www.edu.monash.

edu

04 major challenges in approaching research

as an early-career/ young researcher

1. Deciding on a Topic
2. Deciding on Research Questions
3. Finding Relevant Theories and
Theorists
4. Choosing the best Design and Methods
 www.edu.monash.edu

CHALLENGE 1: WHAT TO CHOOSE?

DECIDING ON A TOPIC
 www.edu.monash.edu

Consider:

• Is it of your concern/interest?
• Is it of others’ concern/interest?
• Are the results/outcomes not so obvious?
• Does it help to demonstrate your knowledge and skills?
• Is it feasible?
 www.edu.monash.edu

From critical reading …

To this …

• (1) No four go!

• (2) M0^ng Hem Tha‘nh th0^y -Danh‘ We^n –Dj
• (3) …..vCl]`])iF_µ`/v\µº]\[' ]\[º]‘…….!!!! (º’ ]\[†|µ]\
[(¬? ])]F_µ` †† |Cl† §µ ]<º ††|F_? 3]F_†’ †Pvµº(’
])(. 3º]~

Gen9X’s language
 www.edu.monash.edu

(Version 1.4) http://www.mediafire.com/?

ml1oxwjylcn
www.edu.monash.edu
www.edu.monash.edu
www.edu.monash.edu
www.edu.monash.edu
 www.edu.monash.edu

Gen 9X (Vietnamese born in the 1990s)

 www.edu.monash.edu

Gen 9X vis-à-vis the Rising Generation

Worldwide
• ‘Millennial Generation’ (Howe & Strauss, 2000, p. 4)
• ‘Generation M’, (Media, Millenials, Mobile,
Multitaskers, Multisensory) (Cvetkovic & Lackie, 2009),
• ‘Generation I’ (Internet) (Bill Gates, "The Challenge and Promise of
"Generation I"," 1999),

• ‘Generation Z’ (Walliker, 2008)

• ‘beyond Y’ (McGregor, 2010)
 both similarities and differences with Vietnamese
Gen9X
 www.edu.monash.edu

English mixed with Examples

Vietnamese
Code-switching ‘comment’ bài; ‘send’ cái ‘file’; ‘Damn’,
tao ‘stupid’ quá, ‘sorry’ mày etc.
Spelling mixture làm wen, làm shao, zui zẻ, làm j

Word-by-word Like is afternoon’ (Thích+thì+chiều),

translation ‘No four go’ (Vô+tư+đi)
Abbreviations and 2 (‘hai’ = hi!), 4EV(forever), g9
homophones (goodnight), u (you),
Transliteration măn-ni (money), kiu (cute), hao-a-diu
(how are you?) teo-mi (tell me)
Whole speech in
English
 www.edu.monash.edu

Consider:

• Is it of your concern/interest?
• Is it of others’ concern/interest?
• Are the results/outcomes not so obvious?
• Does it help to demonstrate your knowledge and skills?
• Is it feasible?
 www.edu.monash.edu

CHALLENGE 2: NARROWING DOWN!

DECIDING ON
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
 www.edu.monash.edu

Consider

• Narrow it down: No scope is too narrow!

• Always justify your choices/narrowing
• What is new/what is the expected
contribution?
• Choose a nice, catchy title!
 www.edu.monash.edu

Gen 9X TESOL Trainees as among the most

‘critical’ cases:
• Most exposed to English language and
Western values; Gen9X
• Most likely to extend their language and
values to generations as moral guides;
• Most likely to be in sharp values- Gen9X
language conflicts TESOL
 language-values concern: Across Trainees
time, space & identities
 www.edu.monash.edu

1. Rationales of the Study

• Gen9X TESOL trainees as a ‘critical’ group in the language

and values concerns of their generation.
• The media reports also need problematizing for its:
– Distant positioning;
– Essentialist depiction;
– Voice, agency & other possibilities failed to be acknowledged.
 www.edu.monash.edu

cellent :)
acerbated :(
or
aggerated :O

Vietnamese Gen9 TESOL Trainees

in the Struggle of Voices for their
Language and Values
 www.edu.monash.edu

2. Purposes of the Study

Time; Space & Identities

 www.edu.monash.edu

Research Questions
1. What are Gen9X Vietnamese TESOL trainees’
voice(s) regarding:
– The impacts of English language learning and teaching (inside
and outside the language classroom) on their uses of both
Vietnamese and English languages; and
– The institutional values they wish to promote in the English
language classroom in Vietnam.
2. To what extent and how could they negotiate a
space for these voices in the English language
classroom discourse?
 www.edu.monash.edu

CHALLENGE 3: FIND A GIANT’S SHOULDER!

FINDING RELEVANT
THEORSISTS AND
THEORIES
 www.edu.monash.edu

Consider

• Major theorists and major theories

associated with these names
• Read them first, and other successors
• How far could it be applied in Vietnamese
contexts and your topic?
• Critical reading, problematizing, take side
and build up the theoretical framework as
you go.
 www.edu.monash.edu

Typical education theorists

• John Dewey
• Karl Marx
• Ferdinand de Saussure
• Mikhail Bakhtin
• Pierre Bourdieu
• Michel Foucault
• Paulo Freire
• Stuart Hall
• Edward Said
• Lev Vigostky
 www.edu.monash.edu

John Dewey

• Instrumentalism
• Pragmatic epistemology/ metaphysics/
ethics/ aesthetics
• Education and experience
• Reflection
 www.edu.monash.edu

Saussure

• Structuralism
• Structural linguistics
• Language and parole
• Sign, signifier, and signified
 www.edu.monash.edu

Bakhtin

• Utterance
• Dialogism
• Heteroglossia
• Voice
• Genre
• Social language
 www.edu.monash.edu

Pierre Bourdieu

• Practice
• Field
• Habitus
• Taste
• Cultural Capital
 www.edu.monash.edu

Michel Foucault

• Discourse
• Genealogy
• Power
• Ethics of self
 www.edu.monash.edu

Paulo Freire

• Critical pedagogy
• Conscientization
• Dialogue
 www.edu.monash.edu

Stuart Hall

• Ideology
• Culture
• Popular culture
 www.edu.monash.edu

Edward Said

• Orientalism
• Imperialism
 www.edu.monash.edu

Vigotsky

• Learning and development

• Internalization
• Thought-language relations
• Zone of proximal development
• Constructivism
 www.edu.monash.edu

Overview
1. Rationale of the Study
2. Purposes of the Study
3. Literature Review: Theoretical and Conceptual
Framework
- English language classroom discourse and its
trainers/trainees in Vietnam
- Voice in the English language classroom in Vietnam
4. Methodology & Methods
 www.edu.monash.edu

3.1. The English language classroom in

Vietnam
• As a rendezvous of Western and traditional values
– Institutional values (Rokeach, 1979)
– Traditional (educational) values
> hierarchy and respect (Phan, 2008; Valentin, 2007)
> knowledge (Trần, 1996)
> affection and humanity (Trần, 1996; Phan, 2008)
– Western values (Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (1994), Canagarajah (2003) &
Holliday (2005))
 www.edu.monash.edu

The English language classroom in

Vietnam and its trainers & trainees

• As non-neutral in the language – values concern

– Vietnamese ‘contaminated’ by English language

learning
– The loss of cultural identities (Hitchcock, 1994; Marr & Rosen,
1998; Valentin, 2007; Pennycook, 1994; Tsui & Tollefson, 2007a)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Problematizing …

• The Concerns about the Englishization of the

Mother Tongue:
– L2 not necessary a threat to L1 (Tsui & Tollefson, 2007b;
Canagarajah, 2003)
– Englishization could assist the young generation
in their adaptation to a changing world (McGregor,
2010; Canagarajah, 2003)
– Gen9Xers’ actively resisting and negotiating with
it (Kramer-Dahl, 2009)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Problematizing (cont.)

• the Concerns about the Westernization of

Traditional Values
– Values as an essentialist (D'Andrade, 2008) vs. non-
essentialist concept (Raths, Harmin, & Simon, 1966) or
both (Rokeach, 1979)
– The possibility of value changes (Rokeach, 1979)
– The continuity rather than sudden fragmentation
(Rokeach, 1979; Hitchcock,1994)
 www.edu.monash.edu

3.2. Voice
• In critical pedagogy: as a means of participation
(Kamler, 2001,)

• In this study:
– With both representational and discursive senses
– As a means of:
> Struggle
> Engagement
– As silence (Pennycook, 1994)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Voice (cont.)

• In this study (cont.)

– As situated, resisted, negotiated,
appropriated, changing (hooks, 1989; Canagarajah,
2003)
– As individual and collective (Giroux, 1997)
– As a cultural concept (Trần, 1996)
> Language of love
> Possibilities for the language of critique,
(when appropriated)

Voice (cont.): In Vietnamese traditional
proverbs
Language of Love & Conformity
(Willett & Jeannot, 1993)
“Một sự nhịn, chín sự lành”
(A little silence brings a lot of peace)
“Cá không ăn muối cá uơn – Con cãi cha
mẹ trăm đường con hư”
((Like) fish without salt is stale; a child
without obedience to his parents is surely
spoiled)
www.edu.monash.edu
(Possibilities for) Language of Critique
(Willett & Jeannot, 1993)
“Chim khôn hót tiếng rảnh rang - Người
khôn nói tiếng dịu dàng dễ nghe”
(The clever bird twitters in a leisurely
manner, The wise person talks with a
gentle pleasing voice)
“Lời nói chẳng mất tiền mua - Lựa lời mà
nói cho vừa lòng nhau”
(it doesn’t cost to be polite; choose the
words that please each other)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Voice in the English language classroom

Giroux Canagarajah Pennycook
(1997) (2003) (1994)
03 discourses of The Periphery 03 forms of
educational English language students’ voice
practices classroom regarding the
discourse cultural politics of
English
-Discourse of - the participants in - discursive actions
production the discourse of - linguistic actions
-Discourse of text production and of - subjective actions
analysis lived culture
-Discourse of lived - the Periphery and
culture the Center
 www.edu.monash.edu

Conceptual CENTER
framework

The discourse
of production
English Voice (*)
Gen9X TESOL
The discourse
of text analysis
Language Trainees
Classroom
The discourse
of lived culture

PERIPHERY
(Vietnam)
 www.edu.monash.edu

CHALLENGE 4: DO IT NOW, BUT HOW?

METHODS AND
METHODOLOGY
 www.edu.monash.edu

Consider

• Research paradigm: Epistemology &

ontology
• Research design
• Research methods
• Again! Always justify your choices.
 www.edu.monash.edu

(Tentative) Design and Methodology: A

case study with mixed methods

Level 2 inferences:
Vietnamese 9X TESOL Trainees
Case Study

Vietnamese 9X TESOL Trainees

Level 1 in the research site
inferences:
Mixed Methods Participants
 www.edu.monash.edu

(Tentative) Design and Methodology

(cont.)
• Case Study as necessary and suitable (Yin (1994,
p. 1)

• Mixed Methods: quan  QUAL

– Mixed methods as feasible (Johnson & Christensen, 2008; Yin,
1994) and facilitating

– The sequence as feasible (Creswell, 2005; Johnson &

Christensen, 2008) and useful (Johnson & Christensen, 2008)

– Dominant status for practical and ontological

reasons (Freire, 1985)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Problems with Learning about Silenced

Voices: Liberation or Neo-oppression?
• Paradigm: Constructivism
• Positioning: ‘ideological shifts’ (Canagarajah 2003)
• Methods: Qualitative as dominant; survey
questionnaires
• Techniques:
– valuing and validating their contributions; reading the
subtexts; indirect data collection (O'Toole & Beckett, 2010)
– generate themes (Freire, 2009)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Methods and Procedure

• Stage 1: Case Study Pilot

• Stage 2: Preliminary Analysis & Study
Design Refined
• Stage 3: Primary Data Collection
• Stage 4: Data Analysis
 www.edu.monash.edu

Methods and Procedure (cont.):

Focusing on Stage 3
Survey Questionnaires (stratified and cluster random sampling)
≥250 TESOL trainees

Individual Interviews (selected by the survey respondent)

or Focused Groups (selected by the survey respondent
and homogeneity (Johnson & Christensen, 2008) )
≥20 interviews

Realia/Documents
(as allowed by the participants)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Research Site:
Department of English Language Teacher Training,
University of Languages and International Studies,
Hanoi (Vietnam)
• as a ‘typical’ case, ‘meeting the criteria typical of
the phenomenon’ (Johnson & Christensen 2008)
– the principal TESOL training institution in Vietnam
– a frequented rendezvous of traditional and Western
values (training objectives, historical background etc.)
– a site of growing cultural concerns (fostered use of
Internet, CLT, separate & minor courses on two
cultures, lived culture of Gen9X)
 www.edu.monash.edu

Methods and Procedure (cont.):

Focusing on Stage 4 (Data Analysis)
• Quantitative analysis to identify (possible)
trends, extremes, and (possible) new themes:
– Using factors in the survey questionnaires as a
typology (Caracelli & Greene, 1993, cited in Creswell, 2005).
– Following up on outliers or Extreme Cases (Caracelli
& Greene, 1993, cited in Creswell, 2005)
• Qualitative analysis to develop categories
system (Johnson & Christensen, 2008)
 www.edu.monash.edu

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION