Graduate Researcher Series: an Interview with Dang Ngoc Chau

Chenyang Zhang

Dang Ngoc Chau is a second-year PhD student in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on English medium instruction in higher education. Her PhD project investigates how teachers and students in a Computer Science program at a Vietnamese university negotiate their teaching and learning using English. Chau is supervised by Dr Kellie Frost and Dr Janne Morton.

Chenyang interviewed Chau about her PhD research and journey.

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Hi Chau, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about your research and fieldwork. First of all, could you introduce yourself? 

First of all, thank you for having me. My name is Chau, I’m a second-year PhD student and my research focuses on English medium instruction in higher education in the context of Vietnam.

Could you share with us more about your research project?

My research focus is on English medium instruction (EMI) in universities in Vietnam. In particular, I look at how teachers and students exercise their agency in interpreting and putting into action the EMI policy, because in Vietnam, only five or six years ago, more and more universities started to introduce English medium instruction programs. However, since Vietnam is just a newcomer in the EMI trend, there are a lot of problems with this policy and its implementation. Teachers and students face a lot of challenges – as you know, most of the population does not speak English – on a daily basis. So, teaching and learning in the medium of English is really challenging. This is the reason why I am investigating the difficulties they face, the support they have, and the way that they implement and creatively interpret the EMI policy.

Would you like to share the significance and implications of your research topic?

As I mentioned before, EMI is a new phenomenon in Vietnam, so not much research has been done in this regard. There are a lot of problems and so research could offer some solutions to help make English medium instruction in Vietnam more effective. Besides this, language policy, traditionally, just focuses on top-level policies, like policy papers and policymakers’ discourses, but I feel that teachers and students, who are the classroom-level agents, should have a voice as well. Looking at how they negotiate the policy and at their agency can be useful to actually understand the whole policy process and its effectiveness. As for the methodology, I adopt an ethnography and ecological approach, which means that I look at different factors, including the ecological environment surrounding the participants and their relationship with other people, materials and objects around them, to understand their agency. 

To address this research topic, how did you collect data?

As I mentioned, this research project adopts an ethnographic approach, which means that I went to the research site and collected data. My main source of data are interviews with teachers and students and classroom observations. In fact, the ethnography approach implies that you have to really immerse yourself in the field and you don’t just ask people for their opinion, but you want to understand all the surrounding factors that may affect their beliefs, behaviours and actions as well. Thus, I tried to look at the relationships between teachers and students and among teachers themselves, and at how teachers responded to and used the policy and relevant material and teaching tools.

During fieldwork, what challenges did you face?

I think the most challenging thing that I faced during my fieldwork was to connect with the university and the faculty in Vietnam because I didn’t have any connection with them. I didn’t know anyone there, so it was a bit hard to first introduce myself and my project and to make sure that all the ethics issues were considered. I think that was the main difficulty. But I was quite lucky, because finally I had the support of the faculty, the Dean and the Vice Dean, and they were quite open to my research because they saw the potential benefits of improving teaching and learning.

But as you’ve just mentioned, you didn’t have any pre-existing connection with the University. So how did you solve this problem? 

I was quite lucky because a friend of mine was a friend of a teacher working at that university and that teacher introduced me to the Dean of the faculty. 

How did your fieldwork go?

It was the first time that I actually worked with a faculty at a university, so I was quite nervous at first talking to teachers and students. But then I felt that once I explained my research in plain language, to make sure that they understood its significance and why I was collecting data, they were willing to share their opinions, which made me happy. However, another challenge that I faced was classroom observation. In the beginning, I intended to observe lessons and record them, because I wanted to do some discourse analysis of the class interactions. But because of ethical issues, I couldn’t do it. I think that is one of those unexpected things that you have to accept, find a way to deal with and keep going.

So what did you do instead? 

I had to take field notes. I took a lot of notes while observing the teaching and learning activities and then I had a lot of conversations with the teachers during breaks. I talked to the teachers and took notes as well. Sometimes, I asked them to let me record those short conversations. I did the same with students: I asked them quick questions outside the classroom and recorded those short conversations. I think this will make up for the data I wasn’t able to collect.

As a PhD candidate, would you offer some advice to first-year PhD students? 

To be honest, my first year was not smooth. I mean that it was hard for me in the first year because I was a bit confused and lost with a lot of readings and ideas. I didn’t know what I was going to do or what was next. So, I just suggest that we should accept the challenges and confusion since they are normal during the whole process. And then you should work closely with your supervisors because they are the ones who give you the most valuable advice. Also, you could seek help from our faculty and school, which can support you.

Thank you for your time and for talking with me today, Chau.

Thank you, Chenyang.