A learning-centred approach to teaching linguistic knowledge: Teachers’ perception of teaching periods 1 and 2(/3) in the new English curriculum for secondary schools in Vietnam

Abstract

The new curriculum was promulgated at the end of 2018. Therefore, there is a need to investigate how teachers perceive the teaching of linguistic knowledge in addition to skills to develop secondary school learners’ communicative competence. The study was carried out during the three months of July, August and October of 2020 in the three provinces of Kien Giang, Ben Tre and Lam Dong with the participation of 120 teachers from 106 secondary schools. Data were collected in the form of group poster presentations for the first two/three periods in the textbooks for the new curriculum and analyzed according to three aspects of form, meaning and use for linguistic knowledge and their sequence. The findings of the study indicate that the teacher participants have a vague idea about teaching the aspects of linguistic knowledge from a learning-centered approach, do not know their sequence of meaning, form and use, and normally follow the activities and their order in the textbook as the only resort available.