1 Introduction

Every year, a large number of students graduate from universities with high hopes of securing a decent job offer within a short period of time. For example, in 2018, there were 325,171 graduates from 39 comprehensive universities in Australia (Universities Australia, 2020); the number of graduates in Malaysia in the same year was 4.94 million (Department of Statistics Malaysia Official Portal, 2020). While the job market is full of fresh candidates with university degrees, employers still struggle to find suitable candidates who match their requirements (Dolce et al., 2020). According to the latest report of International Labour Organization (ILO), the percentage of youth unemployment rates around the world was at 13.6%, and it is expected to increase to 13.7% and 13.8% in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Although the unemployment rate among fresh graduates is skyrocketing, higher education expansion continues in every country (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2016). Thus, universities are blamed for collecting tuition payments but fail to prepare career-readiness for their students (Tran, 2018a).

In order to solve this problem, many universities organize activities to train students in soft skills via curriculum-based or extra-curricular activities (Tran, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c), and service-learning activities (Kelles & Ryan, 2015), internships (Shoenfelt et al., 2013), or field trips (Chmielewski-Raimon et al., 2016). Despite some success in improving graduates’ work skills, employers have kept lamenting about new employees’ work-readiness, especially in non-English speaking contexts where internationalization process is taking place rapidly. In such contexts, on top of essential employability skills such as communication (in their mother tongue), teamwork, problem-solving, etc., graduates are expected to be able to use a foreign language fluently to work collaboratively with international business partners and clients (Dolce et al., 2020; Ritter et al., 2018; Tan & Laswad, 2018; Tsirkas et al., 2020).

In the last three decades, Vietnam, a non-English speaking country, has been on a remarkable socio-economic transformation since the 1986-dated Doi Moi (Renovation) policy, which aimed for economic reforms and attracting foreign investment. Under such a policy, a central management system was formally disbanded, and the government has shifted to a market-driven economy since the mid-1980s (Fan et al., 2019). The Doi Moi contributed to promoting entrepreneurship and improving agricultural production and industrialization, all of which fostered urbanization (Beresford, 2008; Kirk & Nguyen, 2009). As a result, the country has witnessed a rapid growth rate of over 5% since 1988 (Vo & Ho, 2021). With this shift in political and economic orientation, there has been an influx of foreign investment from many countries such as the United States of America, Australia, or the European Union, China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Between 1995 and 2017, the total foreign invested sector in Vietnam has increased from 5 million USD to over 25 billion USD (Anh et al., 2019).

With the socio-economic boom and foreign investment, the demand for graduates with proficient foreign language skills is rocketing in the country. Despite the variety of foreign languages required for jobs in international business, English as a lingua franca is in high demand (Ton & Pham, 2010). A majority of job advertisements demand applicants to provide English certificates to fulfill the job requirements (Al-Mahrooqi & Tuzlukova, 2014). Several reforms have been launched to improve the teaching and learning of English, aiming to produce graduates who can use English effectively for work purposes (Nhung, 2019). Unfortunately, despite significant efforts, a majority of Vietnamese students, who had studied English for seven years, are unable to command their English for daily conversations (Bui et al., 2019). Hence, it is essential to investigate how Vietnamese universities are preparing English skills for their students. Otherwise, graduates of Vietnamese higher education will be disadvantaged in their own home labor market and fail to join the international market in this increasingly globalized world.

In this chapter, we will report a study about the effectiveness of English language courses offered by Vietnamese universities with regard to meeting work requirements using graduates’ experiences. Although the study is exploratory in nature, it provides a snapshot on how well such English courses have prepared students for their future work roles. The rest of the chapter will be structured as follows. Following a discussion about the role of English skills as a valuable asset for graduates’ employability in non-English speaking countries, we will discuss English teaching and learning reforms in Vietnam as the background for our study. After the method section, we will present the findings and discuss how English courses can better prepare Vietnamese students for their future careers.

2 English Skills as a Valuable Asset for Graduates’ Employability

Although the concept of “employability” has been debated in different studies for decades, scholars seem to support Yorke (2004, p. 8) who describes “employability” as a “set of achievements, skills, understandings and personal attributes—which makes graduates more likely to gain employability and be successful in their chosen occupations”. Elaborating on Yorke’s framework, Oliver (2015, p. 63) defines employability as the abilities to “discern, acquire, adapt, and continually enhance their skills, understands and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaning paid and unpaid work that can benefit themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy”. Adding to the literature of employability, Tomlinson (2017) proposed an employability capital framework, including human capital, cultural capital, identity capital, social capital, and psychological capital that graduates should achieve in order to enhance their employment and career prospects. Although researchers hold different beliefs on what constitutes graduate employability, they all want to understand what makes a graduate qualified to the job market.

Due to the impact of globalization, students are expected to possess English skills as an international language communication. Even in English speaking countries, English skills are considered as an important employability captitals which can secure a good job (Arkoudis & Doughney, 2016). In Australia, employers expect graduates to perform high-level oral and written communication skills in English to compete within the international market (Graduate Careers Australia, 2012). Similarly, Tran et al. (2020) found that investment in English language capital was crucial for international graduates who aimed to get their work visa and accumulate their job opportunities in Australia.

In non-English speaking countries, English language skills are seen as soft skills which have been found to be a determinant of graduates’ employment and career prospects. First of all, graduates who have good English language skills can enhance their opportunities for getting a job. For example, Clement and Murugavel (2015) found that good English communication skills led to better employment prospects among engineering graduates in India. Since English is chosen as the official working language for trading among the ASEAN regional economic integration (Stroupe & Kimura, 2015), English language skills can help Malaysian graduates get a high rate of employability (Abdul Kadir et al., 2015). In Vietnam, over 50% of management jobs in different sectors require applicants to perform advanced English communication skills to negotiate and present their organizations to overseas clients and potential business partners (Doan & Hamid, 2019). In addition, an English language proficiency can affect employees’ job promotion. For example, Ting et al. (2017) clarified that Malaysian employers only promoted some employees with a high level of English language proficiency to be executives who had the ability to communicate with staffs and clients sufficiently. Similarly, Dash et al. (2020) found that most Malaysian employers considered a qualified manager as a self-motived person with an excellent English communication skills. In the Philippines, to get a job promotion, lawyers need to use advanced English language at the court. Moreover, a good command of English can also boost employees’ career advancement opportunities. For example, to train human resources for a specific high-level position, many Vietnamese universities offer overseas training opportunities for academics with a high level of English proficiency (Le & Chen, 2019). Big companies also tend to offer expatriation opportunities to competent employees with English skills as the language can help these employees set the bond of friendship with the host community, understand the culture, and increase their work effectiveness (Othman et al., 2021).

3 English Language Education Reforms in Vietnam

3.1 Drivers of the English Language Education Reforms

With socio-economic successes following the 1986 Innovation (Doi Moi) Policy, English has become central in the national language policy (Hoang, 2019; Tran, 2018b). In Vietnam, there are 12 grades in the school system, divided into three levels: primary (6–11 years of age), secondary school (11–15), and high school (15–18) (Nguyen, 2016). All school levels follow the curricula designed by MOET (Educational Law, 2005). English is an optional course for elementary students in grade 3, but a compulsory subject from grade 6 to grade 12. At the tertiary level, except for those directly majoring in English language studies/teaching or translation and interpretation, students are offered some General English language (GE) courses which aim to improve student’s English reading, speaking, listening, and writing skills as well as general knowledge to use English effectively (Hien et al., 2019). Unfortunately, after completion of high school, and even university, not many students/graduates can use English fluently if they do not join in private English classes. As the demand of English skills from employers has kept increasing, numerous English language centers have been established (Tran, 2018b). They are informal business education organizations with diverse teaching methods, English courses, and native and non-native teachers from different backgrounds. According to Tran (2018b), not all teachers from the English language centers are fully trained as English language teachers, which can negatively affect the students’ learning outcomes. This can explain the reason why Vietnam has nearly 90% of English language learners, the percentage of those who can make English daily conversations is minimal (Bui et al., 2019). Such a level of English language proficiency has not been on par with socio-economic development and thus may put Vietnam in a disadvantaged situation in terms of competitiveness for further socio-economic development.

Realizing the need to prepare graduates with a proficient level of English, the Government has launched several reforms to improve the quality of English language teaching and learning. In fact, English language teaching and learning reforms in Vietnam were initiated in the early 2000s. The Prime Minister of Vietnam approved Resolution No. 14/2005/NQ-CP in November 2005 called “Fundamental and comprehensive renovation of higher education in Vietnam in the period 2006–2020”. Accordingly, the Resolution clearly defines goals as well as specific plans to implement innovative activities, creating a premise for comprehensive reforms in all fields including English language education (MOET, 2005). To promote the quality of language teaching and learning, in 2008, the MOET, under the approval of the Minister of Education and Training, issued Decision No 1400/QĐ-TTg on approving a project called “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Educational System, Period 2008–2020” (hereafter referred to as the Project, 2020). The project officially started to roll out in 2010 with a number of aims indicating that, “by the year 2020 most Vietnamese youth whoever graduate from vocational schools, colleges and universities gain the capacity to use a foreign language independently. This will enable them to be more confident in communication, further their chance to study and work in an integrated and multi-cultural environment with a variety of languages” (MOET, 2008).

3.2 Contents of the Reforms

One of the most significant changes, introduced by the reforms, was the introduction of a new curriculum of English and textbooks. This curriculum places a strong focus on promoting communicative language teaching (CLT) and learner-centered approaches in all levels of education (MOET, 2006). Also, a new system of textbooks, which basically consider CLT principles to be a policy backbone for the design, was implemented for all educational levels ranging from primary to upper secondary. However, it is worth noting that at higher education, the university is allowed to design their own teaching syllabus provided that they follow a general guideline given by the MOET (The Government of Vietnam, 2018). Needless to say, this may create a flexible choice and adaptability and lead to inevitable chaos and confusion among universities (Nguyen, 2017; Tran, 2013).

The second important content of the reforms is to increase English language teachers’ teaching effectiveness. In response to the need for the increase of both quantity and quality of English language teachers nationwide, the Project, 2020 has made a lot of effort such as recruiting new high qualified English teachers for schools, training and re-training in-service teachers for both language proficiency and teaching capabilities so that they can train students in English skills that meet the requirements of employers. Under this massive project, the Vietnamese government invested 80% of the Project 2020 budget (US$446.43 million) on teacher training (Van Canh et al., 2020). Upgrading teachers’ English proficiency and improving their teaching practices are the two main goals of this approach (Van Canh et al., 2020). Generally, teachers have been trained in innovative English language teaching methods.

The third remarkable change introduced by the reforms was assessment and learning outcomes. In terms of assessment of language outcomes at the tertiary level, according to the Decision No. 17/VBHN-BGDĐT issued in 2014, it is calculated based on regular test scores during the learning process and a final exam score, in which the final exam score is mandatory and has a weight of not less than 50% of the total (The Government of Vietnam, 2014a). Lecturers can propose assessment tasks, weighting of these tasks and marking criteria; then these should be approved by the faculty leaders and finally signed by the rector of the institutions. All information regarding assessment must be specified in the syllabus. A couple of benchmarks for English language learning outcomes were also introduced. It is reported in Circular No. 01 dated on January 24, 2014, of the Minister of Education and Training that university graduates need to attain an English proficiency of level 3 in the 6-level Foreign Language Competency Framework for Vietnam or get an overall score of 4.5 in the IELTS (The Government of Vietnam, 2014b).

3.3 Positive Outcomes of the Reforms

After several years of implementation, the reforms have achieved significant outcomes. First, the reforms have pushed the introduction of a new English curriculum which adopts CLT and learner-centered approaches as a priority for teaching and learning activities (Doan & Hamid, 2019). The new curriculum embraces a new series of textbooks and teaching materials in which real-life target tasks and communicative-based activities are essential. It also includes a variety of topics which are closely related to daily situations such as education, environment, and economics with the rationale that learners could be given best opportunities to equip themselves with socio-cultural, economic, and cultural understanding (Bui & Nguyen, 2016).

Secondly, in accordance with the new teaching curriculum, in-service teachers nationwide have also been trained and re-trained to on the one hand upgrade themselves in both professional teaching and language proficiency, and on the other hand to conduct teaching successfully in such a new curriculum. Due to great effort made by the MOET regarding developing teachers’ English proficiency, for example, the percentage of English teachers who met the language proficiency requirements increased sharply just after three years, from approximately 13% in 2011–2012 to 54% in 2014–2015 (Project, 2020, 2016). Their teaching practices are also improved and remarkably, embrace digital or online learning resources or teaching methods to provide needed learners with a wider choice of learning (Vietnamese Government, 2017).

Thirdly, the reforms have contributed to raising public awareness, not just students, of the importance of English skills resulting in the promotion of teaching and learning English. To satisfy the fast-growing and ever-changing workforce, meeting English skills requirements has now become a prerequisite for graduation and employment. Therefore, to satisfy a high demand of different groups of English language learners for improving their competitiveness in the labor market, numerous English language centers have been established across the country, both as part of the public and private educational systems (Hoang, 2010).

Last but not least, adopting the benchmarks for English language learning outcomes, as mentioned above, has greatly contributed to the improvement of graduates’ English skills compared to the past (Nguyen et al., 2018). However, it appears that in reality, graduates still face difficulties in using their English skills for work purposes; and employers still complain about their employees’ English skills. This will be further elaborated in the next section.

3.4 Effectiveness of Preparing Students’ English Skills to Meet Employers’ Demands

Although much effort has been made by the Vietnamese MOET, Vietnamese higher education institutions and teachers to enhance the quality of English language teaching and learning, it is little known as to whether English courses offered by Vietnamese universities can effectively equip students with English skills. Several studies have consistently pointed out that although there has been improvement, graduates have not developed adequate English language skills for work purposes. Luong (2016) found that Vietnamese student’s English skills could not satisfy the employers’ expectation and requirements. The results from data analysis revealed nearly 80% of students felt uncertain when listening to different topics, collecting information, answering phone calls, and understanding work documents. In terms of career-related skills in English, more than 70% of students were not capable of solving problems, working with people worldwide, and debating. They explained that they only learned grammar and theories instead of communicative skills in English. This means the teaching approach adopted at universities appears not to be effective in developing students’ English skills for work purposes.

Using industry stakeholders’ experiences, some studies also found a lack of English language skills in Vietnamese graduates. For example, Tran et al. (2017) conducted a study about cultural differences in work-related attitudes between 763 Vietnamese employees, 43 Vietnamese managers, and 33 Western employers. The findings showed that the Vietnamese employees rarely spoke out their opinions or actively engaged in decision-making because they did not feel confident in their English speaking. Similarly, Thi Ngoc Le (2018) collected the data from meetings and phone talks with 15 business managers to understand their requirements and evaluation of fresh graduates. The results showed that employers complained about graduates’ lack of English language skills, computer skills, and knowledge of intercultural diversity.

A couple of studies have attempted to identify causes of failure in equipping graduates with English language skills for their work. Impractical curriculum at schools and their passivity in promoting a life-long career were identified as the root cause (Nhung et al., 2020; Tran, 2018a). Traditional teaching practices were also found to prevent students from developing sufficient English skills for work purposes. Teachers mainly focus on teaching grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension rather than English in daily communication (Hoang, 2008). Ton and Pham (2010) revealed that most Vietnamese university students did not set a specific goal of learning English; they learned from the English textbook to pass exams instead of using English for real-life purposes such as communication. Some students are aware of the importance of English for their employment prospects, but they mainly studied to get certificates for job applications rather than for using it in real life (Tran, 2018a).

In short, English has become central in the national foreign language policy of Vietnam and numerous initiatives have been launched, aiming to improve the quality of English language teaching and learning and to enhance graduates’ employment and career prospects. Unfortunately, it appears that such a goal has not been reached as both students and industry stakeholders are still complaining about the effectiveness of English courses in preparing them for English skills for work purposes. The primary goal of most students is to land a good job after graduation. As mentioned earlier, in an emerging economy with intense foreign investment like Vietnam, English language skills are an important passport for their career success. Failing to equip students with English language skills will influence the competitiveness of Vietnam’s labor workforce and slow down its socio-economic development. Therefore, it is important to investigate the effectiveness of English courses in preparing students with English skills for work purposes, identifying the weaknesses for improvement.

4 The Present Study

This study aimed to explore graduates of Vietnamese universities’ experience with the contribution of General English courses to the development of English skills for work purposes in Vietnamese labor market. In particular, it sought the answers to the following research question:

To what extent did General English courses offered by Vietnamese universities contribute to the development of students’ English skills for work purposes?

The study was conducted using quantitative method research approach (Cohen et al., 2018). This approach was appropriate for the research purpose as it allowed to measure the contribution of General English courses offered in Vietnamese universities to graduates’ English skills for work purposes.

To collect quantitative data, we developed an online survey (Van Selm & Jankowski, 2006). The content of the survey was developed based on a simple concept: learning experiences result from the interactions between the learners (with their beliefs and behaviors toward learning), the teachers (with their qualities and teaching practices), the assessment activities (being a powerful driver for teaching and learning activities), and the materials (being the means teachers used to deliver their teaching and students used to construct their learning).

In addition to a section collecting participants’ demographic information, the survey firstly asked graduates to rate the contribution of the General English courses to their English skills for work purposes on a 5-point Likert scale, in which 1 denotes “very little” and 5 denotes “very much”. Then they were asked to express their level of (dis)agreement with descriptors related to the General English courses using a 5-point Likert scale, in which 1 denotes “completely disagree” and 5 denotes “completely agree”. Similar to collecting qualitative data, we provided descriptors of the curriculum, learning materials, assessment, teachers and teaching as well as the learners. For the exploratory nature of this study, we primarily aimed to collect data from graduates of the two major universities in the South of Vietnam, although we anticipated that graduates of other universities would participate. We sent the link of the survey to teachers that we knew in the two universities, requesting them to forward the link to graduates that they knew. Within a five-month period, we collected 159 responses from the target participants. Among them, 36.5% and 63.5% are male and female respectively. Participants were alumni of 16 universities although the majority of them came from two large universities in the south of Vietnam. Based on their self-report, they were working in 25 different job sectors. Their work experience ranged from one to five years, with an average of 2.4 years.

The quantitative data were checked for internal consistency and analyzed using principal component analysis and descriptive analysis (mean and standard deviation–SD, and percentages to show congruence of their perspectives), with the support of SPSS version 26. The procedure and the results will be reported in the Finding section to ease readers’ understanding.

5 Findings

5.1 Graduates’ English Skills for Work

We asked graduates to rate the extent to which English language courses offered by Vietnamese universities contributed to the development of their English language competence for work purposes. For this data set, the internal consistency was high, with Cronbach Alpha α = 0.92, and item-total correlation values ranging from 0.74 to 0.80. Principal component analysis using varimax rotation suggests one principle factor to be extracted based on eigenvalues greater than 1. This solution explained 67.72% of the variance. Descriptive analysis was conducted to generate the means (M) and standard deviations (SD). The mean values were interpreted as below:

  • 1.0 ≤ M < 1.8: contributing very little

  • 1.8 ≤ M < 2.6: contributing little

  • 2.6 ≤ M < 3.4: contributing moderately

  • 3.4 ≤ M < 4.2: contributing much

  • 4.2 ≤ M ≤ 5.0: contributing very much

The descriptive analysis results (Table 10.1) showed that in graduates’ experience, the General English courses offered by Vietnamese universities contributed much to the development of their English skills for work. It was reported that these courses developed their English vocabulary the most (M = 3.77, SD = 0.80), which appeared to foster their reading skills (M = 3.75, SD = 0.89). The contribution to grammar knowledge, writing, listening, and speaking skills were rated a little lower. The least contribution was for English pronunciation (M = 3.42, SD = 0.90), which may be explained for why speaking and listening skills was also low. It is natural that if students fail to pronounce sounds correctly, their oral communication will be negatively affected and their listening ability will also be influenced as they may not be able to recognize the sound/word being articulated by another speaker.

Table 10.1 Graduates’ English skills for work purposes
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5.2 Graduates’ Feedback About the English Language Curricula

We asked graduates to rate their level of agreement/disagreement with 10 descriptors of the English curriculum they used to study on a 5-point Likert scale. For this data set, the internal consistency Cronbach Alpha α = 0.94, and item-total correlation values ranged from 0.62 to 0.81. Following the steps reported above, we conducted principal component analysis with varimax rotation. The results with eigenvalues greater than 1 suggested one principal component to be extracted, which explained 64.51% of the variance. We continued to run descriptive analysis to find means and standard deviations. The mean values were interpreted as below:

  • 1.0 ≤ M < 1.8: completely disagree

  • 1.8 ≤ M < 2.6: disagree

  • 2.6 ≤ M < 3.4: neutral

  • 3.4 ≤ M < 4.2: agree

  • 4.2 ≤ M ≤ 5.0: completely agree

Quantitative data analysis results (Table 10.2) showed that graduates agreed with all of descriptors about the English language curricula that they used to study at the university. The three aspects that received the lowest level of agreement were up-to-date contents (M = 3.45, SD = 0.99), affordance for flexibility in students’ learning (M = 3.52, SD = 1.02), and diversity of the contents (M = 3.58, SD = 0.89). The three aspects that received the highest level of agreement were the age-appropriateness of the contents (M = 3.86, SD = 0.88), communication of the teaching–learning methods (M = 3.84, SD = 0.85), and communication of the assessment method (M = 3.80, SD = 0.86).

Table 10.2 Graduates’ perspectives about English language curricula
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5.3 Graduates’ Feedback About the English Language Learning Materials

Graduates were asked to express their agreement/disagreement to five descriptors about the learning materials used for the English language courses offered by their universities on a 5-point Likert scale. The internal consistency of this data set was measured by Cronbach Alpha α = 0.88. The correlation between these variables (i.e., descriptor) ranged from 0.63 to 0.80. Principal component analysis was run with varimax rotation. The results based on eigenvalues greater than 1 suggested one principal component to be extracted, explaining 68.37% of the variance. We also ran descriptive analysis to find means and standard deviations. The mean values were interpreted like the above.

Generally, graduates agreed with all English learning material related descriptors. Following the results (Table 10.3), graduates agreed the most that the learning materials developed their English linguistic competence from a simple to a complex level (M = 3.81, SD = 0.82). However, they were not so much agreed on the diversity (M = 3.61, SD = 0.92) and authenticity (M = 3.65, SD = 0.93) of learning materials. Many of them found the learning materials easy to understand (M = 3.61, SD = 0.92), and even worse, these materials were considered not to contribute to their achievement of the learning outcomes of the course (M = 3.62, SD = 0.88).

Table 10.3 Graduates’ feedback about the learning materials used in General English courses
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5.4 Graduates’ Feedback About Assessment Activities in General English Language Courses

Graduates were asked to express their agreement/disagreement to six descriptors about assessment practices used for the English language courses offered by their universities on a 5-point Likert scale. The data set has a high level of internal consistency, showing by Cronbach Alpha α = 0.87. The correlation between these variables (i.e., descriptor) ranged from 0.62 to 0.74. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation and eigenvalues greater than 1 resulted in one principal component being extracted, which explained 68.37% of the variance. We further computed descriptive analysis to find means, standard deviations, and percentages of participants having the same perspectives on the descriptors. The mean values were interpreted like the above.

The results (Table 10.4) showed that graduates agreed all descriptors, signifying their contentment with assessment practices in the English language courses. The descriptor that received the highest agreement among graduates was about fairness in assessment (M = 4.11, SD = 0.80), followed by the alignment between what was taught and what was assessed (M = 4.06, SD = 0.78). However, it was noted that their level of agreement about the authenticity of assessment task was much lower compared with other descriptor in this dimension of the program (M = 5.55, SD = 0.97).

Table 10.4 Graduates’ feedback about assessment in English language courses
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5.5 Graduates’ Feedback About Their Learning

Graduates were asked to express their agreement/disagreement to 10 descriptors about learners on a 5-point Likert scale. The data set has a high level of internal consistency, showing by Cronbach Alpha α = 0.90. The correlation between these variables (i.e., descriptor) ranged from 0.42 to 0.77. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation and eigenvalues greater than 1 resulted in two principal components being extracted, which explained 72.45% of the variance (53.86% and 18.59% for components 1 and 2 respectively). All variables loading uniquely on either of the two components: Awareness of the importance of English skills (measured by three descriptors) and Engagement with English language learning (measured by seven descriptors). We computed descriptive analysis to find means, standard deviations, and percentages of participants having the same perspectives on the descriptors. The mean values were interpreted like the above.

The results (Table 10.5) showed that since they were students, graduates had a very high level of awareness about the role of English skills in their future careers (M = 4.38, SD = 0.68). However, their level of engagement with English language learning was not as high (M = 3.74, SD = 0.89). Based on their rating for each descriptor in the second component, it appeared that they engaged cognitively (M = 4.12, SD = 0.75) and affectively (M = 3.88, SD = 0.91), their behavioral engagement was hindered due to their lack of learning skills. They did not invest much time for learning (M = 3.50, SD = 0.96); they could not self-study (M = 3.57, SD = 0.98); they could not solve difficulties in their learning (M = 3.58, SD = 0.94); and they could not check upon their learning progress (M = 3.64, SD = 0.85).

Table 10.5 Graduates’ feedback about their learning
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5.6 Graduates’ Feedback About Teachers and Teaching in English Language Courses

Graduates were asked to express their agreement/disagreement to 15 descriptors about teacher qualities and their pedagogical practices in English language courses offered by their universities on a 5-point Likert scale. The data set has a high level of internal consistency, showing by Cronbach Alpha α = 0.95. The correlation between these variables (i.e., descriptor) ranged from 0.67 to 0.79. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation and eigenvalues greater than 1 resulted in two principal components being extracted, which explained 67.70% of the variance (36.00 and 31.7% for components 1 and 2 respectively). However, two variables did not load uniquely on one component; therefore, we removed these two variables and ran the principal component analysis following the same procedure again. This time, it resulted in a two components, explaining 69.48% of the variance (36.93 and 32.55% for components 1 and 2 respectively). All variables loading uniquely on either of the two components: teacher competencies (measured by five descriptors) and teaching practices and professionalism (measured by eight descriptors). We further computed descriptive analysis to find means, standard deviations, and percentages of participants having the same perspectives on the descriptors. The mean values were interpreted like the above.

The results (Table 10.6) showed that graduates valued their teachers’ use of pedagogies and professionalism (M = 4.03, SD = 0.79) than teachers’ competencies (M = 3.92, SD = 0.85). They completely agreed that their teachers had a good knowledge of the English language (M = 4.20, SD = 0.79) as well as English skills. They valued their teachers’ cultural understanding of English speaking countries (M = 3.74, SD = 0.91) and abilities to make English lessons easy to understand (M = 3.74, SD = 0.85) a little bit lower. Graduates showed a high level of agreement on their teachers’ professionalism, with mean values above 4.0 on a scale of 5.0 for all three descriptors (the last three in Table 10.6) and so did they to descriptors about their teachers’ pedagogical practices, especially enthusiasm in teaching (M = 4.20, SD = 0.71) and encouragement for students to engage with learning (M = 4.14, SD = 0.79). However, it seemed that they were not very impressed with teachers’ ability to integrate the actual use of English in the workplace in their teaching activities (M = 3.62, SD = 0.99). This means that in graduates’ experience, the teaching activities in General English courses lacked authenticity and applicability in reality.

Table 10.6 Graduates’ feedback about teachers and teaching in English language courses
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6 Discussion and Conclusion

This study aimed to explore the contribution of General English courses to students’ development of English skills for work purposes in Vietnamese labor market, using graduates’ experiences. The study found that such courses helped develop English language knowledge better than English skills for them. Generally, they could apply what they learned for work purposes, but there are several inhibitors for the development of their English skills. This section will further explain the findings and provide some implications for the improvement of the effectiveness of General English courses offered by Vietnamese universities.

The results revealed that students were highly aware of the importance of English skills for their future careers (M = 4.38, SD = 0.68), and most of them were cognitively and affectively engaged with developing English skills (M = 4.12, SD = 0.75 and M = 3.88, SD = 0.91 respectively). However, their learning behaviors appeared not to show such a high level of engagement. This suggests that there were several factors interfering the translation of such a cognition/belief into actual behaviors for developing English language skills. Indeed, based on graduates’ experiences, this study revealed the following issues that may be hindering students from learning to develop English skills for work purposes:

  • Firstly, the curriculum appeared to focus too much on language aspects and neglect the applicability of what was being taught for work purposes. This is consistent with graduates’ rating about the contribution of General English courses to the development of their English language knowledge and skills, in which the former was rated much higher compared to the latter (see Table 10.1). The focus of the current curriculum of General English courses reflects the old approach to language education, e.g., teacher-led, theory-focused, one size fit all, etc. (Trilling & Fadel, 2009).

  • Secondly, there was a lack of authenticity of the teaching–learning materials, assessment, and teaching activity. Authenticity of learning activities, materials, and assessment tasks have been found to be one of the critical factors contributing to graduates’ inability to hit the ground running beyond their graduation (Ajjawi et al., 2019; Ornellas et al., 2019). They offered students with opportunities to understand about the real workplace with the application of the language aspects into a real-life situation. The closer the learning activities, materials and assessment tasks to the real-life situation, the better they are for students to develop relevant skills for work (Ajjawi et al., 2019; Ornellas et al., 2019). This issue appeared to be an inertia of the theory-based teaching tradition of Vietnamese universities when students were bombarded with so much knowledge and theories to remember and tested, they were rarely exposed to how such knowledge and theories are used in the reality.

  • Thirdly, although teachers were reported to be professional and conducted effective teaching, what was missing from graduates’ perspective was their use of ongoing feedback. Likewise, students reported a lack of using informative assessment, which prevent them from identifying and improving their weaknesses, as suggested in Nicol and Macfarlane‐Dick (2006). This can be attributed to the teaching practicality in Vietnam. Normally teachers have to take care of several classes of about 50–100 students (Tran, 2017a, 2017b). With such big class size, it is extremely difficult to conduct interactive learning activities, overcome challenges and provide tailored feedback to individual students.

  • Fourthly, graduates’ rating suggested that they failed to self-regulate their learning. As shown in Table 10.5, when they were students, they did not successfully engage with their learning behaviorally compared with their cognitive and affective engagement. This can be attributed to Vietnamese students’ dependent learning habits, which were the results of the long history of using the traditional teaching–learning method, where teachers’ voices out-powered students’ voices. Students were expected to accept teachers’ perspectives without questioning and just focus on what was being taught instead of leading their own learning (Tran et al., 2018). Gradually, most students became “slaves” in their thinking and learning behavior in the schools and universities. Such a habit is difficult to change and may challenge students in their journey to look for jobs and perform their job roles proactively and effectively.

Such a disparity between (i) their cognition/beliefs about the importance of English and the expectation to master English language skills and (ii) their actual learning behaviors can be explained by the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991). According to this theory, three kinds of considerations that guide human behaviors are: behavioral beliefs (beliefs about the results of a particular behavior), normative beliefs (beliefs about the normative expectations of others or social pressure about certain behaviors), and control beliefs (beliefs about the existence of factors that may affect the performance of a specific behavior). When combined, these three considerations result in the formation of a behavioral intention, which then is translated into actual behaviors under suitable conditions. For this study, students’ normative beliefs about the expectations of them being involved in English learning and develop a proficient level of English skills were very high. They also hold a high level of behavioral beliefs about the results of their engagement with learning English. However, a couple of factors affected their control beliefs in whether it is alright to carry out such activities for their learning, such as their inability to learn independently, teachers’ busy schedules preventing them from providing feedback on students’ learning, learning materials not matching their expectations of learning English for work purposes, etc. These beliefs result in different levels of engagement with their learning, mostly in terms of cognitive and affective engagement, but less in terms of actual behaviors of learning engagement. It is obvious that the disparities between their cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement varied between students; the low mean value of their actual behaviors of learning engagement indicates that such disparity is experienced by many students.

The discussion up to now also suggests one important issue related to the reforms of teaching and learning English in Vietnamese universities. Although the reforms have been carried out for quite a long time, there is evidence of existence of teachers’ traditional teaching practices and students’ independent learning behaviors. According to Bourdieu (Pierre Bourdieu, 1998; Pierre Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), the environment where teachers and students function for a long time serves as a social field with its own norms, expectations, rules and regulations, etc.; teachers’ and students’ thinking and behaviors—referred to as habitus—are shaped by such norms, expectations, rules, and regulations. Both social field and habitus mutually affect each other and induce changes. If individuals in a particular social field need to function well and “win” what is expected in that social field, they must have relevant capital, or resources, or at least access to necessary capital.

In the case of English teaching and learning reforms in Vietnamese universities, the social field has changed in terms of the needs for developing English skills for students, initiated by the MOET policies, employers’ demands, and students’ expectations of being employed. Therefore, institutions—as a collective of people—had to react to meet such expectations: teaching English in an innovative way that aligned with the MOET’s policies, employers’ demands, and students’ expectations. However, a lack of capital hindered them from carrying out such teaching–learning reforming activities successfully. There was evidence that teachers “feel the game to perform in particular ways, align oneself with the “taste” of the field” (Pierre Bourdieu, 1990, p. 166). For example, they used innovative teaching methods, but they chose not to use formative assessment with tailored feedback to individual students because it was not feasible concerning their workload. In the same manner, students—being individual in a social field—recognized employers’ demands for English skills. Therefore, they changed their behaviors toward investing efforts in developing such skills. Unfortunately, they do not possess enough ability to self-study, on top of learning under the guidance of the teacher who also faced a lack of capital in conducting their teaching, thus their English skills were not developed satisfactorily as they wished. As a result, graduates found that their English skills were at an acceptable level for work purposes.

Based on the issues that hinder the effectiveness of General English courses in terms of preparing students’ English skills for work purposes, we propose a couple of measures to improve it. First of all, it is important to note that General English does not mean that English is universally used for all purposes. It should be defined in a narrow sense that it is the English skills used for general work purpose of a job sector. This is to separate from specialized English courses where students are taught with terminologies and difficult texts used for further academic studies, such as postgraduate courses or research. Indeed, although they are general English, there are still ways to contextualize these General English courses to meet the language use of a discipline. The curriculum needs to follow the contemporary approach in its design, focusing on the learners’ needs and skills development (Trilling & Fadel, 2009). It should clearly specify the purpose and learning outcomes of such courses, with a focus on students’ ability to use such skills for general work purposes within the context of their work in the future. The learning materials can be easily adapted to the characteristics of each discipline or job sector. For example, there are General English textbooks specifically written for Business or Tourism majors. Institutions can develop the curriculum and English textbooks for each faculty instead of using the same curriculum and textbook university-wide, which fails to help the General English courses relevant to the needs of students of different disciplines.

In addition, to deliver such General English courses, instead of just focusing on vocabulary and grammar teaching, teachers should focus on helping students how to read, write, listen, and speak to use for work purposes. Teachers can organize activities that truly reflect the activities at work, i.e., improving the authenticity of their teaching activities. These activities can require students to role-play a work situation, discuss to solve a work problem in groups, research on a topic then present it in front of the class or write a report, write letters to a business partner, etc. As such, students can use English as a means of communication—both written and spoken—and simultaneously develop essential work skills and attributes such as teamwork, problem-solving, critical thinking, confidence, and flexibility (e.g., see Kulamikhina et al., 2018; Singh, 2019). Similarly, teachers can assess students using formative assessment tasks to help students improve weaknesses and further develop their strengths (Nicol & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006). The summative tests should focus on measure how well students use language for certain work situations instead of only checking their precise use of grammar or words without paying enough attention to the context of language use.

Moreover, students need to be trained in self-regulated learning. In Vietnamese universities, there is an absence of an academic support services or such services are often invisible among many units and departments (Tran & Tran, 2020). Such services need to be made good use to prepare students with necessary learning skills before they commence university studies and when students are in need. Such a foundation can be then further trained in General English courses using authentic problem or project-based learning (English & Kitsantas, 2013). Such projects can be just as small as researching an aspect at work, preferably related to their future work sector, and reporting to the class. Teachers can also use blended teaching methodologies to cater for different learning needs and styles of students, giving them extra online learning resources and platforms, and thus promote self-regulated learning abilities (Kassab et al., 2015). The use of formative assessment activities and reflection can also help students develop their own self-regulated learning skills (Masui & De Corte, 2005; Nicol & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006).

Finally, English language teaching and learning reforms will not yield expected outcomes if there are not enough investment and support from the institutions to remove impracticality for teaching and learning. Large class sizes are not ideal for such skills classes as English as they hinder interactive learning activities for language skills development and limit the use of formative assessment for tailored feedback so that students can improve their weaknesses. Like other soft skills, language skills take a long time to develop (Gonczi, 2006; Tran, 2019) and it is insufficient for the development if students only study in class for about four hours per week. Institutions should invest to build online learning resources so students can self-study after class. These are just some examples about what institutions can do so that they can improve teachers’ and students’ control beliefs that complement their behavioral beliefs and normative beliefs (Ajzen, 1991) so that they can actually act and truly engage with teaching and learning English.

In short, this study found that current General English courses do not develop adequate English skills for graduates to satisfactorily use for work purposes. The study identified inhibitors of such courses including (i) theory-based curriculum, (ii) unauthenticity of teaching activities, learning materials, and assessment tasks, (iii) a lack of ongoing feedback from using formative assessment so that students can improve their weaknesses, and (iv) students’ inability to self-regulate their learning. We explained the findings in terms of the theory of planned behavior and Bourdieu’s concepts of social field, habitus, and capital. We proposed some measures to tackle the identified issues (a) tailor the General English courses to reflect the characteristics of students’ future work, (b) delivering the curricula by organizing simulated work activities, providing ongoing feedback, and embedding essential work skills in teaching activities, (c) foster students to develop self-regulated learning, and (d) providing sufficient support for innovative English language teaching and learning methods.