Students’ Foreign Language Competence and Issue of University Administration in Vietnam

Abstract

In the context of international integration, the human resource of an organization, in addition to being professionally good, needs to be proficient in using foreign languages. That poses a requirement for educational institutions (in this study called universities) to provide human resource both professional expertise and capacity of using foreign languages. In relation to the educational development in universities, the study focuses on influencing factors on students’ foreign language competence, that is, Students’ foreign language learning proactive and Students’ input foreign language level. In this study, the theoretical research framework was developed and a survey of 450 senior students from the Nam Dinh University of Nursing (NDUN) representing universities in the field of medicine in Vietnam was conducted to assess students’ foreign language competence and influencing factors. The results show that: students meet university requirements of foreign language output standards stated by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam but lack of initiative to learn foreign languages, which is considered the most influencing factor to the students’ job performace competence required from the labor market in the context of international integration. In addition, the study suggests the NDUN and other universities in the field of medicine solutions to develop students’ foreign language competence.