EMI Programs in Vietnamese Universities

Abstract

This chapter goes further to exam the EMI programs in Vietnamese universities. Vietnam is a country in Southeast Asia with a long history dated back to 4000 years B.C. It has been influenced by the Chinese are sharing many cultural norms and values with Confucianism. It belongs to the “Confucius Cultural Heritage Circle” (Chen & Le, 2019, 2021). In 1986, the Vietnamese Government introduced the Reform and opened to foreign trading and investment. To keep up with the new era’s demand, English became more and more important because it is the international language used in economics, politics, education activities between countries. In addition, the government has realised the importance of EMI in the process of internationalisation of higher education. As a result, EMI has been introduced to universities in Vietnam. In this chapter, three types of EMI programs, including (1) domestically-run “high quality programs” by Vietnamese universities independently; (2) internationally joint EMI programs with partner universities (awarding international qualifications) and (3) “advanced programs” involving international EMI teachers (awarding Vietnamese qualifications), will be introduced with identified features. Two categories of EMI teachers will be compared. This comparation will further confirm the necessary research on EMI classroom interactions between lectures and students in Vietnamese universities.