected by her family life. Most of the time she set her work as the first priority, and she considered herself to be responsible and work towards perfection; those qualities had formed when she learned with the community of teachers and peers in the university. With regard to learning and teaching English, she held a strong belief that the soul of a lesson was not the materials themselves, but the teacher who could make use of the given materials. For her, the teacher should be the resource for students, and which topics or tasks that teachers find really hard to deal with should not be chosen as challenges for students.
Thu was assigned to be the leader of Team 1 when she finished her master studies and backed to work. When she was assigned this position, the project had already run for one year in which several training sessions on curriculum development had been undertaken and that she had not been officially trained in this field. At that time, what she was given included some notes about backward design and uncompleted materials for two or three first lessons without any explanation. She admitted that she did not know what to do at the very beginning, but she insisted herself on being a captain who needed to be decisive and have an overview of the requested project.
Even though she seemed to be a single-minded leader who might force the team members to work in a certain direction, all of the team members, most of whom had been friends since university years and had an intimate relationship, worked well together. She felt happy and lucky to work with such colleagues. Additionally, while participating in this project, she attended several INSET trainings on writing course objectives and common European framework for reference as well as was involved in some other projects such as standardized test development in the university.
Thuan
Thuan graduated from an English Faculty in 2007 and took a position in an export- import company. After working there for several months, she applied for a post of English teacher in the Faculty where she had studied. She said that she did not want
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to sacrifice her personalities, transparency, and time with her family for a job even though it was a highly-paid job as compared to teaching job.
Thuan taught English language skills to first-year English majored students in Division A during the time she worked there. Since the curriculum innovation, she has taught English for Academic Purposes, not any other courses. Sometimes she intended to try something new, but it was not as good as she expected. Nonetheless, she admitted that she was passionate about her professional development; one reason was that she always desired to explore new things, and the other reason was for the vision of the university where she had been working. After working in the university for several years and finishing her master studies, she along with all of the other teachers were encouraged to teach both English language skills and content-based courses in English. At that time she was so excited; she gave her a try, but then she realized that teaching content-based courses did not suit her. Teaching content-based courses was not her strength. She also shared that at the very first time of her teaching career, she developed her teaching methods, focusing on how to draw students’
interests; however, after a period of time she realized that drawing students’ interests was not all that a teacher should try to develop. Moreover, Thuan was the one who was involved in the very first meetings related to the curriculum innovation in the Faculty. She had a chance to learn with the invited expert about curriculum design.
Huong
Huong has been working in Division A for nine years since she graduated. She said that her parents did not know much English and did use this language in their daily life. Meanwhile, she showed great interest in English when she was in early years of primary school and took part in many provincial and national competitions for English gifted students. She wanted to be an English teacher when she was young;
that was why she enrolled in this Faculty after graduating from university. Huong described herself as responsible and meticulous in her work and prides herself on that.
She mentioned teaching actions (i.e. lesson planning, assignment marking, and test
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designing) as evidence of her traits. For example, she always tries to cover all the main contents of a lesson as specified in the weekly schedule and makes sure that nothing important is left out. She feels really attached to her working place for its vigor, integrity and professionalism. She loves working with her colleagues and feels lucky to have them accompany in her job for their kindness, moral, and expertise.
She participated in the design project when she had been working in the university for four years. Huong was randomly put in the team in charge of 1B and 2B courses.
She confessed that she knew little about course designing at that time and that being in whichever team would not make any difference. Noticeably, she obtained Master’s degree before the project started, and she learned about different approaches to syllabus design in that program. As she said, however, she was not much interested in the courses about teaching methodology and did not remember much about those approaches. She admitted that she was involved in compiling materials for another course before this project; however, her partner was so arbitrary that she could reject what Huong had done without any justification. That was the reason why she learned nothing from that process and found herself unimportant. Huong seemed to be happier in this project since she was involved in more steps; although she was not the one who made final decisions, she had opportunities to work with a team and was supported when encountering challenges.
Xuan
Xuan graduated from the university specialized in languages and started her teaching career in its Division A in 2009. From 2009 to 2012, she taught all four skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing). She said she liked teaching English skills, and she also liked to explore teacher training, material development, test validation, and teacher cognition, based on which she might know why teachers did what they did in classroom. She participated in a very short time in the project of course design in 2012 before she went abroad for her Master’s studies. She came back after her Master’s studies in 2014 and was involved in Team 1; even she was assigned
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to take over the leader position. Since then she taught English for Academic Purposes Courses. At that time, she was so worried because she had not been in such a position before and she had little experience in curriculum development. What she did as a team leader was to review the courses materials, design tests, and prepare reports about the courses. Xuan was happy to be working in a friendly and supportive community. As a leader, she usually worked with Thu (the former leader of the team) and with Anh (the leader of English for Social Purposes team), especially for preparing and piloting tests. They needed to make sure that tests in English for Academic Purposes Courses and those in English for Social Purposes Courses were not overlapped.
Bach
Bach is fond of talking about what he likes, English language learning and teaching, music, movies, sport, and social issues. He loves teaching and spends most of his time teaching as well as thinking about how to teach. He loves working independently instead of depending on other people. He is decisive and straight even though many of his opinions are different from the others’.
He graduated from and started his teaching career in Division A in 2010. He held a Master’s degree after finishing two years’ studies in 2017. When he first started his career, he was interested in developing his teaching skills in order to make his lessons effective. After getting familiar with the working conditions, he became interested in classroom management, rapport with learners and helped his students build up effective study skills. Besides, he also developed his interest in testing and assessment after attending the program of Mater’s studies.
When talking about factors that affected his working performance, he listed three factors: salary, working conditions, and pressure at work. He admitted that his salary in university was not high; he had to work extra time to afford his living. However, he felt quite okay with what he was having and the physical changes in his working conditions. He believed in a better future even though the changes did not happen
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right away. Bach defined pressure at work as combination of the amount of time he needed to spend on a task, the money he could receive by doing that task, and the conditions provided for him to do it. He admitted that sometimes he was not satisfied with what he was required to do; he thought those things were not very necessary to be done that way, but he still tried to fulfill.
Hong
As a school student, Hong was a serious student who learned industriously and took a number of contests for gifted students. That was the reason why she was quite confident about her English language competence. When studying in the university, she was also careful and serious about learning the relevant theories to her professional field. Hong appeared enthusiastic and friendly. She finished her under- graduate program in 2006 and received her Master’s degree in 2010. After graduating in 2006, she taught non-English-major students. During these years, she was provided with few opportunities for professional development. At that time she paid much attention to drawing students’ interests. After four years working there, she moved to the English Faculty. At that time, she was assigned to teach English for Research Purpose in which teachers’ main task is to comment on students’ research proposal, questionnaire as a data collection tool, and report writing. Around 2013 she started teaching four language skills (Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing) to English- majored students. She was asked to involve in designing the 3B course by the first team leader who had been her former manager before moving to the English Faculty.
She had not experienced any projects like this before and just did what was told at the beginning. Moreover, she was not much attentive at first as her husband went bankrupt. After about one year working as a 3B team member, she was assigned to substitute the first leader as that leader was promoted to an important position in the Faculty.
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Duong has been a teacher of Division B since 2010. She was a member of Team 2.
Duong looked reserved but had been a successful language learner who was known for her outstanding achievements. She studied in a provincial high school for gifted students and got the third prize in the National English Examination for Gifted-high- school Students. When studying in the university, she was known as an industrious student who was excellent at remembering and using a wide range of vocabulary, and she was recognized as the valedictorian in the graduation celebration. However, she was not much interested in doing research. Duong has taught English-majored students since she graduated in 2010 and been in charge of all four language skills.
Duong had not worked collaboratively with Hong in any projects before, and she did not participate in the design task from the very beginning. Hong, when becoming the leader of Team 2, asked Duong to contribute to the revision of the course because Duong already taught the course and she had been famous for her large vocabulary repertoire.
Diem
Diem graduated from and became a teacher in an English Faculty in 2010. She is currently studying for a Master’s degree of teaching theories and methodologies in English. She thought the knowledge she gained in this course is quite interesting and rewarding, though not too new. She admitted that such knowledge had been covered in her undergraduate teacher education program at university; however, what she learned from this program helps her to be more confident in conducting a small-scale study to improve teaching and learning.
During the last 5 years she has experiencing teaching different types of courses. When she started her career, she taught four language skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing). However, when the courses were divided into EAP and ESoP, she taught EAP. When the course was revised, she belonged to Team 2. She loves teaching English as it can bring practical benefits for her students: not only
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background knowledge but also language skills. The teaching job also benefits her as she can gain a lot of experience which she can employ for her job at extra classes.
She does not like to teach something purely theoretical, which can fear the learners.
She shared that the working environment was generally positive: students were well- educated, the facilities had been improved, and her relationship with colleagues and leaders was relatively good. The problem she encountered was that the salary was low; it was not enough to cover her needs. She had to work more outside the university, leading to her less time and effort to invest in the quality of her lessons in the university.
Hue
Hue started her career as an English language teacher in an English Faculty when she graduated from the university in 2007. She was assigned to teach a group of students from remote mountainous areas; those students had low level of English language skills and were not arranged in the same classes with mainstream students. She heard that the Faculty Board underestimated her competences, hence assigning her to teach those students. She felt very bad about that and cried a lot. Then she had a high motive for studying abroad to obtain a Master’s degree so that she could strengthen her competences as well as prove that she was not as bad as evaluated. She successfully applied for a scholarship to study in Australia for one year, and then she came back to work in the Faculty. After coming back from Australia, she was involved in Academic Development Group led by Ms. Phuong. The Group was in charge of such courses as Introduction to Research Methodology, Introduction to Critical Thinking Skills, and College Success. When she was involved in this Group, College Success was being developed, and she had major contribution to this course. Simultaneously, she was offered by a big educational institute to write up a book for exam preparation.
Then she was promoted to be the leader of Academic Development Group when Ms.
Phuong went abroad for her Ph.D. studies. In 2012, Hue was selected to attend a training course on how to align test with CEFR in Australia. After she came back
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from the training course, she was assigned to be the leader of Team 3. She perceived herself as a quick learner, and she had strong desire to learn new things.
Thanh
Thanh graduated from the university in 2010. From 2010 to 2015 she taught English as a second language in an English Faculty. She also got the chance to teach Introduction to Critical Thinking Skills to third-year students these years. When she started her teaching career, she did not get to know her leaders quite well and they did not have a much impression of her, either. She tended to keep things to herself so there was not much gossiping. Then when time passed by, she was assigned with different tasks in the Division and she was also the Union leader for several years.
More encounters with the other colleagues gave her the chance to get on better terms with them. From 2015 to 2017, she attended New York University to study a completely different major: Social and Cultural Analysis. She decided to change her major because she had no interest in TESOL or Linguistics. She wanted to study something which was more related to humanity and gave her chance to grow.
She was singled out by the team leader, Hue, in 2014. They used to work together in previous projects, so they were familiar with one another’s working styles. Moreover, she had had a lot of experience in teaching for TOELF exams, which could be useful for the design project. Thanh accepted Hue’s offer as she thought that every member of the Division must have been involved in a team and that it would have been better to work with someone that she got familiar with. She was assigned to lead the Listening-Speaking sub-team and mostly shared the work with Huan whereas the team leader directly worked with Kim on Reading and Writing. As requested, she had to accomplish the weekly materials to be used for the double-degree program before they were refined for the mainstream program. While she was participating in this design project, she was being the Union leader, teaching many courses for TOEFL exams at an English center, and preparing for her scholarship application.
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