KEY BARRIERS TO ICT UPTAKE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING IN VIETNAM: A CASE STUDY

Information and communications technology (ICT) has a high profile in education and has been increasingly integrated into teaching and learning at all levels in Vietnam. Logically, ICT, which is perceived to bring about numerous positive benefits, should be warmly received by all teachers. However, this is not the case for foreign language teachers in Vietnam. This paper provides a critical analysis of key obstacles to ICT uptake in foreign language teaching at tertiary level in Vietnam. This is a result of a case study at Hanoi University (HANU). The data were collected from 222 survey questionnaires and 43 semi-structured interviews with HANU teaching staff, leadership and ICT experts. The findings show that barriers existed at both institutional and teacher levels. Lack of guidelines, training and support for ICT use in teaching, and limited resources were among the key barriers. The implications of the study are also discussed. Developing objective understanding of the inhibiting factors could be significant for successful ICT integration into modern language teaching in the future.