Based on previous surveys, it is evident that Food Technology students at Thu Dau Mot University face challenges in learning English, such as limited vocabulary, weak grammar, inaccurate pronunciation, and poor listening and speaking skills. These can lead to declining academic performance and restricted career opportunities. The paper highlights the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in overcoming these challenges. AI tools like Gemini Google can provide personalized learning experiences, improve interaction with the language, and offer immediate feedback. Gemini is specifically chosen due to its free access, Vietnamese interface, and support for over 40 languages. This study demonstrates that Gemini is an effective tool for undergraduate students, particularly those in Food Technology who have weak English backgrounds, to improve their English skills. Gemini improves vocabulary, grammar, speaking, listening, pronunciation, reading, and writing. It offers simple instructions and ideas in both English and Vietnamese, making it ideal for beginners, selflearners, and people with limited English proficiency. Unlike traditional learning, Gemini provides access at any time and from any location, as well as the ability to overcome shyness and blunders. Gemini's large, up-to-date database and user-friendly interface enable personalized learning paths and can be paired with other methods for best language learning. The study also proposes various strategies for utilizing Gemini Google to improve English learning effectiveness in areas like vocabulary, grammar, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and creating a positive learning environment. Furthermore, Gemini's value extends beyond languages, offering assistance in a variety of other areas.

English language proficiency is crucial for academic and professional success, with effective communication skills playing a pivotal role. Collaborative teaching methods, particularly group work, can significantly enhance students' creativity, evaluation, synthesis, analysis, and comparison, as well as problem-solving, essential for developing collaborative abilities. Furthermore, non-English major students often struggle to develop their speaking skills due to limited practice opportunities. This study addresses this challenge by implementing group-work activities in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. A mixed-methods approach was used to gather data including quantitative data collected through a questionnaire administered to 71 non-major students at Dong Nai Technology University and qualitative data came from semi-structured interviews. The results showed that group work significantly improved students' fluency, coherence, and confidence. Students reported increased motivation and engagement in speaking activities. These findings suggest that group-work activities effectively enhance speaking skills for non-English major students.

International integration not only brings opportunities but also challenges for teaching and learning English. Like other universities, Thu Dau Mot University focuses on teaching English for non-majored students of different faculties to meet the curriculum as well as provide knowledge for them to be confident when communicating. However, teaching English to non-majors still faces a lot of difficulties due to a number of factors. This study aims to understand the attitudes of non-English major students toward learning English at TDMU. Quantitative methods are used through survey questionnaires related to students' attitudes toward learning English and factors affecting students' attitudes toward learning English, and also finding out their wishes when participating in English learning activities in class. The questionnaire was sent to 190 students of different levels (levels 3-5). The results of the study show that most students are aware of the importance of learning English but they are not highly motivated to learn. According to the analysis results, students do not have a positive attitude towards learning English for the following reasons: They haven't spent time studying because they have to work part-time job for paying tuition fee; The purpose of using this language after graduation has not been determined, and they haven’t found a suitable learning method. From these findings, some solutions have been discussed to improve students' English learning attitudes, help lecturers make appropriate adjustments to improve students' learning outcomes and meet the standards school output as well as meet the needs of society.

The article explores the influence of the mother tongue (Vietnamese) on practicing to develop first-year students’ English writing skills at Thu Dau Mot University. Analytical data was collected from 100 first-year students majoring in English Language at the Faculty of Foreign Languages - Thu Dau Mot University. Research results show that students are still greatly influenced by Vietnamese (first language) in the process of practicing English writing skills. Among the students surveyed, up to 58.4% said they were still influenced by the way of thinking in Vietnamese, and then switched to English to follow the writing style of Vietnamese. … The remaining % said they had practiced writing in English through many writing activities at English centers and had practiced writing through thinking in English. The rest of the article proposes some solutions to help students overcome the above barriers to develop effective writing skills.

This research examines the scholarly literature on technology-based language learning published in the Computer Assisted Language Learning journal-one of the key journals in the field from 1990 to 2019. The researcher randomly selected 30 articles from 257 articles found in this journal during a thirty-year period (one article each year) to analyze the research method trends and the learner types focused in those studies. Results showed that mixed-method research has been more popular in recent years, and this may help academics better understand the connections between classroom environments and technology-enhanced language acquisition. For quantitative analysis, tests and Liker-scale questionnaires are the most used instruments, whereas interviews are the most common approach for qualitative analysis in mixed-method publications. Additionally, when it came to learning levels, researchers focused their attention on college and university students, but they paid no attention to pre-schoolers.

In the accelerating pace of globalization and internationalization of trade, professionals from a wide range of organizations believed that English as an international language, which is a way of thinking, researching and practicing, was used in almost all areas of life, study, and work. That’s why the study's foremost objectives were to comprehend reading learning strategies used by English-majored students at Thu Dau Mot University. A quantitative method was used to conduct the research with a questionnaire divided into four parts. The subjects of this study are 100 English majors from the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Thu Dau Mot University. According to the results, the majority of students agree with the difficulties faced when learning English reading. Likewise, students also subscribe that they also use some reading learning strategies such as extensive reading strategy, the phonics strategy, the whole language strategy, reading comprehension strategy and vocabulary building strategy. Moreover, some solutions, such as the function of the word in the sentence, the main gist, guessing the unfamiliar word and reading aloud are recommended to them to read more effectively and improve their reading ability. Ultimately, some recommendations are made in the hope of helping both teachers and students. Keywords: challenges, English reading, reading learning strategies, Thu Dau Mot University

This study aims to investigate students’ common errors in Vietnamese-English translation. For the objectives, 70 first-year students at Foreign Trade University – Ho Chi Minh campus, were invited to participate in this study. To identify students’ errors in Vietnamese-English translation, the participants were asked to complete five weekly assignments. The results revealed that students made grammatical, lexical, and spelling errors. The causes of these observed errors were also indicated, which included the difference between English and Vietnamese, inadequate culture background, students’ insufficient linguistic competence in English language and Vietnamese language, lack of cultural background knowledge, students’ inappropriate translation strategies, interference of Vietnamese, misunderstanding, and students’ carelessness. In addition, some suggestions were offered in the light of the findings identified in the study to help students improve their translation ability.

This study only deals with the range of functions of speech acts that the English language may serve all with a view to raise teachers’ and students’ awareness of the roles that the communicative intentions, the utterance functions and the interactive context play in the acquisition of language in general and in develoing students’ communicative competence in particular. With the aims beforehand, the study tries to analyse and present speech acts and implications for teaching and learning these aspects effectively. With reference to speech acts and their linguistic functions in the English language, this study can serve as a reference material for those who are interested in carrying out more research in this field.

This study which entitles “Learners’ Attitudes towards the Project Works in promoting English learner autonomy: a Case Study at Foreign Trade University-Ho Chi Minh Campus” was conducted with the following objectives: (1) to investigate students’ attitudes towards the use of project works to enhance their autonomous learning in an English speaking class; (2) to find out to what extent students believe that using project works can promote their autonomous learning; and (3) to figure out difficulties that learners have during the time they conduct Video making project. The study population was 73 second-year students who took the course English listening and speaking 2. An open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview were employed as research instruments for data collection. The result firstly shows that the students have positive attitudes towards the use of project works in English class that may have enhanced their autonomous learning. Then, it reveals students’ preference in having more project works to do in their English classes. Nonetheless, using project works’ evaluation as one of criteria for course assessment is a controversial issue among these students. In addition, students’ interest in utilizing information technology devices is remarked as one of the significant findings in this study. Furthermore, some difficulties when conducting projects are found including time constraints, teamwork conflicts, cultural differences and technology problems. In short, because of students’ positive attitudes toward Video making project in enhancing their autonomous learning, it is suggested that teachers should consider applying the project in their language teaching.

The relationship between language and gender is an interesting topic which has been under discussion over the last few centuries. Throughout the history of language study, lots of studies have been conducted and different linguists have been looking at this issue from different angles. As a socially constructed notion of what is feminine and what is masculine, gender is considered to be closely interrelated to different aspects of our life, especially to our language. From interdisciplinary perspectives with the corpus being the language used in daily communication, the study pointed out various differences between genders both in language use and in aspects of the language used to talk about each gender. From these differences, the study can help us understand a great deal of American culture which, in turns, makes it easy for us to use the language effectively.

FACTORS AFFECTING ENGLISH SCORES AT NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL EXAM OF SOPHOMORES AT THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCES FROM GLS METHOD

This paper aims to identify the English-learning motivation of Thu Dau Mot University’s students. Based on the questionnaire, the data for analysis were collected from more than 100 students of different majors studying non-majored English at Thu Dau Mot University’s Foreign Language Center. The findings show that students have relatively positive learning motivation. In the relationship between learning achievement and motivation, the motive that comes from the students’ desire to get a better job occupies 58.4% of all the students surveyed because they believe it is essential and decisive to ensure their future income (applying for a job to earn money), and motivation to integrate into modern world life (because English is a global language: 40.4%) are the factors affecting students’ achievement.

In this study, we examine students at Thu Dau Mot University specializing in Food Technology’s speaking and listening skills in English. We conducted a survey on 59 students majoring in Food Technology using the questionnaire approach. Students struggle to develop macro-English abilities like speaking and listening, as seen by their responses. mastering English grammar, vocabulary, and other micro-skills might be challenging. The findings indicate that significant obstacles to learning listening and speaking skills include a lousy sound system, a lack of a communicative context, a limited vocabulary, a lack of cultural understanding, and a fear of making mistakes in communication. The findings also demonstrate that students’ limited exposure to English and weak phonological skills are to blame for their difficulty acquiring pronunciation. Many words are long and complicated, making learning and recalling word parts like verbs, nouns, and adjectives challenging. Many words are also difficult to pronounce. Learning the grammar of verbs and articles is challenging for students. When the challenges are solved, this research aims to effective foreign language learning.

The aim of the study is to investigate the errors in writing of non- English major students at Thu Dau Mot University. This study focused on paragraphs because the researcher has found that diverse errors in students’ paragraphs and wants to improve their writing skill. Seventy-four English paragraphs were written by 74 non-English major students coming from different academic majors at Thu Dau Mot University. All of the errors in the paragraphs were identified, synthesized and classified into various categorizations. The findings of the study show that the most frequently committed errors were tense, spellings, singular/plural form, prepositions, word order, fragment. On the basis of these results, many recommendations and pedagogical implications were suggested to help EFL lecturers with some teaching strategies that will reduce problems regarding writing English paragraphs among English learners.

This article presents the results of a study on the current application of Project-based learning (PBL) in the teaching of English productive skills to students at the Foreign Trade University - Ho Chi Minh City Campus and how students can improve them. The research also provides insights into the expectations of students and entrepreneurs on that matter. The research group used the 5-point Likert scale in a questionnaire to collect data from students and interviewed FTU - HCMC’s English teachers and entrepreneurs to give further suggestions. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze whether or not there is a significant difference in students’ English productive skills before and after using PBL in English language learning. This study found a significant difference in speaking skills of FTU - HCMC students before and after participating in PBL activities. The students improved their comprehension, range and the ability to deliver their ideas to the target reader for writing skills. However, no difference was found in their content, cohesion, and accuracy. Interviewed teachers and entrepreneurs supported the implementation of PBL in schools. Overall, PBL is encouraged in the settings of higher education institutions.

Vietnamese immigrants in the United States encounter a variety of acculturation issues that affect them as individuals, families, and as members of their communities. It is evidenced in the literature that low-socio status immigrants suffered from those acculturation challenges. However, there is scant research on how acculturation affects high-socio status immigrants in general and Vietnamese American immigrants in particular. To better understand how high-educated Vietnamese families coped with acculturation in the United States, this research used semi-structured interviews to examine the acculturation issues they encountered and the techniques they utilized to overcome those issues. Four well-educated participants were interviewed one-on-one for 20-30 minutes each by Google Meet in Vietnamese whenever they were available. The interviews were transcribed using unfocused transcription, and the data was analyzed using grounded theory technique. Results showed that high-educated Vietnamese immigrants in the United States face three major acculturation challenges: orientation, the necessity of better economic and self-esteem needs. However, women seemed to be under more acculturative stress owing to their lower levels of English proficiency and work satisfaction, according to the findings. In terms of coping methods, the husbands use integration acculturation tactics to deal with their issues. Separation methods were adopted by the women at various periods in their life, despite the fact that they are eager to become fully integrated members of American culture. They are unable to do so due to a lack of urgency and lack of access to cultural integration.

The present paper was to discuss how the use of the progressive forms with stative verbs has changed in present-day English and discuss what the teachers should do to deal with this issue in English grammar teaching. The discussion of the paper was based on theoretical framework of progressive aspect and stative verbs. Data collected from three corpus-informed grammar textbooks show that there has been being a change in grammatical usage, specifically in the use of the progressive form with stative verbs. In particular, traditional views support the limitation of the use of the progressive form with stative verbs, while present-day English ones prove that many stative verbs can be used in progressive form. Through the discussion, the writer of the present paper finally suggested two pedagogical implications for teaching English progressive aspect.

ABSTRACT With the ever-increasing development of technology, online teaching is more readily accepted as a viable component in teaching and learning, and blended learning, the combining of online and face-to-face learning, is becoming commonplace in many higher education institutions. Definitely, challenges cannot be denied; however, it has been suggested and deployed globally including Vietnam. To some extent, both teachers and students present their positive points of view on this learning approach. However, there are a huge number of students expressing their lack of understanding the blended learning, which negatively affects their attitudes towards deployment of this learning approach as well as particular reference to motivation and interest. This paper is to assess the English majors’ perceptions on blended learning environment at tertiary level, which especially affects their learning the writing skills. Results of the study are absolutely helpful for the author to understand the students’ perceptions of the effects on the blended learning; then, she can give some suggestions to enhance the learning of writing skills in the light of blended learning. Key word: Blended learning, academic writing, perception

Summary: Context: In the period of Vietnam, gradually developing industrialization and modernization. Purpose: To research the needs of English language learning among office workers in Hanoi during the aforementioned period. Methods: Using questionnaires on 120 employees at companies in Hanoi. Results: Most respondents rarely use English at work. However, they still need to learn foreign languages to improve their professional English or satisfy their self-satisfaction. Conclusion: Survey is an essential suggestion in English lessons for working people.

This paper analyzes the interpersonal metafunction in text messages of teachers of English at Viet Anh School. The paper uses Systemic Functional Grammar as the theoretical framework which aims to investigate into a language from a qualitative approach. The aim of this paper is to discover how interpersonal metafunction is being served in text messages of teachers of English in terms of mood, speech function, modality and personal pronouns. The analysis indicates that the English teachers often use text messages for providing more information and demanding services by the dominant use of declaratives clauses in their interaction. These English teachers also perform their plans or desires about their future intention through the frequent use of modality such as ‘will’, ‘can’ or ‘could’. Through the analysis of personal pronouns, it can be clear that the English teachers tend to interact with each other by sharing their points of view rather than mentioning about other things or persons. Their social relation is shorten through the popular use of pronouns ‘I’, ‘we’ and ‘you’. Thus, it can be concluded that the social relationship among the English teachers is established and maintained through the use of interpersonal metafunction.

English is one of the keys to successful globalization; therefore, every country develops own English teaching policy. Teaching English in Asia is a very common issue ruled and supported by the government. This article is a contrastive study on different English policies in such Southeast and East Asian countries as China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The contrastive analysis focused on such aspects as school year of implementing English as required subject, teaching hours of English, teacher’s training, use of local and foreign teachers, teaching methods and materials, funding, etc. The contrastive study among countries mentioned above evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of certain English teaching policies. The positive results of one country can be borrowed and adapted by another country considering its cultural, political, economic or social features. On the other hand, the failures of one country’s English teaching policy can be considered and avoided by another country’s planning on English teaching policy.

This paper explores the pros and cons of using online setting for teaching and learning English comparing with in-class setting. Online setting is undergoing a fast transformation and becomes a widely promoted platform due to COVID-19 pandemic. By reviewing different studies on online teaching, this paper aims to provide readers a better understanding about online setting. These information would be useful in Vietnam where online class just has a medium used and short history comparing with other developed and developing countries, so online class in Vietnam may need adjust and consideration based on different culture and learner’s experience. This paper also give some suggestions in design of online learning for English languages to increase the learning effectiveness.

An effective teacher plays a crucial role in the process of learning English as a foreign language (EFL) when students’ opportunities to English exposure outside the classroom are limited. The aim of this study was to examine professional characteristics that an effective EFL teacher should have as perceived by Taiwanese university students. A four-section questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument, and the study sample included responses from 68 senior students majoring in EFL. The results show that the three most significant characteristics of an effective teacher of English in the eyes of Taiwanese university students are not related specifically to the teacher’s knowledge of the subject or English proficiency level. Those characteristics can be attributed to any teacher, and they include providing clear grading guidelines, giving clear explanations, and preparing each lesson well. The findings may contribute valid information on college students’ expectations of EFL teachers in the Asian educational context and help make the language learning process more effective.

In the trend of globalization and international integration of our country today, learning foreign languages in general and English in particular are aimed at achieving communication purposes. Therefore, learning the linguistic knowledge including vocabulary is also for the purpose of developing learners' communication skills. The non-majored English training for students at the Foreign Language Center - Thu Dau Mot University is directed to the effectiveness of communication, the most prominent is the method of learning vocabulary through the application of Morphology and Morpheme; At the same time, the method of learning meanings of words in the context and application of newly-learned words in the practice of communication skills will be also focused.