Issues in Educational Research, 34(4), 2024 1618

Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum:

The case of primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam
Thi Loan Vu
Hong Duc University, Vietnam
Teacher agency in Vietnam is an under-researched area, to the cost of recognising
teacher professionalism, the role of teachers in curriculum reform and, consequently, the
success of important curriculum improvements. This paper reports on a multiple-case
study investigating teacher agency in primary schools implementing the national EFL
curriculum reform. Four teachers from different primary schools in one province in
Vietnam were interviewed and observed in their classrooms. To give voice to these
teachers, the findings are presented as storylines, revealing that they took differing paths
of agency, which resulted in various curriculum outcomes. Working in low-resourced,
policy-constraining contexts, the teachers revealed that they were exercising agency for
the benefit of students and their own well-being. They mobilised available resources to
act upon their beliefs and capacity. We argue that failing to recognise the presence and
importance of teacher agency impacts on the quality of teaching and learning of EFL.

Introduction

Teacher agency has been an important construct in educational research, particularly when
it provides a lens through which to make connections between curriculum policy and
teacher practice (Hamid & Nguyen, 2016; Menken & García, 2010; Priestley et al., 2013).
Teacher agency refers to teachers exercising power to act, to influence, and to make
choices and decisions about their work (Eteläpelto et al., 2013; Vähäsantanen, 2015). The
focus of this paper is on agency among under-researched Vietnamese primary-school
teachers, how they make choices about enacting the curriculum, and with what effect.

In several middle-income, South-East Asian countries, such as Vietnam, the issue of

teacher agency is problematic and often not recognised. First, Vietnamese teachers are
civil/public servants and are expected to carry out all schooling policy, including
curriculum, faithfully. As Kennedy and Lee (2010, p. 90) put it: “Different Asian societies
have tended to use curriculum documents as key policy tools to indicate directions in the
form of objectives, goals, standards or expected outcomes.” Second, and strongly related
to this, curriculum design and development in Vietnam is “highly centralized” (Kennedy
& Lee, 2010, p. 91), with teachers playing little part in those processes. Implementation of
the curriculum documents is simply part of a top-down policy process. Teachers are
positioned as ‘mere’ policy implementers (Le et al., 2020). Indicators in OECD data
(OECD, 2018) appear to reflect these points, reporting that teachers in Vietnam exercise
very low levels of autonomy in determining course content and selecting learning
materials.

Teacher agency in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Vietnam adds a further
dimension to the issue (Ng & Boucher-Yip, 2017). Vietnamese English language teachers
play a vital role in realising the government’s English language education policy, which is
Vu 1619

important for the country’s integration and development. Reflecting this, English is now a
mandatory subject in school graduation examinations, with Vietnamese and mathematics.
As such, curriculum, teaching, and learning of English in public schools is a major
concern for the country’s political and educational leaders; yet, despite its importance,
there remains a lack of research into EFL teacher agency to determine its impact on
teaching and learning.

In the light of this lack of recognition of, and research into, teacher agency in Vietnam,
especially in English language teaching, this paper reports on original research into the
exercise of English language teacher agency at primary school level in Vietnam. The
research question driving the study was: How do primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam
exercise agency within the mandated curriculum, and with what outcomes?

Teacher agency: theory and practice

Theorising teacher agency

Teacher agency remains an emergent concept despite its prevalence in educational

research (Chisholm et al, 2019; Vähäsantanen, 2015). Definitions vary according to the
theoretical perspectives from which it has been explored (Toom et al., 2015). From a
traditional sociological view of human action, agency is seen as individual capacity or a
personal attribute: it is the desire to act or not to act (Davies, 1990). However, others
consider this view of agency as incomplete. Zembylas (2003) argued that agency should be
considered in its cultural and political contexts, as it “cannot be isolated from the
dynamics of power from which it is constructed” (p. 221).

In considering the influence of contextual conditions, researchers taking an ecological

perspective have defined agency as a temporally embedded process of social engagement.
There are two aspects of this definition: engagement and temporality. Engagement means
that agency is positioned within the contingencies of the contexts in which agents act
(Biesta & Tedder, 2007). This notion emphasises that the contextual conditions in which
teachers work are fundamental to the exercise of agency and cannot be dismissed in any
analysis of teacher capacity to act. The second aspect is the temporal and dynamic nature
of teacher agency: agency encompasses the dynamic interplay between three dimensions:
iterative (past), projective (future), and practical-evaluative (present) (Priestley et al., 2015).
This means that agency builds upon past achievements (iterative); it is linked to the
intention to bring about a future that is different from the present and the past
(projective); and it is acted out in the present (practical-evaluative).

A more recent subject-centred, socio-cultural approach to agency also sees individuals as

embodied and agentic human actors who possess a unique life history and personal goals,
which are fundamental resources for action and shape their actions in the present. Here,
agency centres on the individual and is framed by the individual’s personal goals.
However, agency is also constrained and supported by broader social and institutional
working contexts (Eteläpelto et al., 2013; Hilferty, 2008).
1620 Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum: Primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam

In the context of educational reform, where teachers have played little part in policy
development, their involvement in the reform process only becomes prominent in the
implementation stage, and includes the choices and decisions made by the teachers about
the reform, manifested in two aspects: in taking a position towards the reform; and, in
engaging with the reform. Thus, teacher agency can be studied by examining how teachers
are involved in these two aspects, through their conscious stances and their deliberate
activities taken while enacting the reform (Vähäsantanen, 2015).

My study takes the concept of agency as something that individuals do. Teacher agency
was investigated by examining individual teachers’ choices, decisions, and actions in
implementing curricular reforms in EFL, taking into account their life history and
personal goals, as well as the socio-cultural contexts of their workplace. Teachers as agents
are seen as whole persons with unique past experiences, emotions, commitments, and
concerns for their own well-being.

Research on teacher agency in Vietnamese primary schools

Attention to teacher agency and curriculum reform has increased significantly in recent
decades (Dinh & Sannino, 2024). However, In Vietnam teacher agency remains an under-
investigated research area across schools and subject areas (Le et al., 2020; Nguyen & Bui,
2016; Vu, 2021). Several studies examining teacher agency in Vietnamese EFL contexts
have been identified (Nguyen & Huynh, 2021; Dang et al., 2023; Hoang & Le, 2017; Le et
al., 2020; Nguyen & Bui, 2016; Huyen Pham & Hamid, 2017; Phyak & Bui, 2014; Tran,
2019; Thi Tran et al., 2023). Of these, three (Hoang & Le, 2017; Le et al., 2020; Tran et al.,
2023) investigated teacher agency among primary school teachers of EFL.

All three studies examined teacher agency in reform implementation, and each was a very
small-scale study in a limited, singular context. Hoang and Le (2017) investigated how one
EFL teacher in a remote rural school in the south of the country responded to primary
school English language policy change. They found that the new curriculum, which had
been passed on through top-down practice with little cognisance of teachers as active
thinkers, made the teacher feel disempowered and deprived of agency. In the other study,
Le et al. (2020) explored how primary EFL teachers in one offshore, island school in
northern Vietnam exhibited their agency in response to policy change. Their findings
showed that teachers adapted policy to their interpretation and preference even though
they were positioned by policy makers and education managers as ‘mere’ policy
implementers. Tran et el. (2023) examined the ways in which teachers enacted the
mandated teaching methods into practice. They found that teachers either accepted or
resisted the curriculum's prescribed methods. Their responses were influenced by factors
such as prior knowledge, professional experience, insights gained from professional
development, the curriculum framework, the school’s available resources, and the
characteristics of their students.

However, these studies failed to depict the divergence in teachers’ responses to reform
and how the lack of infrastructure impacts on the nature of Vietnamese EFL teacher
Vu 1621

agency. The shortcomings in previous studies led to the current research to theorise
teacher agency in more representative Vietnamese EFL contexts.

Teachers’ responses to CLT curriculum

Communicative language teaching (CLT) is a core feature of the national EFL curricula in
Vietnam. Developed in Western contexts in the early 1970s, CLT’s key principle is the
promotion of authentic interaction in the target language (Ellis et al., 2019). It rejected
“methods which stressed the teaching of grammatical forms and paid little or no attention
to the way that language is used in everyday situations” (Crystal, 2006, p. 439). Instead, it
focuses on creating multiple opportunities for learners to try out their language
knowledge; encouraging them to develop both accuracy and fluency; and linking different
language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Richards, 2006). In a CLT
classroom, students engage in different oral and written second language (L2)
communicative activities or tasks (Butler, 2011), such as role-plays, simulations,
storytelling, picture descriptions, and language games (Kayi, 2006). Pair and group work
are also strongly encouraged to create opportunities for interaction and negotiation among
students (Butler, 2011).

Many Asian jurisdictions have mandated CLT as the core pedagogy in their EFL
programs (Butler, 2011). However, teachers have often found it challenging to apply CLT
in their classrooms due to various constraints (Copland et al., 2014). First, the core
principles of CLT, which promote a student-centred and interactive pedagogy, clash with
traditional educational practices in many Asian countries (Humphries & Burns, 2015; Jin
& Yoo, 2019). Second, local classroom conditions, characterised by large classes and
limited facilties, make CLT implementation difficult (Butler, 2011; Jin & Yoo, 2019).
Third, Asian teachers often receive only basic training in the underpinning theory of CLT
and its practical applications (Copland et al., 2014).

Therefore, previous research has found that teachers in Asian EFL contexts, beyond
Vietnam, exercise considerable agency when implementing CLT in their classrooms: either
by taking agentic actions to bridge the gaps between policy expectations and local
contingency (Hamid & Nguyen, 2016; Hoang & Le, 2017; Le et al., 2020); or by either
covertly or overtly resisting policy mandates (Choi, 2015; Canh & Barnard, 2009; Li &
Baldauf, 2011).

Methods

To address the research question, my study aimed to explore, in depth, how different
primary school teachers exercised agency when enacting the EFL curriculum in their
specific classrooms. A multiple-case study design using qualitative research methods was
deemed most appropriate because exploring teacher agency invariably involves in-depth,
in-context, research. Its complexities demand protracted, careful observation, ongoing
dialogue, and detailed analysis with a limited number of participants (Babbie, 2016).
1622 Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum: Primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam

The cases selected were four primary EFL teachers at different public schools in one
urban district in North Central Vietnam. After distributing research information letters,
approved by the University’s Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), and
conducting selective interviews, four participants were finally drawn up. The four case
study teachers selected, all female but not by design, had different experiences of teaching
at the primary level and were willing to participate fully in the study. Each participant was
given a pseudonym: Dao, Cuc, Sen and Mai. Table 1 presents their profiles.

Table 1: Participant teachers’ profiles

Teaching Self-reported
Teaching Year
Teacher experience at Qualifications English
experience level
primary level proficiency
Dao 15 years 7 years Year 3 and 4 Bachelor B2
Cuc 18 years 15 years Year 5 Bachelor B1
Sen 14 years 1 years Year 4 and 5 Bachelor B2
Mai 19 years 15 years Year 3 and 4 Bachelor B2
Note: The teachers’ English proficiency levels are based on the 6-level English Competencies
Framework for Vietnam, which is compatible with the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (CEFR, 2024). The six levels are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2.

All four participants had a Bachelor of Teaching qualification and 14 or more years of
teaching experience. All four taught across Years 3, 4 and 5, the grades where the national
primary English curriculum was mandated.

Data collection

The data for the current study is drawn from the data pool used in Vu’s (2021) study.
Data collection involved interviewing the teachers and observing their classroom
practices. In line with the University’s HREC’s permission, access to the schools, teachers,
and classrooms involved informed consent from school principals.

Data were collected over six weeks, from March to April 2018, and involved: (i) an in-
depth, semi-structured interview with each teacher at the outset; (ii) four classroom
observations of each teacher; and (iii) follow-up interviews (Vu, 2021, pp. 282-294). The
initial interview was to discover the teachers’ previous experiences, their understandings
of the curriculum, and their interpretations of CLT and ‘child-friendly’ pedagogy. Each
interview lasted between 90 and 120 minutes. Four semi-structured observations of each
teacher in their classrooms were conducted, with each lesson video recorded. Each
observation was one full teaching lesson of 45 minutes. Observation protocols were also
used to record CLT and non-CLT activities. Follow-up interviews occurred after each
lesson in the form of informal converstaion, each lasted between 20 to 30 minutes, to ask
teachers questions about their practices observed, and to allow teachers to discuss their
classroom activities and actions. All interviews were conducted in Vietnamese.
Vu 1623

Data analysis

First, interviews were transcribed verbatim and were returned to participants for checking,
to ensure their approval of the accuracy of their statements. Observation notes and field
notes were re-written and re-organised to make full observation data. Each teacher's data
set was analysed separately, before conducting a cross-case analysis.

Data from the interviews and observations were analysed from the "ground up" (Yin,
2014, p. 136). The analysis of each case’s dataset began by reading the transcripts several
times before coding. The coding process was guided by the theory of agency as presented.
Primary coding of the data (Miles et al., 2014) were conducted by attaching labels to
words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that denoted the teacher’s stances, choices, and
actions: how they responded to the curriculum – supported or resisted it; how they
decided to enact the curriculum in the classroom, and what they did. We also identified
and examined the socio-cultural and personal factors influencing each teacher’s stances,
choices, and actions, including the school cultures, working environment, teacher’s
personal history and past experiences.

Primary codes were then compared and merged into second level codes. The second level
codes centred on the teacher’s personalities, personal history, professional background
and past experiences, the socio-cultural conditions of the schools, their choices and
actions were arranged on a chronological order and reorganised into a storyline to reflect a
unique agency ‘path’ each teacher took. In this study, the term ‘path’ I used was derived
from Vietnamese folk narratives where actors negotiate paths through rice fields, forests,
or mountains on journeys towards a desired goal (Nguyen, et al, 2021). Here, paths are a
metaphor to denote the individual ways of responding and enacting the curriculum, which
were found to be off the prescribed CLT ‘main road’. The paths of agency are presented
in Table 2.

Table 2: Teachers’ paths of agency

Teachers Paths of agency

Dao Self-exertion on a path of committed fidelity
Sen Puzzlement on a path of confused struggle
Cuc Willingness on a path of creative compliance
Mai Adamancy on a path of wilful resistance

On the premise that writing is a form of analysis (Stake, 2010), the teachers’ storylines
were written, rewritten and cross-checked to ensure that the main themes that emerged
from each data set accurately reflected the views and practices of each teacher. In the final
stages, evidential quotations from the interviews or observations were translated into
English for purposes of illustration, and the accuracy of translations were checked by a
Vietnamese PhD candidate in linguistics.

To carry out the cross-case analysis, we adopted a case-oriented approach (Miles et al.,
2014). Individual cases were compared to look for underlying commonalities and
1624 Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum: Primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam

“constant associations” (Miles et al., 2014, p. 102) to form general explanations about
teacher agency in reform implementation.

Case findings
Case findings are presented below in the form of storylines. In writing the storylines, the
path descriptors that summarise the teachers’ agency serve as the titles. The four cases
presented move from the participant most faithful to the curriculum to the one most
resistant to it.

Dao: Self-exertion on a path of committed fidelity

Dao was an energetic and enthusiastic teacher who had been in the profession for 15
years, seven of which were at primary level. In interviews, Dao advocated for CLT:

I strongly support CLT. It is great that children can learn to communicate. I don't want
to teach my students the way I was taught, that was learning English grammar and doing
exercises. Learning that way, I am now still not confident when speaking English.

Mentioning her unpleasant learning experiences, Dao affirmed that she would implement
the new curriculum to the best of her understanding for the benefit of her students: "They
need to learn to communicate in English."

However, Dao also said that the school's material and technological conditions were not
conducive to implementing CLT. There were "hardly any specialist facilities and
resources" for English teaching and learning. Classroom furniture was "fixed", with heavy,
immoveable desks and benches arranged in rows; class sizes were large, with an average of
40 students. In addition, the "achievement disease" (Nguyen & Mai, 2015, p. 215) strongly
affected teaching and learning activities at her school. School leaders cultivated a
competitive and achievement-focused working culture; her colleagues focused on drilling
students for tests, and students were constantly learning for tests.

In addition, Dao received little support from colleagues and leaders. Other teachers
complained when they heard noise from Dao's class as she conducted communicative
activities. Meanwhile, her direct professional supervisor, the school principal, failed to
provide any support due to their lack of expertise in the field of English teaching:

The principal sometimes checks my lesson plans or observes my teaching. However,

their comments are mostly on the format of the lesson plans, rather than on teaching
activities and techniques.

In such circumstances, Dao acted to bridge the gaps between the idealised policy
conditions and her local realities. She invested considerable personal, financial, time, and
energy resources to apply CLT. For example, she spent her own money buying essential
equipment, including a laptop, a set of portable speakers, a microphone, a Wi-Fi extender,
and sets of flashcards, which she brought to school for every lesson. In addition, she
sought materials from different sources to use in teaching: "I paid for access to online
Vu 1625

courses and English teaching websites so that I could make use of their materials". She
also spent much time preparing her lessons: "I often get up early to look for materials on
the Internet to prepare my lessons." On top of that, she always closed the windows tightly
when conducting communicative activities, to reduce the noise.

Evidence from observation showed that Dao attempted to apply CLT and a child-friendly
pedagogy to the best of her understanding. Her lessons reflected her interpretation of
CLT as the teaching of listening and speaking, with a strong focus on developing these
oral skills. She always started the observed lessons with a little song and ended with some
singing or chanting activities; she also organised many language games and pair and group
work activities. In addition, she attempted to apply a child-friendly pedagogy, using
activities such as total physical response (TPR), reading in chorus, memory games, spelling
games and other oral activities. She used extrinsic motivation techniques to promote
communicative English learning, such as giving candy rewards for students' efforts in
speaking English.

In response to the lack of professional support and learning opportunities, Dao actively
sought opportunities to improve her knowledge and skills by accessing more training at
her personal cost: "I have attended some extra training courses on CLT where I paid for
my attendance". Moreover, she initiated many strategies to develop her skills, knowledge,
and profession: she joined a local 'English Teacher Club' – an unofficial professional
community established by teachers, to engage in pedagogical discussions and to extend
her professional contacts.

Cuc: Willingness on a path of creative compliance

Cuc was an experienced primary English teacher who had gone through two previous
curriculum reforms. She was willing to conform to policy directives: "As an English
teacher teaching at a public school, my responsibility is to comply with the curriculum".
She expressed strong support for, and a firm commitment to, implementing the current
reform to the best of her capacity. As well as aspiring to conform to policy, she believed
that students currently needed, and would need, English for communication in the future.

However, there were many contextual constraints to CLT application at her school,
including large classes of over 40 students, inflexible classroom arrangement, where desks
and benches were arranged in fixed rows, and limited time allocation for English teaching
- only two periods of English per week. In response, Cuc chose to adapt her practices to
meet the curricular demands: "I have to make sure that my teaching meets the
requirements of the curriculum".

She made use of the school's projectors, speakers, and cassette players to provide her
students with more visual and audio input. However, due to the limited time allocation for
English teaching, she chose to focus on vocabulary and sentence structures. She
reinforced students' knowledge using songs and simple games that students could
participate in without moving around. She also used pair and group work activities, role-
play, and games in every lesson. She explained: "The textbook content is too heavy and
1626 Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum: Primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam

strongly grammar based. We teachers have to cover all the content. However, I always try
my best to develop communicative skills for students". As Cuc understood CLT to mean
teachers speaking more English in class, she always spoke English when teaching in class;
she also encouraged her students to speak English by initiating conversations with them.
Her actions saw Cuc refining the curriculum's requirements within her understanding of
them to make them workable in practice.

Sen: Puzzlement on a path of confused struggle

A secondary school English teacher for 15 years, Sen was new to the current reformed
curriculum at the primary level. She had only been transferred to her current primary
school one year previous to this study. In preparation for the transfer, she attended a one-
day training workshop provided by the Provincial Department of Education and Training.

From the outset, Sen expressed ambivalent attitudes toward the curriculum’s pedagogical
requirements, stating that she should conform to policy but also saying that it was
impossible to implement CLT in her context. She referred to constraints such as the lack
of resources and facilities, students’ low motivation, and the lack of opportunities for
students to use English outside the classroom.

In follow-up interviews, Sen admitted that she did not understand CLT and knew little
about how to teach English to young learners, attributing this to her inadequate training
and limited professional learning opportunities. When probing her understandings of
CLT, she replied: “I have heard about it at some training workshops, but I don’t really
understand what it is and how it works.” For her, CLT meant providing students with
opportunities to practise oral skills. In addition, Sen also confessed to having little
knowledge about the curriculum. She did not have a curriculum document to hand;
instead, she only referred to the textbook, the accompanying syllabi, and the teacher’s
manuals, considering these as reliable curriculum statements.

In all lessons observed, Sen used the single textbook as her sole teaching material. Each
lesson followed the same pattern: she started with a little game, then students completed
exercises on the required parts in the textbook and finally finished with a song. She always
singled out key vocabulary and sentence patterns and spent most of the class time
teaching these. She used repetition, oral drilling, and controlled practice as her main
teaching techniques to reinforce students’ memorisation. She selectively omitted certain
sections of the textbook, especially those with more communicative activities, explaining
that: “There was nothing new in those sections because no new vocabulary or sentence
patterns were introduced.”

To comply with the guidelines, Sen included some interactive activities such as games,
songs, and chants in her lessons. However, she mainly used songs and chants as warm-ups
or extra activities, not as authentic teaching techniques. Any pair or group work activities
in the observed lessons simply involved individual students or groups of students taking
turns reading language samples from the textbooks. Despite these activities, Sen struggled
Vu 1627

to deliver the textbook content employing her traditional methods, leading to the
curriculum being enacted in ways very different from its original intentions.

Mai: Adamancy on a path of wilful resistance

Mai was the most experienced and well-prepared primary English teacher of the four. A
teacher of primary-level English for 15 years, she was recognised as a key regional EFL
teacher. In recognition of this role, she received extensive training in preparation for
implementing the new English curriculum. As a result, her interpretation of the
curriculum’s key pedagogy was accurate: “CLT is a language teaching method that uses
communication as a means of teaching to build up learners’ communicative skills.”

Despite these advantages, Mai demonstrated strong resistance to the curriculum’s

requirements. From the outset, she stated that CLT was inappropriate for her primary
English classrooms, for four main reasons: (i) the backwash effect of the old-fashioned
testing system; (ii) the lack of opportunities for using English outside classrooms; (iii)
mixed-ability classes and large class sizes; and (iv) the disconnection between English at
primary and secondary school levels. Elaborating on these, Mai said she could not
prioritise communicative English over preparation for tests because “exams of all types
are still designed in the form of discrete-point test items with a heavy focus on
grammatical knowledge and vocabulary... We, teachers, have no other choice but to teach
to the tests.” She added that students had little motivation to learn English for
communication as they had no opportunity to use English outside the classroom.
Moreover, a large class of mixed-level students made it impossible to apply CLT: “There
are too many students in one class… Many don’t understand when I speak English, and
they don’t want to participate in communicative activities.” Finally, elaborating on the
disconnection between primary and secondary English education, she explained:

English teachers at the secondary level still have a form-focused teaching approach. For
example, if I focus on developing communication skills for my students, then later,
secondary school teachers would complain that my students lack basic grammar
knowledge and that we primary school teachers do not do our job well.

Given her perceived constraints, Mai took an overtly resistant stance toward the
curriculum and adopted a ‘practical’ grammar-based teaching method. She was adamant
that she would not adopt CLT to conform to the curriculum requirements if there was no
overall change to facilitate learning English for communication. Even though Mai could
perform a CLT lesson when required to please school leaders and educational officers
viewing her class, she chose to teach to the test in everyday practice. In all the observed
lessons, she focused intently on teaching vocabulary and grammar, using oral drilling and
memorisation techniques. When teaching sentence patterns, she drew students’ attention
to language forms and grammar rules and strongly stressed the importance of these. Her
practice reflected a mechanical delivery of textbook content, which was in complete
opposition to the intention of the curriculum writers and policymakers.
1628 Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum: Primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam

Post-data collection developments

Data for the study was collected in early 2018. Later that year, Vietnam introduced an
educational reform with the release of the New Curriculum 2018, which was implemented
starting in the 2020-2021 school year. This curriculum emphasises increased local
decision-making and greater teacher autonomy. Teachers are now expected to collaborate
with colleagues to select textbooks and develop school-based curricula, marking a shift
from previous practices. The long-standing tradition of using a single, government-
prescribed textbook has been discontinued. Instead, teachers now have more control over
their teaching materials, instructional methods, and assessment formats, provided they
align with the national core curriculum (Dinh & Sannino, 2024).

Of the four case study teachers, two—Dao and Sen—have transferred to secondary
schools (in 2021), feeling better suited to teaching older students. They found it difficult
to teach students at the primary level and sought to develop their professional identities as
English teachers within a more specialised community. They preferred working alongside
other English teachers rather than being grouped with classroom teachers based on grade
level.

Cuc and Mai chose to remain at the primary level. In her comments on the manuscript,
Cuc noted positive changes in English teaching and learning at her school. The shift
toward communicative language teaching has become more pronounced, with a greater
focus on communicative activities and the increased use of technology in classrooms.
Interactive boards have been installed in some classrooms, and more stable Wi-Fi now
enables her to access pre-designed resources on-site. She can even deliver competitive
online games to engage and motivate students.

Mai admitted that, despite the changes, she still finds it challenging to focus on developing
students' communicative competence. However, she observed that teachers are now more
open to adopting new methods and are increasingly proactive in adjusting their teaching
to meet the curriculum requirements as effectively as possible.

Cross-case findings

We adopted a case-oriented approach to analyse the findings across the cases. The results
are summarised in Figure 1.

Contrasting the cases produced deeper insights into each case. Each teacher had a unique
personality, experiences, commitment, and future projection, bringing these to develop
their own perspective on the reform. Their personal attributes influenced each teacher's
choices and actions about implementing the curriculum, choices and actions in their
teaching practices, and choices and actions in response to the constraints and difficulties
they faced at work. Choices and decisions about reform implementation manifested as the
stances the teachers took on the curriculum mandates, that is, whether to support the
curriculum requirements and implement them in the classroom, or not. These choices and
Vu 1629

Similar socio-cultural conditions of the school workplace

- Required to implement the curriculum at their schools
- Lack of conditions for curriculum implementation: lack of
professional support, learning opportunities, resources,
infrastructure, technology; teaching-for-test culture

Teachers as individuals: different personalities, commitment, past

learning experiences, experiences with reform, projection for future

Dao Cuc Sen

- Reserved - Reserved Mai
- Proactive
personality personality personality - Proactive
- Commit to - Inexperienced personality
- Not much
conform to at primary level - Well-trained
experience with
reform policy - Little and experienced
- Both grammar experience with - Much
- Negative
experiences with knowledge and reform experience with
communicative - Grammar and reform
grammar-based
Dao
learning skills important sentence - Be practical
- Students need structures are - No other
- Prepare
to pass the test important choice but to
students for
and be able to - Students need teach to the test
future work
use English to score high in
tests

Teacher agency
Different teacher’s choices and actions: stances towards curriculum mandates, selection
of teaching approach, teaching activities and strategies, actions to facilitate work at school

Path of Path of Path of Path of

commited creative confused willful
fidelity compliance struggle resistance

Figure 1: Summary of cross-case findings

1630 Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum: Primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam

decisions ranged from wholehearted fidelity towards the curriculum requirements (Dao)
to strong resistance against them (Mai). Choices in teaching practices were manifested by
the teachers' decisions on pedagogical approaches. In their classrooms, these choices were
realised through actions as to how the teachers taught in class, time allocated for a specific
area, their teaching activities and strategies, and classroom discourses and management.
Finally, choices and actions in response to constraints and difficulties at work refer to
teachers' other professional actions to facilitate their work at school.

In general, the case study teachers' choices, decisions and actions were made with intent,
arising from their professional beliefs, interests, and capacity. Rather than instinctive
responses to contextual conditions, their professional choices, decisions, and actions were
manifestations of teacher agency (Eteläpelto et al., 2013; Priestley et al., 2013).

Discussion

At the outset of the paper, we described teacher agency as something teachers do within
their work contexts (Goller & Harteis, 2017), manifested when teachers make choices and
act upon these choices (Eteläpelto et al., 2013; Vähäsantanen 2015). Teacher agency was
investigated by researching in depth the teachers' choices and actions when enacting the
mandated curriculum within the socio-cultural and material conditions of the school
workplace. The study revealed that workplace contextual conditions were largely similar
across the four schools. Each teacher worked in a low-resourced environment where
necessary material and technical requirements were not met. Also, there was a lack of
professional support and accountability measures. On the one hand, the teachers were
forced to exercise agency to get their job done. On the other hand, they took advantage of
the inadvertent 'opportunity' to act as they wished in the school environment. In other
words, the teachers not only acted in their environment but also acted by means of their
environment (Biesta & Tedder, 2007). While this is in line with findings from previous
studies, the ways the case study teachers acted in their school environment has not been
discussed in the literature.

In addition, the findings revealed that contextual conditions might provide resources for,
or constraints on, teacher agency; they did not shape teacher agency. Instead, the personal
attributes and attitudes of the individual teachers led to the path of agency that each
teacher took. The four teachers possessed different capacities, knowledge, and awareness
of their responsibility and how they could contribute to the reform (Maclellan, 2017).
Also, they had varied experiences with reforms, as they reflected on their own teaching
and learning experiences (the iterative aspect). They indicated future perspectives, such as
the importance of preparing students for future work and study, or of teaching to the test
(the projective aspect). These factors combined to shape the teachers' choices and actions
in the present (the practical-evaluative aspect) (Priestley et al., 2013). These findings
reaffirm that teachers' individual qualities shape their agency (Buchanan, 2015).

Dao took self-exerted actions as she was a proactive personality willing to act, even
beyond the policy expectations (Goller & Harteis, 2017), to implement the curriculum as
Vu 1631

faithfully as possible. Similarly, Cuc was willing to comply with the curriculum
requirements, in the light of the constraints at her school. Rather than buying additional
items to use in class, she exploited the limited available resources and facilities and
adjusted her teaching to meet the requirements and make the requirements fit her context.
The two paths of committed fidelity and creative compliance taken by Dao and Cuc were
seen as different ways to reach the prescribed goals. In extreme contrast, Mai rejected
CLT as the appropriate approach, and deliberately resisted it. She went down a path in the
opposite direction to the predetermined goal. Between Cuc and Mai, Sen’s path of
struggle was the result of much confusion, and her puzzlement saw her stuck in a maze
and unable to reach the required destination.

The four paths of agency, as found in this study, reflect the rich differences in how
teachers were involved in reform implementation. The path of committed fidelity is
desirable, reflecting a strong commitment to the reform (Vähäsantanen, 2015). The path
of creative compliance carries two meanings: assimilating the change into existing
practices and adjusting existing practices to fit the new reform (Eteläpelto et al., 2013;
Vähäsantanen, 2015). The path of struggle means that the teachers are ambivalent in
implementing changes due to their limited knowledge and lack of capacity to implement
the change in their context. Finally, the path of resistance means that the teachers refuse
to adopt the innovation and explicitly reject the change. These four paths of agency are
new findings of the current study. However, somehow such agency paths also reflect the
different forms of curriculum implementation as discussed in Adamson and Davison
(2003): accommodation (Dao), compliance (Cuc), pseudo-compliance (Sen) and resistance
(Mai).

The exercise of teacher agency in the four cases reported here reflects positively on the
teachers in several respects. The first two cases reveal authoritative professionalism that
many stakeholders would find worthy. However, in terms of addressing the goals of the
curriculum and the projected needs of the students as intended by the curriculum writers,
in the latter three of the four cases, the learning outcomes of their students were and
would be, well wide and short of the intended mark. That raises deep concerns about the
nature and extent of teacher agency revealed in this study.

Finally, the research findings challenge assertions about compliant, docile, civil servant
teachers in Vietnam, who simply do what they are told and implement curricula as
government curricular policy writers intend. The findings reveal teachers with strong
views on the meaning of the curriculum statements, and their underlying philosophies.
They go about selecting or rejecting pedagogies, resources and techniques that fit their
personal perspectives, beliefs and attitudes. Whether their outcomes are beneficial or
negative, the teachers reveal themselves to be determined and committed professionals
willing to take stances on the justices or injustices of the curriculum, with an eye on the
future prospects for their students.
1632 Teacher agency in enacting English language curriculum: Primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam

Conclusions and implications

There are important implications from the research outcomes revealed in the study. We
argue that Vietnamese primary EFL teachers exercise a high level of agency when enacting
the curriculum; thus, failing to recognise the centrality of teacher agency has led, and will
continue to lead to, necessary reforms not being implemented as intended. Therefore, we
propose several implications for curriculum policy making and implementation arising
from these findings, especially in the Vietnamese context, where centralised curriculum
design development and 'top-down' implementation continue to be part of the
educational culture. The following factors influencing teacher agency need to be
considered when making policy as they are crucial to policy implementation: teachers'
aspirations to comply with policy, teachers' policy knowledge, and teachers' professional
repertoires.

First, it is vital to promote teachers' aspirations to conform to a policy as teachers can vary
in their obligations and willingness to comply with a policy. To promote teachers'
aspirations for reform implementation, teachers, especially the experienced and
knowledgeable, like Mai, could be involved more in policy making, in the least at the
regional level. Through greater active involvement, these teachers can match their
pedagogical expertise and experience with the spirit and direction of the reform from the
outset. As such, they own and become leaders of reform rather than mere implementers,
or resisters. Moreover, they can make an invaluable contribution to the reform process
through their authoritative voice, which derives from their intimate knowledge of their
students, available resources, and the obdurate practicalities of their work (Kirk &
MacDonald, 2001). If this can be done, it is more likely that teachers, who tend to resist,
will exercise positive agency in ways consistent with the policy aims (Jennings, 1996).

Second, carefully developing teachers' knowledge and understandings of the new policy
are essential before implementation. It becomes critical to pay adequate attention to
communicating policy knowledge to the teachers, which can be done by providing
adequate professional training on the key aspects and nuances of the curriculum. The
specific issue of CLT in this study is a powerful example of the need to carefully prepare
teachers in a pedagogy originating from a Western context that exists outside the teachers'
typical ambit. The training should also focus on the expectations and meanings of the
reforms to the teachers.

Third, teachers' pedagogical repertoires regarding the new reform need expanding through
professional training. All the teachers in this study, which I confidently expect will reflect
a large number of teachers at a larger scale, needed more professional learning on CLT.
Those willing to conform, like Dao and Cuc, still revealed the need for more training on
CLT principles and pedagogical implications to enhance their pedagogies to meet
curricular expectations. Those who struggled, like Sen, need explicit instruction on the
nature of CLT and how to apply it in practical, realistic ways in typical Vietnamese
classrooms. Changing behaviours by facilitating CLT will encourage greater application of
its principles, hopefully and gradually changing the resistant teachers' beliefs, choices, and
actions. Ideally, training programs should provide teachers with both theoretical principles
Vu 1633

and practical, hands-on teaching activities and techniques to apply in their specific
classrooms. Training courses should also focus on how to adapt materials and design
activities to suit specific teaching contexts. In addition, as the teachers' professional needs
are diverse, there should be various training programs that cater for different groups of
teachers.

This article has described the exercise of teacher agency in EFL curriculum
implementation in Vietnam on a small scale through the description of four teachers’
professional choices, decisions, and actions. In revealing a spectrum of agentic responses
in one level of schooling in one subject curriculum, its importance lies in raising
understandings of teacher agency and its implications for curriculum and pedagogies
generally, and in EFL especially, in Vietnamese primary schools. The study has questioned
and even redefined aspects of professional teacher capacities in Vietnam. The cases show
how teacher agency was exercised and confirmed its significant role in curriculum
enactment. From the findings, we have also provided practical implications for future
policy making and implementation. However, due to the small scale of this case study, no
firm generalisations are being made. This limitation opens up directions for future
research; more studies conducted in different contexts are needed to generate a more
comprehensive picture of teachers exercising agency in response to curriculum mandates
in EFL settings.

Acknowledgements
This article is drawn from the PhD thesis submitted by Thi Loan Vu to Edith Cowan
University, Australia, in 2021 (Vu, 2021). The author acknowledges gratefully the
participation of the four classroom teachers who gave so much to the research.

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Dr Thi Loan Vu has worked at Hong Duc University, Vietnam, as an EFL instructor
for more than 18 years. She completed her PhD in Education at Edith Cowan
University, Australia, in 2021. Her research interests include TESOL teacher education,
teacher professional development, language policy, and second language acquisition.
ORCID: [Link]
Email: vuthiloan@[Link]

Please cite as: Vu, T. L. (2024). Teacher agency in enacting English language
curriculum: The case of primary school EFL teachers in Vietnam. Issues in Educational
Research, 34(4), 1618-1637. [Link]