An Investigation into Chinese Influence on the Current Curriculum of Bachelor of Business English Degrees at Vietnamese Universities

Abstract

In education across the world the curriculum plays a very important part, as it guides student learning and helps to realise what the teacher has planned. A lot of research has been conducted on curricula; however, few studies have investigated the Bachelor of Business English (BBE) curriculum and even less focusing on Vietnamese universities. This project aimed to investigate the present curricula of BBE at Vietnamese universities to gain important understandings about the purposes of the curriculum of BBE. The project adopted an interpretivist, qualitative approach using document analysis to investigate BBE curricula. Information about the present curricula was collected from the official websites of Vietnamese universities and was analysed using thematic coding. The findings revealed that the present curricula of BBE, which is a national curriculum framework, is influenced by the curriculum theories of Bobbit (1918) and Tyler (1949). In addition, the results show the components of the BBE curriculum has been influenced by a Chinese influenced BBE framework. And yet, interestingly, today there is a focus on English language competence, rather than Chinese or Russian language competence. Nevertheless, the key findings reveal some concerns with the present BBE curriculum in Vietnam.