1. Full name: Nguyen Thi Chi

2. Sex: Female

3. Date of birth: 12th February 1988

4. Place of birth: Nam Dinh

5. Admission decision number: 2331/QĐ-ĐHNN Dated: 23/ 12/ 2016

6. Changes in academic process: no changes

7. Official thesis title: Exploring teacher learning through their involvement in course design: A case study

8. Major: English Language Teaching Methodology

9. Code: 9140231.01

10. Supervisor: Associate Professor LE Van Canh

11. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:

It is evident from the data of the study that course design is a meaningful activity for teacher professional development. Participating in this activity, teachers have opportunities to explore many issues related to curriculum development. For example, in order to conceptualize the contents of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course, the involved teachers need to do research on the components as well as the focus of EAP in theories and the application of EAP in reality. This step is useful for teachers to develop appropriate teaching materials. Moreover, material development does not simply mean compiling the exercises from different resources. In order to develop effective materials, the teachers need to learn the principles of materials development as well as analyze the influential factors in their context. Testing and assessment is also a complex area that is needed to explore so that the assessment quality can be assured. Importantly, unlike course design at classroom level where the teachers mostly work on their own, interact with their students, and may ask for their colleagues’ ideas, designing a course for the whole faculty’s use as in this study the involved teachers had to interact with the community of the classroom teachers. This scenario might force the teachers to consider different classroom images; in other words, they might have an opportunity to learn about condition analysis and need analysis on a larger scale. These examples indicate that the teachers are likely to learn a lot of theoretical knowledge and skills when they take proper actions during their participation. However, like the other professional activity, course design as a professional development activity cannot be effective to all of the teachers involved. The quality of the activity is affected by many conditional factors which are interactional; it means that two or more factors interacts in different ways may exert a divergent influence on what and how the teachers learn. It was evident from the present study that all of the teachers could access the published EAP textbooks as a mediational artifact; nonetheless, the way the teachers explored this artifact depended on their motive and the allotted time. Specifically, the teachers in Team 1 (including Thu and Thuan) did not intend to learn about the nature of EAP; they just wanted to have a core material for the upcoming semester, and they did not have time to wait for more EAP books to be imported. Meanwhile, Hong and Hue made an attempt to understand what it meant by EAP and what should be supplied for students’ future benefits. This motive drove the teachers to act in a different way: while the teacher in Team 1 evaluated the available EAP textbooks with a list of criteria and selected one as the core book, Hong and Hue analyzed the contents of various EAP textbooks to find out the similarities and differences between them and then selected the contents suitable with the defined objectives and the learning context.

12. Practical applicability, if any:

12.1. Implications for teacher participants

The study provides substantial evidence that it is necessary to raise the teachers’ awareness of incidental learning opportunities and of how to make use of those opportunities. All of the participants of the study claimed that they could learn via their involvement in course design. Nonetheless, whenever there was a need of theoretical support or further self-reading most of the teachers believed in collective knowledge of the community and/ or their own experiential knowledge. That the teachers act in this way can limit the potential knowledge they may gain from the activity. Equally importantly, it is recommended that the teachers be aware of the relationship between theoretical knowledge and their experiential knowledge. It seems understandable in Vietnam that the teachers do not have theoretical foundation in the area like curriculum development to reflect the gap between theories from research and teachers’ experience because much of theoretical knowledge provided is of teaching techniques. However, evidence from the study shows that without theories from research, the teachers might not be sure whether their practices are in the right track or they might not know where to start when a tension comes. Therefore, teachers should be encouraged to access professional journals when they need to seek resolution to any tension. Selecting materials for further reading is also a vital issue, which some of the teachers cannot address on their own. In this case, the teachers should be provided with opportunities to articulate their practices as well as their reasons for those practices to accessible experts who can give relevant reading topics to them.

12.2. Implications for professional development design

One significant finding from the present study is that although course design just created incidental learning opportunities for the involved teachers, they could learn certain professional knowledge and skills. It means that incidental learning at workplace should be made full use of for the sake of teacher learning. Another significant finding from the present study is whether course design is an effective professional development activity depends on the interaction of many related factors, for example, the participants’ motives, the history of the participants and of the activity itself, the activity structure, and the mediational tools provided and used during the process. Evidence from the study is indicative of the idea about tool-mediated and goal-oriented activity in socio-cultural theories (e.g. Vygotsky, 1978; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998).

Therefore, in order to promote teacher learning in any form of professional development, it is necessary to create one or more meaningful object for the participants. Noticeably, teachers may not have meaningful objects at the time they are involved in a professional activity for many reasons, but a meaningful object might emerge during their participation process. What the authorities need to do is to pay attention to the whole process, instead of just starting the activity, so that they can provide appropriate and adequate mediational means in time. In Vietnam, the mediational means are more related to teaching while different professional activities may need different types of mediation. Evidence from the study shows that theoretical knowledge of language learning and acquisition, material development, testing and assessment can be essential mediational artifacts for the teachers’ professional growth; meanwhile, it did not receive adequate concern from the authorities.

Division of labor also has a considerable influence on the activity operation (e.g., how much the participants involve in the activity and/ or their attitudes towards their own roles). As a result, along with the preparation and organization of a professional development activity, monitoring the power relationship between members or exercising appropriate leadership is also important for teachers’ growth. Moreover, in order to support an individual’s learning of theoretical knowledge, an activity monitor is of critical importance. This monitor can play a role of linking the theoretical input with the experiments of the input. Evidently, in this study, the teachers were provided with certain theoretical input such as knowledge of backward design and knowledge of test development. Nonetheless, how to make use of such knowledge depended on individual teachers’ interpretation and practices. No one could be accessible to help them recognize the compatibility between the input and their trials or evaluate their trials’ results upon the theoretical foundation.

13. Further research directions, if any:

The first recommendation is how to enhance the credibility of the study. According to Patton (1999), theory/perspective triangulation is also a strategy to ensure the credibility of a research. Therefore, in order to address the limitation of this study in terms of data collection, the data can be analyzed under the other frameworks in socio-cultural theories. By doing so, the researcher can also confirm the consistency of the findings.

The second recommendation is in relation to professional development research in Vietnam. In order to understand the overall picture of teacher professional development in this country, research on incidental learning (through involvement in course design as well as other professional activities) is suggested to be conducted in various universities. The findings from those studies can provide a comprehensive understanding of professional development in different contexts, which is useful for developing an appropriate model of teacher professional development for Vietnamese EFL teachers at university level.

The last recommendation can be about using activity theory in designing and researching professional development activities. Evidently, through the lens of activity theory it is revealed whether or not the subjects have well-defined objects, whether the more meaningful objectives emerge during their participation process, and in what ways those objectives can emerge. Such discoveries may help the designers of professional development activities predict the activity results and/ or provide more relevant mediation tools for better results. Moreover, using activity theory as an analytical or design framework also help the designers to see the interaction among different factors that may affect teachers’ professional learning.

14. Thesis-related publications:

Nguyen, T.C. (2017). Sociocultural theory in practice: Implications for teacher professional development. Proceedings of Graduate Research Symposium (pp.63-70). Hanoi: VNU Press.

Nguyen, T.C. (2018). Course design as a professional development activity: A case study in a university. Proceedings of International Graduate Research Symposium: Linguistics – Foreign Language Education Interdisciplinary fields (pp.84-98). Hanoi: VNU Press.

Nguyen, T.C. (2019). Understanding challenges of teachers-as-course-developers through the lens of activity theory. Proceedings of International Graduate Research Symposium: Linguistics – Foreign Language Education Interdisciplinary fields (pp.150-161). Hanoi: VNU Press.