Vu Tran-Thanh is a doctoral student at the School of Education, Durham University. Prior to his studies, he worked for seven years as a high school ESOL teacher and two years as a teacher trainer in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Vu founded and runs a professional learning community called TESOL Research Collaboration Network, which gathers and supports early career researchers in language education in Vietnam. This group has organised multiple professional development activities for both practising ESOL teachers and researchers in Vietnam for the last two years. He is also Co-Editor of the Teacher Educator Interest Section Newsletter of TESOL International Association.
Vu mainly explores language teacher education and queer inclusivity in the language classroom. He has presented at different international conferences and published in some peer-reviewed journals. Besides, Vu has served as a reviewer for a number of conferences and journals in his field, such as Reflective Practice, VietTESOL Convention, TESOL International Convention & Expo etc. For his doctoral project, Vu investigates the construction of LGBTQ+ language teachers’ professional identities as they include queer-related materials into their classrooms. He believes that queer teachers are being unintentionally discriminated against by not sufficiently being considered as professionals.
List of Publications
Book Chapter
Tran-Thanh, V., Nguyen, H. T., & Le, H. T. (2023). Professional Identity Under Reconstruction: Stories of Vietnamese ESOL Teachers’ Integration of Technology. In D. Tafazoli & M. Picard (Eds.), Handbook of CALL Teacher Education and Professional Development: Voices from Under-Represented Contexts. Springer.
Peer-reviewed Articles
Tran-Thanh, V. (2021). “Why I don’t teach as I was trained”: Vietnamese Early Career ESOL Teachers’ Experience of Reality Shock. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 46(12), 35-51. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol46/iss12/3/
Dao, P., Nguyen, X. N. C. M., Duong, P.-T., & Tran-Thanh, V. (2021). Learners’ Engagement in L2 Computer-Mediated Interaction: Chat Mode, Interlocutor Familiarity, and Text Quality. The Modern Language Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12737
Tran-Thanh, V. (2021). “Why I don’t teach as I was trained”: Vietnamese Early Career ESOL Teachers’ Experience of Reality Shock. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 46(12), 35-51. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2021v46n12.3
Conference Papers/Presentations
Tran-Thanh, V. (2019). LGBTQ+ Identities in English Education: Insight from Vietnamese Classrooms TESOL 2019 International Convention & English Language Expo, Atlanta, GV, USA.
Tran-Thanh, V. (2018, December). Exploring Vietnamese EFL Students’ Attitudes Towards Project-Based Learning Assessment. Eighth CLS International Conference, Singapore.
Tran-Thanh, V. (2018, October). Awareness and Avoidance of Cultural Stereotypes in English Language Teaching Resources ACTA 2018 International TESOL Conference, Adelaide, Australia.
Tran-Thanh, V. (2018, March). Integrating Students’ Culture into the English Classroom: Why and How? 1st International ASEAN-English Language Teaching Conference, Melaka, Malaysia.
Tran-Thanh, V. (2017, October). Preparing Students for Writing: the Combined Approach 2017 KOTESOL International Conference, Seoul, South Korea.
Tran-Thanh, V. (2017, August). Authentic Materials in Teaching English: a Reconsideration of Existing Definitions. 8th Annual International Conference on Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Tran-Thanh, V. (2014, July). Using the Interactive Reading Model to Develop High School Students’ Reading Comprehension Ability Conference. Investigating Effective Methods of Teaching Listening and Reading Skills in English, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Invited/Featured Presentations
Tran-Thanh, V., Dao, N. A. D., Duong, T. H. D., & Le, T. H. (2021). Postgraduate Education in TESOL: Experience and Directions TESOL HCMC Association Webinar, Online.
Moore, A. R., Paiz, J. M., Tran-Thanh, V., & Ravitch, L. (2021). Revisiting the curriculum that dare not speak its name: LGBTQ+ Inclusive Curriculum in TESOL TESOL International Webinar, Online.
Tran-Thanh, V. (2021). Navigating the Construction of Identity within the Micropolitical Context of School: Voices from Vietnamese Primary School EFL Teachers. Discussions on the New English Curriculum for Primary Schools, Saigon University, Ho Chi Minh City.
