Foreign Language Competence Of Vietnamese Students - A Case Study At The National Academy Of Public Administration

Abstract

International integration is fast becoming a dominant trend in every country, and foreign languages hold the key to opening the door to integration, offering chances for cultural exchange and promotion, and opening up opportunities for the country's economic development. Therefore, the human resources in any organization must be proficient in both subject-matter expertise and foreign languages to effectively participate in the labor market and successfully integrate. It is also regarded as a challenge encountered by universities when they have to train their students to satisfy the requirements of both professional qualifications and foreign language competence according to the development trend of the labor market. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the university's human resource training quality in terms of their English proficiency. As a result, we, the authors of this research, have focused on two aspects of students' English proficiency both before and after they have finished the university's requireed English courses. These aspects are their level of English proficiency prior to enrolling in the university and their level of English proficiency after finishing those courses at the Academy. With the construction of a research theoretical framework including the above aspects, we conducted a survey of 300 final-year students (the cohort 2019–2023) at the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), which is the one represents a group of Vietnamese universities in the domain of social sciences, with the goal of assessing students' actual foreign language competence in accordance with the prescribed English learning outcomes. We determined the impact of "newly-enrolled students’ English competency" and "their English competency after completing English courses" on the "English learning outcomes" that is a requirement for NAPA undergrads before graduation. The survey findings reveal that the factor "newly-enrolled students’ English competency" is assessed at a lower level, which is believed to be the primary factor that significantly affects the quality of foreign language instruction and their actual English proficiency, or rather English learning outcomes specified in the NAPA curriculum. We then draw conclusions from the research and offer workable recommendations for boosting the English proficiency of NAPA undergraduates and those studying at many social science-specialized universities.