teachers grasped the spirit of the reform of pedagogy as a means to promote
active participation by students in learning, and that teachers were actively
using information and communication technology (ICT ) to make lesson plans,
thus exploiting the available equipment for teaching and learning (Ministry of
Education and Training, 2009, p. 40). This report also noted, however, that there
were a number of shortcomings in pedagogy reforms at schools, especially in
the area of civic education. In particular, the report found that textbooks were
used inappropriately in civics classes. The report further noted that ‘innovative
pedagogy’ was incorrectly understood by teachers to mean using ICT in
lessons. Furthermore, the report noted that many teachers were not paying
attention to the curriculum but were often dependent on textbooks, and
usually tried to cover all the content of the textbooks in their lessons. Thus, the
main objectives of the lessons were not being fully addressed. Importantly,
the method of ‘the teacher dictates; students copy’ was common in many
schools (Ministry of Education and Training, 2009, pp. 46–47).
Description of the study
Research questions
Given the above context, the present research focuses on addressing two
key questions:
- What is the dominant current pedagogical approach being used in schools
in Viet Nam (as of 2013/14)? What are the challenges in adopting improved
pedagogical practices? - What does ‘innovative pedagogical practice’ look like? What supports the
promotion of innovative pedagogical practices?
Research Methods
The data for this study were collected using a questionnaire, in-depth
interviews, focus group discussions (FGD) and a lesson observation (including
making a video-recording of the lesson to enable deeper analysis). The data
collection was carried out in October and November 2013.
The questionnaire was emailed to 120 teachers at 16 lower secondary
schools in 11 districts of Quang Ninh Province. The schools were selected by
the district bureaus of education and training (BOET ). These schools were of
differing sizes and situated in a range of geographical locations, including
urban, rural and remote areas. Two of the schools were boarding schools for
ethnic minority students.