Keyword: EFL learners

ABSTRACT: In the context of globalization, English serves as a lingua franca, and vocabulary acquisition plays a crucial role in language learning and effective communication. In Vietnam, despite the advancement of educational technology, the application of digital tools in vocabulary teaching at the secondary school level still faces certain limitations. This action study was conducted on 40 11th-grade students at a public high school to assess the impact of digital game-based learning on vocabulary acquisition. Through data analysis from questionnaires, classroom observations, and teacher self-reflection journals, the findings indicated that integrating Wordwall games into English lessons positively influenced students’ motivation, engagement, and vocabulary acquisition. Classroom participation was consistently higher in Wordwall-based lessons than in comparable non-digital activities. Most students also demonstrated a clear preference for digital games. Insights from the researcher’s reflection journals, together with the findings from Wordwall-based activities and EVP analysis, suggested noticeable improvement in students’ vocabulary acquisition across the intervention cycles, particularly in vocabulary recall and their ability to use a wider range of lexical items. The study confirms the pedagogical potential of digital games in optimizing language development for EFL students in Vietnam.

ABSTRACT: The flipped classroom (FC) model has gained increasing attention as a student-centered instructional approach that promotes active learning and communicative engagement. However, its application within the Afghan English as a foreign language (EFL) context remains largely underexplored. This study examines perceived attitudes of Afghan EFL major students towards FC and explores learners’ perceptions regarding its benefits and challenges in their speaking performance. A mixed-methods research design was employed, integrating quantitative and qualitative data. Twenty-five elementary-level English major students participated in the study. Quantitative data were collected through a 10-item Likert-scale questionnaire, while qualitative insights were obtained through semi-structured interviews with four purposively selected participants. Descriptive statistics and one-sample t-tests were used to analyze the questionnaire data, and thematic analysis was applied to the interview responses. The findings revealed that students held significantly positive perceptions of the flipped classroom, with mean scores for all items exceeding the neutral midpoint. Learners reported improvements in speaking fluency, confidence, pronunciation, and opportunities for communicative practice. Interview findings further indicated that flipped learning enhanced motivation, learner responsibility, and classroom interaction while also presenting challenges related to time management, comprehension of pre-class materials, and unequal participation during group activities. Overall, the study provides empirical evidence that the flipped classroom can effectively support speaking development and learner engagement in Afghan EFL higher education. The findings suggest that adopting flipped pedagogy may contribute to more interactive and communicatively rich language classrooms in Afghanistan.

ABSTRACT: In Vietnamese public schools serving ethnic minority learners, English language instruction often unfolds in linguistically complex and culturally mismatched classrooms. This narrative case study explores how one Vietnamese English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher responds to the challenges of teaching English to Khmer learners in a rural secondary school in the Mekong Delta. Drawing on a written reflection composed during a professional development course, the study examines how the teacher makes sense of her learners’ persistent grammatical difficulties, rooted in first language (L1) transfer from Khmer, and how she navigates the cultural dissonance between textbook content and learners’ lived experiences. Findings reveal that the teacher reframes language “errors” as patterned responses to structural distance, and that she enacts responsive teaching through chunk-based instruction, visual scaffolding, and culturally localized tasks. Her practice illustrates how small, context-driven adaptations are reconfigured when English is learned through Vietnamese by Khmer-speaking learners, making visible the interpretive work teachers do to turn structural distance into pedagogical resource. By foregrounding the voice of a teacher working in a triadic language environment (Khmer, Vietnamese, and English), the study theorises teacher responsiveness in such settings and offers an empirically grounded account of multilingual pedagogy and teacher agency in under-researched Southeast Asian classrooms.