Language attitudes of vietnamese undergraduates towards english: an investigation at school of advanced studies of ho chi minh city open university

guage is not a danger to 
Vietnamese identity as also found in Liu & 
Zhao (2011); Axler, Yang, & Stevens (1998). 
The finding further recommends that ethnic 
awareness should be intergrated in the the 
language teaching curriculum since the social 
status of a foreign language as English is so 
high in Vietnam and nearly half of the 
research population wish to be successful in 
learn English rather than Vietnamese. 
5. Concluding remarks 
In conclusion, this present study is 
conducted to investigate undergraduates’ 
attitudes towards English with regard to their 
learning motivation and national identity 
formation. The results reveal that HCMCOU 
students hold positive attitude towards 
English and they are extrinsically and 
intrinsically motivated to learn English. They 
show their sense of Vietnamese patriotism in 
preserving linguistic and cultural identity on 
account of nearly 60 per cent of wishing to 
learn Vietnamese well. Concurrently, they 
illustrate their appreciation of English status 
in light of 40 per cent showing their 
preference to learn good English first. 
The findings further suggest (1) that 
instead of forcing students to learn English, 
teachers should encourage their learning with 
a practical, real, and convincing story of 
typical users’ success, (2) that their learning 
materials should be interested and 
unchallenging. In addition, (3) teachers should 
know how to build up their confidence in 
expressing English; and (4) ethnic identity 
component should be included in the teaching 
program. 
In the meantime, the study is conducted 
in the center of Vietnam with the participants 
from the School of Advanced Studies at the 
university. This picture of findings seems 
different if being conducted in different 
groups of students in the normal training, in 
other remote area of Vietnam, in other levels 
of study (secondary or high school, graduate, 
etc.), for example. Hence, further research in 
different settings is called to find out their 
language attitudes towards Vietnamese and 
English in a variety of backgrounds. 
6. Acknowledgement 
This work is conducted with the support 
of academic officers and lecturers from 
School of Advanced Studies at HCMCOU. I 
wish to express my gratefulness to all of them 
and participants in my study 
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