Efl teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding learner autonomy at Dong thap university, Vietnam

Hue University Journal of Social Science and Humanities
ISSN 2588-1213
 Vol. 127, No. 6B, 2018, Tr. 05-17; https://doi.org/10.26459/hueuni-jssh.v127i6B.4531 
* Corresponding: ltnanh@dthu.edu.vn 
Submitted: 27-09-2017; Revised: 26-03-2018; Acceptted: 06-04-2018. 
EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES 
REGARDING LEARNER AUTONOMY AT DONG THAP 
UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM 
Le Thanh Nguyet Anh* 
College of Foreign Languages, Hue University 
57 Nguyen Khoa Chiem, Hue City, Vietnam 
Abstract. Learner autonomy is currently one of the central themes in language education. Autonomous 
learning plays an important role not only in university life but also throughout the life of learners. Explor-
ing teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding learner autonomy (LA) is necessary, especially in the 
local contexts, to provide more insights intothe field. The present study was conducted with 20 English-as-
a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers at Dong Thap University, Vietnam through interviews. The findings 
showed that the teachers had positive understandingsof the related aspects and levels of learner autono-
my. In practice, they made significant attempts to cultivate students’ autonomy. However, they faced cer-
tain common problems as shared by EFL teachers at other universities in Vietnam. On the basis of the 
findings a number of implications have been made. 
Keywords. learner autonomy, teacher, student, EFL, perception, practice. 
1. Introduction 
In the context of the informative technological development these days and the changing situa-
tion of English language teaching in the 21st century, autonomy is considered as a crucial goal in 
the teaching and learning process. Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET)of 
Vietnam has practiced the Law of Higher Education to promote the quality of the higher educa-
tive system approaching international standards in the 21stcentury. Up to 2017, MOET had tried 
to integrate and develop learner autonomy in the credit education system. A number of new 
policies regarding this matter have been issued. Article 40 of the Education Law of Vietnam 
(National Assembly of Vietnam, 2005) states the criteriaaboutthe contents and methods of edu-
cation in higher education where LA is animportant element: “Training methods in higher edu-
cation must be brought into play to foster the learners’ ability to be active learners, to study and 
to do research by themselves, and to foster their practical abilities, self-motivation, creative 
thinking, and ambition”(p.13).Hence, the teaching and learning method in higher education 
needs to be fulfilled with three major aims: (1) fostering students to learn, autonomously and 
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6 
activelyself-researching, (2) increasing their creative thinking andpractical abilities, and (3) cul-
tivating their self-motivation and ambition to achieve life-plans. Additionally, in the develop-
mental education policy in the 2011 – 2020 period, accompanying the Decision number 711/QD-
TTg, 13 June 2012 issued by the Prime Minister (Prime Minister of Vietnam, 2012), the Govern-
ment emphasized the need to innovate teaching methods and assessment, training students 
with the aim of developing their activeness, creativity, and learning autonomous ability. 
However, for limited reasons, traditional teaching and learning English, or the teacher-
centered method in the Mekong Delta is still found common, especially in local colleg-
es/universities where most freshmen are at a low academic level, even though educational re-
forms of the English subject in Vietnam have been carried out for over almost ten years. In the 
rapid technological information era these days, students can find knowledge by a click on the 
Internet. Hence, the teacher role should be changed so as to help students to foster their LA 
ability effectively. Like other countries on the globe, Vietnam has adopted a credit systemfor 
recent years. In this educational system, students are asked to rely more on themselves in learn-
ing rather than on their lecturers in classes. The question that appears here is how students are 
able to learn autonomously because they did not have the opportunity to develop this method 
during high school or have not beeninstructed to do it. Although a number of researchers have 
studied EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices towards learner autonomy in Western nations, 
Asian countries, including Vietnam (Borg, 2006; Borg & Al-Busaidi, 2012; Keuk &Heng, 2016; 
Haji-Othman & Wood, 2016; Tapinta, 2016; Alhaysony, 2016; Nguyen, 2016; Dogan &Mirici, 
2017) in recent years, their results have not been comprehensively generalised. Further research 
needs to be conductedregardingthis field in such rural areas as the Mekong Delta, South Viet-
nam, especially in Dong Thap University, where little research about LA among EFL teachers 
has been done and where most English majors have a low level of English proficiency (in com-
parison to that of their partners in other universities in the country). 
2. Literature review 
What is learner autonomy? 
For over three decades, many definitions of LA in language education have been set. 
Holec (1981:3) defines it as the “ability to take charge of one’s own learning”. Wenden (1991:15) 
states that autonomous learners are the ones who “have acquired the learning strategies, the 
knowledge about learning, and the attitudes that enable them to use these skills and knowledge 
confidently, flexibly, appropriately and independently of a teacher”. In the same vein, 
Littlewood (1999) believes thatLA should consist of the two characteristics: (1) Learners should 
have a duty to their learning process; (2) Learners have to design their learning objectives, find 
their learning styles and assess their learning process; and adds that autonomy is a popular 
kind of learning and can apply in any culture. Meanwhile, Nguyen (2014:21) claims that “learn-
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er autonomy is defined as learner’s willingness, and ability to take responsibility, plan, imple-
ment, monitor and evaluate his/her learning with tasks that are constructed in negotiation with 
and support from the teacher”. Then, Alhaysony (2016:46) makes a list of different definitions of 
LA defined by many language researchers and concludes that most of them focus on 
learners’ability, capacity, responsibility, control, demonstration, attitude, willingness, and mode 
of learning. 
Hence, present definitions of LA are not unanimously shared by researchers around the 
world, probably because LA is a multi-dimensional construct. It, yet, unanimously consists of 
(1) the learner’s perception, awareness of his/her learning responsibility at the base line level; 
and at the higher level (2) ability, strategies, willingness to make plans and perform actions of 
learning with and without the instructor assistance. 
Previous studies on teachers’ LA perceptions and practices 
Leaner autonomy is a complex construct, and teachers’ perception, i.e., what teachers be-
lieve (Borg, 2006); is, by all means, crucialin teaching practice. Also, it straightly influences their 
designing and conducting classroom activities. Thus, a large number of studies have been done 
to exclusively investigate what EFL teachers perceive and how they approach to develop LA in 
their specific contexts. The following is some of them. 
Borg and Al-Busaidi (2012) carry out a study by using questionnaires and interviews in 
Oman in which 61 EFL teachers responded to questionnaires and 20 participated in the inter-
view. The findings showed that teachers had positive perceptions towards the notion of LA and 
its advantages for language students; however, these researchers found that teachers’ thought 
of enhancing students’ role to decide their learning (i.e. objectives, assessment and materials) 
had a distance with their practices. Besides, Dogan and Mirici (2017) conduct a study with 96 
EFL instructors in nine Turkish universities to explore those teachers’ perceptions and practices 
regarding LA by means of questionnaires and interviews. The results reflected the teachers’ 
positive opinions on diverse aspects of LA. 
Additionally, several LA studieshave been conducted in Asia. Nguyen (2014), for example, 
explores LA at ten universities in Hanoi with 188 teachers answering questionnaire and 4 teach-
ers taking part in interview and observed lessons. The results indicated that overall teachers did 
not have full understandings of the concept and did not enhance LA due to many factors such 
as difficult conditions of their teaching settings, the courses. Specially, they did not know how 
to foster LA in classes. In the same line, Wang and Wang (2016) reported their study of 44 lan-
guage teachers regarding enhancing LA in a Chinese university through questionnaire, inter-
view, and held four workshops to explore EFL teachers’ LA cognition and practices. Their re-
search showed that the participants lacked a clear understanding of aspects of society and cul-
ture affecting LA and did not make students increase their perceptions of LA or instruct them to 
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evaluate their learning. The researchers, finally, suggest that language teachers’ perceptions 
regarding LA should be fostered. 
Similarly, Keuk and Heng (2016) carried out their research on70 Cambodian EFLteachers’ 
beliefs and practices through surveys, interviews, and workshops. Based on the findings, they 
highlight the need for developing LA in higher education in their country. Also, Haji-Othman 
and Wood (2016) claim the necessity to investigate EFL teachers’ beliefs in LA in the specific 
Brunei context. Questionnaires and workshops were used as two tools for them to explore this 
field. In addition, Tapinta (2016) conducts a study on Thai EFL teachers’perceptions of 
development of LA in the Thai university context. Her study revealed that the participants had 
a strong belief in developing LA. The teachers also recognized their role as facilitators in 
students’ learning process. Likewise, in the Philippine university context, when exploring and 
finding EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices on LA, Ranosa-Madrunio et al. (2016) state that 
their teachers understood the role of LA in learners’ learning process. Like other countries in 
Asia, they have some barriers in education and culture when applying LA in their teaching 
process, namely “prescribed curricula and instructional materials, departmental culture and 
policies, exam-based teaching and learning, class size, and lack of training regarding learner 
autonomy” (p.127). Furthermore, Nguyen (2016) investigates 84 English language teachers’ 
beliefs and practices in six universities in Vietnam. He also finds the same problems as previous 
researchers in LA. He indicates that teachers do not create chances for students to make choices 
and decisions in their own learning. 
In spite of a variety of studies investigating EFL teachers’ LA perceptions and practices, the 
obtained results are by no means invariant across the board at all aspects under investigation. 
Although they are mostly positive, EFL teachers from different contexts understand LA and get 
involved in developing it for EFL students at dissimilar levels. The present study revisits LA by 
exploringhow EFL teachers from Dong Thap University, a rural area in South Vietnam, think of 
LA values and what they are trying to do for its development at the current context. The 
researcher hopes to provide more evidence for the current field literature and open to practical 
instructions and further studies, at least at this university. 
3. Methods 
Research questions 
1. What do teachers perceive LA and its demonstrations by EFL students? 
2. What have teachers done to develop LA? 
3. What are the possible constraints they are facing? 
4. How do teachers report the effects of LA activities on their students? 
Participants 
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A total of 20 Vietnamese-speaking EFL teachers in the Foreign Language Education Faculty, 
(Dong Thap University in the Mekong Delta), voluntarily took part in the interview. There are 
six more EFL teachers in the Faculty, but for some personal reasons they refused to join the in-
terview. They were all MA holders, 13 females and seven males, aged from 23 to 50 years, cur-
rently teaching English major classes. Like their partners in other universities throughout Viet-
nam, most of them have so far taught several different subject courses (i.e. speaking, listening, 
reading, writing, grammar). It should be noted that by the time the current study was con-
ducted, none of them had attended any workshops or training programs exclusively on EFL 
students’ LA. 
Data collection instrument 
As a research instrument in a qualitative research, narrative interviews are considered as 
“unstructured tools, in-depth with specific features, which emerge from the life stories of both 
the respondent and cross-examined situational context” (Muylaert et al., 2014, p.185). The rea-
son for the narrative interview to be used is to help the researcher explore EFL teachers’ percep-
tions and practices about LA more effectively. Since the number of teachers (only 20) was too 
small to give reliable results, questionnaires were not suitable for this study. Interviewing ques-
tions were divided into three parts: (1) teachers’ perceptions on definitions of LA and the role of 
LA in learning language at higher education, (2) teachers’ reflection on their teaching practices 
regarding LA, (3) teachers’ assessment of students’ LA ability and teachers’ LA-oriented activi-
ties (see Appendix). It aimed to have EFL teachers tell what they thought about LA and what 
they conducted LA activities inside and outside the classroom. The information collected from 
the teachers’ stories helped to answer the fourresearch questions above. 
Procedure 
All 20 teachers took part in the face-to-face interview, individually, for about thirty minutes 
for each. For convenience and absolute understanding, the interview was administered in 
Vietnamese, and was all recorded by the researcher. Every participant was coded. For instance, 
teachers No.1, No.2 were coded as T1, T2. Every teacher’s recording was saved in a separate 
file. After the transcription finished, it was sent back to the participants, in both Vietnamese and 
English version for confirmation and checking. 
4. Findings and discussion 
What do teachers perceive LA andits demonstrations by EFL students? 
Each of the 20 EFL teachers interviewedexpressed their own standpoints, and most of them 
addressedtheir strong voices, clear perceptions of LA baseline and higher levels and positive 
attitudes towards the role of LA for EFL students. 
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T1 and T9 thought that LA is the students’ “ability”. T1 mentioned that EFL students had to 
“adjust their learning actively”, and master “the ways to learn autonomously, and self-
research”. Next, T2, T3, T4, T10, and T17 emphasized the EFL students’ “responsibility” for 
learning through setting up their clear learning goals, actively arranging their time, choosing a 
place such as the library to learn autonomously, buying books, asking their teachers about what 
they wonder, knowing the requirements of the English major as well as their learning program 
in four years. T5, T12, and T13 thought that EFL students having LA ability were those who: (1) 
actively search materials from websites, forums, their friends, and their teachers to support the 
knowledge that the teacher explained in class, (2) need to network or cooperate outside class to 
revise the knowledge they learned in classes and find new things. Furthermore, T17 mentioned 
two kinds of LA namely “proactive autonomy” and “reactive autonomy”, and said, “The first type 
comprises the students who absolutely learn autonomously. The second consists of the students who learn 
autonomously with teachers’ instructions. In other words, based on teachers’ plans, activities, and in-
structions, they are gradually aware of their LA ability. On this basis, they can design their learning 
goals and their own learning plan by themselves which are suitable for them”. 
Also, T6, T15, T18, T19, and T20 focused on the EFL students’ LA as “attitude”, “self-
consciousness”, and “ability” outside the classroom. According to T6, students had to prepare 
new lessons at home before going to class so that when they were in classes, teachers asked 
them questions and they could discuss the lessons in groups. Besides, when teachers gave their 
learning duty at home such as reading textbooks, studying materials, and doing homework, 
they had to complete them all. Next, T7 thought EFL students with LA ability had their own far 
vision of their learning as their “capacity”. In addition, T8 indicated that “EFL students with 
good LA ability do not need to go to classes as one period in class is fifty minutes and students 
practice English very little. Instead, they can actively listen to more English at home, practice 
speaking to their friends, and writing as well”. 
All the participants appreciated the extreme importance of the EFL students’ LA ability in 
learning a foreign language in the integrated time and technology era these days and in their 
job in the future. More specifically, T1 and T3 added that “after class, the students need to self-
research and self-discover knowledge to seek new things from what they have learnt in class”. 
Next, T2 and T16 talked about the limited time in class in the credit-education system and em-
phasized that if EFL students wanted to master the language skills, they had to allocate their 
time to practice inside or outside the classroom to use English fluently. Additionally, T4, T11, 
T13, and T14 expressed one more function of LA: “It also helps EFL students with lifelong learning 
spirit”, and learning is the people’s long-life activity. According to T5, T6, T7, T9, T12, T15, T17, 
T18, T19, and T20, the students’ LA practices brought them different experience that would 
mainly affect their jobs in the future because, first, they would know how to interact with their 
co-workers and others in society; second, LA fostered the problem-solving skills to deal with 
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the difficult situations they would meet in society in the future; third, LA might train them to 
have the leadership ability in small companies or the ability to work in groups or in pairs. 
Next, from different perspectives, T8 considered that LA played an important role for EFL 
students at Dong Thap University because their background of English was lower than their 
partners’ in other universities in Vietnam in general and in Mekong Delta in particular. Thus, he 
claimed that they needed to develop LA to keep up with their partners. Also, T10 said that EFL 
students had to learn more autonomously to make progress and their necessary skills such as 
critical thinking, and communication should be built. T16 thought that the EFL students’ LA 
would determine sixty percent of their success. 
What have teachers done to develop LA and what are the constraints they are facing? 
When asked to talk about the ways to instruct their students to practice LA activities, most 
teachers expressed that they used virtually the same methods (T1, T2, T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, T11, 
T12, T14, T15, T17, T18, T19, and T20). For example, at the beginning of a course, they designed 
their detailed teaching plans with LA accounting for 20% of the course marks. In addition, they 
gave homew