After two years having to be held online, in September 2022, VIC finally returned to a live format with over 700 academics and teachers gathering at Nha Trang University for the first time since 2019. British Council in Viet Nam was proud to have a strong presence with featured presentations online and UK–VN projects past and present represented at the Convention.
This is Vietnam's largest annual English Language Teaching (ELT) conference co-organised by VietTESOL Association, National Foreign Languages Project (NFLP) and a host University (this year Nha Trang University) with support and sponsorship from a range of ELT organisations including British Council.
This year’s event was organised from 16 to 18 September with the theme: "Digital ELT: Approaches and Innovations" and featured 400 presenters (including keynote and featured speakers) from all over the world.
Day 1 – Online pre-convention sessions
On 16 September, two featured presentations were delivered to introduce recent British Council research and innovative initiatives to a wider audience.
First, Dr Subhan Zein joined online from Australia to present his British Council funded research on ‘Trends in English as a subject in basic education (ESBE): Research and policy recommendations’ with a focus on Vietnam. Both the Comparative Study and the Country Profiles (including Vietnam) are free to download from TeachingEnglish.
Watch the You Tube recording of the presentation here.
Later, British Council in Vietnam’s Davide Guarini Gilmartin outlined the pilot Digital Learning Innovation Fund – lessons learned (May 2021-March 2022) and offered an opportunity for the three project teams to showcase their individual projects’ aims, outputs and outcomes.
Watch the You Tube recording of Davide's presentation here.
Day 2 – Live presentations at VIC 2022
On 17 September, live oral presentations were delivered by British Council partners representing our three Digital Learning Innovation Fund projects and one of our five ongoing Teacher Activity Group (TAG) projects. We asked the British Council sponsored presenters to share their experiences and impressions of VIC 2022 as it returned to a live F2F format.
I was really excited to attend VIC to share the teacher training project we delivered under the sponsorship of the British Council in Vietnam. VIC is a prestigious event in the field of English teaching in Vietnam, so my session helped spread the meaning of the project to many teachers. I was happy that the teachers attending my session came from different levels of education including primary, secondary and high school teachers. This proves that our training model is replicable and can be scaled up.
Dr Nguyen Thi Hong Nhat, HPU2 – Learn more about Nhat’s project by watching this You Tube video.
My session on our Digital English Theatre Project attracted about 30 participants, most of them Vietnamese high school teachers. All showed their interest in wishing to implement the digital drama technique in their classrooms. I am very happy to share our knowledge and experience from this project to them.
Dr Hoang Phuong Yen, Can Tho University – Learn more about Yen’s Digital English Theatre Project here.
2022 VIC enriched my knowledge and strengthened my passion for English language education. I was particularly attracted by many sessions on using innovative technologies in English language teaching and learning. I am a strong advocate of promoting digital transformation in ELT as it contributes meaningfully to access and equity in English language education. Our presentation titled “a UK-Vietnam community of practice to develop e-competencies during the COVID pandemic” aligned very well with the theme of the conference which was “approaches and innovations”. We have proved that the virtual exchange approach to CPD is innovative, cost-effective, stimulating, and scalable!
Dr Bui Thi Ngoc Thuy, Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) – Learn more about Thuy’s ViVEXELT project here.
At VIC 2022, we had the opportunity to share the work in progress on our VietABLL (Vietnam: Arts-based Language Learning) Teacher Activity Group project funded by the British Council. The project brings together the expertise from teachers of primary and lower secondary schools and local artists to develop new strategies and activities to increase students’ motivation and language learning. Our participants in the session showed great interest in our approach and noted that they have come to the session out of interest and ended up ‘learning something new’.
Dr Lavinia Hirsu, Glasgow University – Learn more about Lavinia and Anh’s Teacher Activity Group project here.
