ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training’s National Foreign Languages 2020 Project as the latest education innovation in Vietnam, which has increasingly emphasised the need to improve teaching practices and English language proficiency as they relate to teachers’ professional development (PD). It outlines specific initiatives taken recently by Project 2020 for teachers’ PD in the Vietnamese context, including the improvement of teachers’ English proficiency and pedagogic skills to cater for the requirements of and changes in the curriculum, integration of IT into pedagogical practices and the promotion of action research as a compulsory component of PD. The research presented in this chapter is a qualitative case study based on policy document analysis, which examines a corpus of policy texts, statements and commentary. The findings reveal that while these policy-based initiatives are top-down, PD is situated in a policy context that facilitates and enables teachers to learn in ways that are conducive to the development of effective practices that support student learning.
