Vietnamese Students’ Foreign Language Competence

Abstract

Universities in many countries around the world are currently being required to provide human resources good at professional knowledge and proficient in using foreign languages to participate in the labor market in the context of international integration. Therefore, researches on higher education, foreign language teaching and related issues to develop students’ foreign language competence are critical in need. This paper focuses on the issues identified as factors affecting students' foreign language competence: students' competence of foreign language input; students' foreign language learning competence. Based on the theoretical research framework, a survey of 500 senior students (course 2019-2023) from National Academy of Public Administration and University of Social Sciences and Humanities (affiliated with Ho Chi Minh City National University), representing the group of universities in the field of social sciences in Vietnam, were carried. The survey aims to assess students' current foreign language competence and the impact of students’ competence of foreign language input and foreign language learning competence on their foreign language competence development. The main finding reveals that students have self-assessment of their foreign language input at low level, which much affects their learning process and development of foreign language competence on higher education. From this, solutions to develop foreign language competence to the students of the National Academy of Public Administration, University of Social Sciences and Humanities and other universities in the field of social sciences in Vietnam are recommended.