Áp dụng phương pháp học đảo ngược trong dạy và học Tiếng Anh ở Việt Nam: Lợi ích và thách thức

heir 
understanding. As a result, poor achievers may feel 
more confident to take part in class-time activities 
due to their prior exposure to the learning materials. 
For example, if some students are weak at listening 
skill, they will feel worried and unready when being 
asked to join the speaking activities immediately 
after watching the video in class. However, flipped 
learning will give them the chance to access and have 
multiple-watching of the learning videos, which will 
eventually help them perform better and enhance 
their confidence in class. Even in cases when some 
students still feel unclear after attending the lesson, 
they can always go back to the videos for further 
understanding (Hung, 2014). This is a plus point of 
flipped learning to assist struggling students because 
if these activities are carried out in the traditional 
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v PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY
classroom, there is little possibility of students 
watching it again and again due to time limitation. 
Turning to high-performers, there are chances of 
leadership roles in collaborative activities, as well as 
a variety of higher-order thinking activities to join 
which can develop their academic potentials. In 
addition, more class-time devoted to all individuals 
also means that high achievers’ desire to foster deeper 
learning can be satisfied. While these priorities may 
not be achieved in a conventional classroom, the use 
of flipped learning in this case could bring benefits 
to the deep learners (Hung, 2014). What is more, 
in exceptional circumstances such as conflicting 
schedules, the exploitation of flipped learning can 
mitigate the worries of missing the lesson content 
(Bergmann & Sams, 2012). 
3.3. Flipped learning helps narrow the teacher-
student power relation
If the teacher is seen as the sole authority in a 
conventional classroom and students are expected to 
do what they are told, the flipped classroom shifts the 
focus of the learning process to the students (Hamdan 
et al., 2013; Honeycutt & Garrett, 2014). In this 
learning approach, students take the responsibility 
for their learning process and reposition themselves 
as key stakeholders. If, in a traditional classroom, the 
teacher is often seen to stand on the stage to give 
lectures and students are observed to sit in rows 
and take notes of the lesson, a more collaborative 
image is attached to flipped learning. In this learning 
approach, students work in vibrant group discussions 
in class time while the teacher walks around and 
offers help where necessary (Hamdan et al., 2013; 
Hung, 2014; Webb et al., 2014). Similarly, students join 
cooperative projects outside class time to accomplish 
the assigned tasks where they develop their ability 
to cooperate with other group members, to reflect 
on, and evaluate the work they have done (Hamdan 
et al., 2013). This image has illustrated the changing 
pattern in teacher-student power distance compared 
to traditional methods. 
4. CHALLENGES OF APPLYING FLIPPED LEARNING 
IN THE VIETNAMESE EFL TERTIARY CONTEXT AND 
RECOMMENDATIONS 
Besides the substantial benefits that flipped learning 
is expected to bring to the Vietnamese EFL tertiary 
classrooms, several challenges may remain, which poses 
the question of how to implement flipped learning in 
the most effective way in our Vietnamese EFL context. 
4.1. Teachers and students’ perceptions towards 
their role in the classroom
The first challenge lies in the Vietnamese EFL teachers 
and students’ perceptions towards their role in the 
classroom. Many of the EFL teachers may not be ready 
for the change in classroom power where students are 
the ones to take charge. In addition, there is a fear of 
riskiness when classroom activities are sometimes out 
of the teacher’s control (Honeycutt & Garrett, 2014). 
This could be the case when a flipped classroom may 
look “messy” when students are discussing vibrantly 
in pairs or groups to solve a problem rather than 
sitting passively in class (Honeycutt & Garrett, 2014, 
p.13). Regarding students, as they have been used to 
learning in the traditional methods for a long time, 
some of them may be unaware of the role they can 
play in the modern classroom. 
4.2. Extra efforts from the teachers 
The second challenge is that opting for flipped 
learning also means more efforts from the teachers 
to deal with new technology and design new lesson 
formats. For one thing, teachers have to update 
themselves with innovative technological tools 
for the new lesson designs, which requires further 
training (Webb et al., 2014). For another thing, 
creating instructional videos might take more time 
than design traditional learning materials (Webb 
et al., 2014). For example, non-flipped teachers 
may merely have to make changes to one or two 
PowerPoint slides if mistakes are detected but flipped 
teachers may have to record the whole video again, 
which is clearly time and energy consuming (Roehl, 
Reddy, & Shannon, 2013, as cited in Webb et al., 2014). 
4.3. Recommendations 
The above-mentioned challenges have raised 
substantial issues to be tackled so that the application 
of flipped learning in the Vietnamese EFL context can 
yield initial progress. Some of the recommendations 
to mitigate those issues are discussed forthcoming. 
First of all, there should be a change in teachers’ 
mindset towards the new role of the students in 
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the classroom. What is more, teachers should not 
merely think about making changes, but they should 
take prompt actions to make the change come true 
(Honeycutt & Garrett, 2014). The changing process 
should take place in various forms such as in the 
lesson planning stage, in the procedures of in-class 
and out-of-class activities as well as be manifested 
in the assessment stages. Teachers should create 
favorable conditions for students to be exposed to 
the new learning methods by means of scaffolding. 
Students should be given the power to control their 
own learning gradually but firmly. This change in 
perspectives is crucial in creating initial successful 
flipping experience for the language class. 
Furthermore, to make flipped lessons a successful 
experience for both the teachers and students, 
instructional videos and other learning materials 
should be well-planned, and made ready at the start 
of the semester (Webb et al., 2014). This can help 
teachers avoid excessive workload and tension during 
the implementation of flipped learning and ensure the 
good quality of the learning materials as well as foster 
students’ positive response towards the approach.
Participating in training workshops on the 
implementation of this learning approach can also 
keep teachers up-to-date with the new technological 
tools that could be applied for their language class. 
In addition, joining research conferences where 
teachers can share their own experience of using 
innovative teaching methods and learn from others 
is another helpful way to help them dig deeper into 
this learning approach and implement it successfully 
in their own classroom practices. Such professional 
development activities are useful for all language 
teachers who want more learning and sharing for the 
improvement of their teaching techniques as well as 
for the successful implementations of new lessons. 
5. CONCLUSION 
The aforementioned discussion has led us to a belief 
that flipped learning could be a promising approach in 
the Vietnamese EFL context. To make flipped learning 
a reality in Vietnamese EFL classrooms, there should be 
a transition period for teachers and students to adopt 
this approach. The adjustment period is necessary for 
teachers’ exposure to this new teaching method as well 
as to allow time for teachers and students to rearrange 
routine classroom practices. As a result, carrying out 
experimental flipped learning to evaluate its strengths 
and drawbacks in our EFL context is a good way to get 
started with this approach. 
In addition, more empirical studies are needed to 
investigate the use of this approach in the Vietnamese 
EFL context as well as offer elaborate guidelines on 
how to successfully implement a flipped EFL class 
in the Vietnamese setting. All things considered, 
embracing flipped learning by fitting it into our 
own context is a good way to help Vietnamese EFL 
teachers make initial progress while applying this 
new teaching model./. 
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