In Vietnam, the history of the English language and English education has a direct bearing on politics, economy and social affairs (Wright, Reference Wright and Tollefson2002), and is particularly tied up with the reform policy known as Doi Moi, which was adopted by the sixth National Congress of the Communist Party in 1986. Doi Moi has brought about huge achievements in terms of gross domestic product growth and foreign direct investment attraction (Thanh & Duong, Reference Thanh and Duong2009). These achievements have had a profound impact on the development of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Vietnam.

Since Doi Moi came into existence in 1986, the demand for English has been rapidly growing in Vietnam (Huan, Reference Huan2014). English has become a fever gripping the nation and millions of Vietnamese people have studied English for different reasons, such as to expand overseas study options, to look for well-paid jobs and to enhance job promotion prospects (Thinh, Reference Thinh2006; Canh, Reference Canh, Choi and Spolsky2007). In addition, World Trade Organization membership in 2006 has increased the importance of English to both the Vietnamese government and people. A decree issued in 1994 by the Vietnamese Prime Minister requires every government worker to reach an intermediate level of English proficiency (Huong & Hiep, Reference Huong and Hiep2010), and by 2020 most Vietnamese students and workers are expected to be able to use a foreign language, especially English, appropriately in their study, daily communication, and work (Ministry of Education and Training, 2009).

English is being studied at kindergartens, primary and high schools, colleges and universities, and foreign language centres throughout Vietnam. Vang (Reference Vang, Kam and Wong2004) reported that 98% of Vietnamese students at all school levels were learning English. Furthermore, 67% of junior high school students and 86% of senior high school students in Vietnam had more than three hours of English study per week (Ministry of Education and Training, 2006), and 90% of tertiary students in Vietnam, regardless of their majors, chose to study English out of the many foreign languages on offer, such as Japanese, Korean, French and Chinese (Canh, Reference Canh, Choi and Spolsky2007). Vietnamese university students of non-English majors are required to study English for 200 hours over four years (Huong & Hiep, Reference Huong and Hiep2010).

In order to satisfy a range of learning needs, different English courses and training programs have been developed in recent years, and nearly a thousand foreign language centres and schools have been established throughout Vietnam (Thinh, Reference Thinh2006). However, the quality of English education at all levels in Vietnam is still low, and does not meet the country's ambitious socio-economic development demands (Vu & Burns, Reference Vu and Burns2014). Despite the increasingly important role of English in Vietnam, most of its usage thus far has been confined to the classroom (Huong & Hiep, Reference Huong and Hiep2010). Vietnamese learners of EFL quite naturally have few opportunities to use English outside the classroom unless they are in special jobs or situations where they have opportunities to communicate with English speakers (Canh, Reference Canh, Choi and Spolsky2007; Nhan & Lai, Reference Nhan and Lai2012c, Reference Nhan and Lai2013).

Vietnam has not yet formulated a national policy on the medium of instruction in foreign language education (Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2013). Therefore, Vietnamese teachers or instructors and learners can use both English and Vietnamese in their English classes, and code-switching (CS) between English and Vietnamese is unquestionably popular in these contexts (Canh, Reference Canh, Barnard and McLellan2014). Research on CS in the EFL context of Vietnam shows that classroom CS is not detrimental to general English teaching and learning, but a useful and important resource for both Vietnamese learners and instructors (Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2013). English-Vietnamese CS has gained considerable support from both Vietnamese EFL teachers and students, and has been used as a classroom aid to enhance English language acquisition, save time in giving instruction, explain vocabulary and grammar, compare and contrast the two languages, check comprehension, give feedback, create a friendly atmosphere of the class and support student-group dynamics (Hien, Reference Hien2012; Nhan & Lai, Reference Nhan and Lai2012a).

In terms of English language teaching (ELT) methodology, many Vietnamese teachers of English claim that they have used Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in their classrooms (Le, Reference Le2011). However, it is unclear how thoroughly this method has been applied in reality, as there is a mismatch between CLT tenets and traditional Vietnamese classroom cultures. For example, CLT principles such as ‘calling for learner involvement, allowing learners' choice, changing teachers' and students' roles, and breaking down hierarchic barriers in the classroom’ (Larsen-Freeman, Reference Larsen-Freeman, Shaw, Lubeska and Noullet2000: 66) challenge basic Vietnamese socio-cultural and educational values.

The transfer of CLT from Western contexts to Vietnam has encountered constraints such as traditional teaching and learning for examinations, conventional beliefs about teacher and student roles, learners' low levels of motivation, autonomy and competence, and teachers' limited expertise. High-school Vietnamese EFL teachers mainly prepare their students with the linguistic knowledge to deal with the national secondary education examination, which is grammar-based, and most Vietnamese students learn English also for that instrumental purpose, i.e. to pass examinations rather than to communicate (Loi, Reference Loi2011). The formal classroom in Vietnam is described as a cultural island (Canh, Reference Canh, Shaw, Lubeska and Noullet2000) where the power distance or the hierarchic relationship between teachers-as-superiors and students-as-inferiors is very distinctive (Nhan & Lai, Reference Nhan and Lai2012b, Reference Nhan and Lai2012c). In addition, Vietnamese teachers are supposed to be both mentors and masters of knowledge in the classroom, and they are responsible for guiding their students in not only academic matters but also moral behaviours (Hiep, Reference Hiep2005).

In terms of Vietnamese EFL teachers' expertise, Canh (Reference Canh2002: 33) has proposed that Vietnamese EFL teachers ‘are generally incapable of teaching English communicatively in their real-world classrooms.’ While this may be a somewhat overstated claim, it is certainly open to question whether Vietnamese teachers of English are ‘ready for such a radical change from more traditional methods and approaches' (Barnard & Viet, Reference Barnard and Viet2010: 78). Bock (Reference Bock2000) suggests that Vietnam should conduct its own studies on the effectiveness of CLT in its own contexts before embarking on a widespread adoption. In agreement with Bock's suggestion, Hiep (Reference Hiep2000: 23) argues that ‘modern teaching methods should be applied with a close and careful consideration of the cultural values of Vietnam.’

My English-language-teaching experience shows that the large number of students in EFL classrooms in Vietnam and their mixed-levels of English proficiency exert a strong influence on teachers' ELT methodology. For instance, many Vietnamese teachers in crowded English classrooms of 80 students in Hue University reported using only one teaching method of traditional lecturing (Dung & Anh, Reference Dung and Anh2010). As concluded by Tran (Reference Tran2014), the traditional lecture-based teaching is still the most prevalent instructional approach in the context of Vietnamese higher education. However, there has been a considerable change towards more student-centred approaches in Vietnamese schools, and Cooperative Learning (CL) has been recently used (Tran & Lewis, Reference Tran and Lewis2012). According to Gömleksiz (Reference Gömleksiz2007: 616), CL that generally means ‘students working together to achieve the objectives and the instructional procedure that structure the students' collaborative efforts' has been successfully implemented in many ELT contexts. In large and mixed-ability university classes in Vietnam, some CL techniques such as Learning Together (Tran, Reference Tran2014) and Jigsaw (Tran & Lewis, Reference Tran and Lewis2012) have been claimed as more effective than transmission teaching lectures. There is a reasonable prospect that English will continue playing its role as the most important foreign language in Vietnam, and that the adoption of English will extend beyond the language classroom context to cover more and more areas. ELT in Vietnam will address the issue of teacher development, create a better understanding of how learning takes place, and encourage more student-centred activities.