Speaker
Description
This study aims to investigate the international lecturers’ experiences including their difficulties and strategies to accommodate their teaching in the Confucian culture. Qualitative data was elicited from individual interviews with ten international lecturers, both native and non-native English speakers, at five universities in the North of Vietnam.
Results disclosed international lecturers’ obstacles in engaging students during lessons. No matter how long they had been teaching in Vietnam, they all struggled with encouraging students to raise questions and actively take part in classroom activities. They admitted that the cultural differences in teaching and learning styles prevented them from adopting their preferred teaching methodology. The lecturers employed various strategies to enhance students' lesson comprehension, classroom interaction, and learning motivation such as humor, making questions, requiring students’ lesson preparation, and merging lessons with assessment preparations. However, they had to admit their moderate success in motivating students, making interactive lessons, and checking student’s understanding.
It is suggested that apart from language competence and academic expertise, foreign lecturers should enhance their cultural knowledge of the host countries to adapt their teaching to the local context.
