POWER DISTANCE IN UNIVERSITY CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT, MANIFESTED BY VIETNAMESE-TRAINED TEACHERS AND OVESEAS-TRAINED VIETNAMESE TEACHERS OF ENGLISH

Tóm tắt

This paper investigated power distance manifested by
Vietnamese-trained teachers and overseas-trained Vietnamese teachers of
English in the university environment. The study used the power distance
dimension introduced by Hofstede (1991, 2001) as a framework to investigate
the power distance manifestation in English classrooms. A mixed methods
research design was employed. 28 teachers from both groups of teachers were
chosen to take part in the research in the principle of the purposive sampling
method. Meanwhile structured questionnaires and semi-structured interviews
were used to collect data on classroom environment, thematic analysis was the
main data analysis method. The findings revealed that the chosen research
participants displayed both high power distance and low power distance
manifestation regardless of the official recognisation of Vietnam as a high power
distance nation. The findings suggested that English teachers’ perspectives on
power distance possibly form a foundation for competency-based education in
Vietnam.