Promoting Students’ Interest in Learning English as a Foreign Language: A Case Study of Vietnamese University Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices

Abstract

Second language education research has seen a scarcity of investigations into ‘interest’, even though interest adds significantly to learning processes and results. In EFL tertiary learning contexts like Vietnam, most learners fail to generate interest in learning, although they know advanced English proficiency is a graduation and job requirement. Among many factors, teachers have a critical effect on the enhancement of students’ interest. Adopting a qualitative case-study approach, this study investigates Vietnamese tertiary teachers’ beliefs and practices about interest promotion and the sources of and relations between those beliefs and practices. Artefacts, focus group discussion, observations, questionnaires, and stimulated recall interviews were used to collect data during a semester from two young teachers, two senior teachers, and around 200 students. The findings showed that the teachers held diverse beliefs about interest-enhancing strategies, resulting from complex interplays between their personally and socially constructed belief systems. Their beliefs were vastly congruent with their teaching, but incongruences occasionally occurred through their personal factors, student factors, and teaching conditions. Using a broader range of strategies and focusing on increasing students’ interaction and involvement, younger teachers were more successful than their seniors, who concentrated on the comprehensibility of learning materials. Also, the study confirms crucial influences of teacher factors in students’ interest. It is evident that teachers’ friendliness and intimacy; active, humorous, and encouraging teaching styles; and opportunities for students’ interactions and engagement are interest boosters. Additionally, the interestingness of a lesson is found to be proportional to the number of interest-enhancing strategies used. Another finding is that the absence of one determinant (i.e., novelty/ comprehensibility/ meaningfulness of learning objects/ students’ involvement) can decrease the effects of other determinants on students’ interest. This study has made a significant contribution by adding to the existing knowledge in EFL education research about the nature of interest and teachers’ beliefs, confirming the merits of a qualitative case-study approach, and offering applicable research tools. It also describes the current situation of EFL Vietnamese teachers’ beliefs and practices, from which authorities and policymakers can better support teachers in their promotion of interest in students.