Investigating Vietnamese EFL high school teachers’ attitudes toward teaching moral values

Abstract

Families, schools, and society in Vietnam are paying more attention to moral education. The current national general education program, in particular, strives to promote students’ knowledge, skills, and moral qualities in order to better prepare them for globalization in the twenty-first century. It also mandates all educators, teachers integrate moral values into the curricula and lessons. This study aims to investigate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ attitudes towards teaching moral values in various high schools. Twenty-one Vietnamese EFL high school teachers from a province in the Mekong Delta participated in the study. Data were collected from a Google-Form survey comprising 14 closed and open-ended questions based on van Aalderen-Smeets et al.’s (2012) and Ualesi and Ward’s (2018) multi-dimensional framework. The findings showed the participants’ positive attitudes toward teaching moral values, and there was almost no significant difference in the attitudes of teachers regarding gender, level of education, and teaching contexts. However, the findings revealed that approximately 81 % of the respondents encountered difficulties when infusing moral values into EFL teaching, primarily relating to teachers’ perceptions and contextual factors. Based on the findings, some conclusions and pedagogical recommendations have been made.