English language teaching pedagogical reforms in Vietnam: External factors in light of teachers’ backgrounds

Abstract The Vietnamese government has implemented many changes to improve the English competencies of the Vietnamese people. However, the results seemed unsatisfactory because the English as a foreign language teachers had been affected by many external factors. Thus, this study addressed two main research questions, including (1) What external factors affect EFL teachers’ responses to English language teaching pedagogical reforms? and (2) How these factors affect different groups of teachers in light of their backgrounds? This study was designed as a mixed-methods approach using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to answer those questions. The current study involved 102 EFL high school teachers working in the Southwest of Vietnam. The results showed that the factor on students’ learning outcomes was the most influential external factor. Besides, the influence level of external factors was differed by the teachers’ educational qualifications in the influence level of some external factors, namely previous educational policies, students’ learning outcomes, and school facilities. At the end of this paper, some critical discussions, educational implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research are presented.

Students have to learn English as a foreign language (EFL) from primary schools to tertiary institutions in Vietnam. Many projects have been made to improve Vietnamese students' English competencies, and the National Foreign Language Project 2020 is one of them. Nghia and Tran (2020) also detailed the reasons for implementing reforms, such as public educational mastication, diversity of students' learning needs, market needs, technological changes, and students' new ways of life. However, the results of the project, especially in students' speaking and writing skills, were not satisfactory (Le & Nguyen, 2017;Nguyen, 2013;Pham & Bui, 2019;Tran & Marginson, 2018). To better the understanding of the influential factors, many studies on educational change and pedagogical reforms (PRs) have been employed in countries around the world and particularly in Vietnam (i.e., Harvey & Broyles, 2010;Ibrahim et al., 2013;Nguyen & Burns, 2017;Thao & Mai, 2020). Although Thao and Mai (2020) investigated several factors affecting EFL teachers' willingness to apply pedagogical reforms to their classes, they did not profoundly explain how external factors had affected the teachers' implementation of changes in light of the influence of teachers' demographic information. Accordingly, the query how different groups of teachers in light of their backgrounds such as gender, age, qualifications, teaching experience, workplaces, and teaching areas affect the influence level of each external factor, especially in the Vietnamese context. Due to the abovementioned gaps, this study was conducted. Knapp (1997) indicated that every reforming process is a chance for teachers' professional development to better their teaching. Eventually, the conceptualization of "ELT PRs" means a process in which teachers change the ways of English teaching to enhance the quality of EFL students' learning and their teaching in practice (Thao & Mai, 2020). However, this process was affected by external factors from educational policies, collegial interactions, institutional aspects, students, or other objective factors.

External factors
According to Thieman (2000) and Thao and Mai (2020), there are five chief external factors: previous educational policies, professional communities and colleagues, institution managers' leadership, students' learning outcomes, and time for implementation. Figure 1 describes the overview of external factors.
Previous educational policies: this factor includes three main elements as required curriculum, mandated teaching strategies, and national testing (Thao & Mai, 2020;Thieman, 2000). Even though the current educational policies are enforced, the previous ones still affect teachers' teaching in everyday practice (Darling-Hammond, 1990). Therefore, the change must hinder the effects of the previous educational policies from helping implement the new ones more effectively (Thao & Mai, 2020). Flexer and Gestner (1993) stated that the collegial community sometimes conflicts among different teachers in a professional community. They may differ in terms of expectations of the reforms, agreement or disagreement with the school goals, or even their teaching beliefs. To maintain the social relationships, work norms, or arrangements in the workplace, teachers usually tend to agree with their colleagues without any considerations on their own (Thao & Mai, 2020;Thieman, 2000).

Institution managers' leadership
The administrators' support plays a vital role in teachers' responses to a change or a reform (Thao & Mai, 2020). Teachers' acceptance of change very much depends on their superiors' encouragements (Reitzug, 1994). Besides, the bond between teachers and their superiors sometimes plays a decisive role in whether teachers resist the change or not (Smylie, 1992). Thieman (2000) indicated that teachers evaluate the effectiveness of a particular change or reform based on their students' learning outcomes. As a result, teachers tend to resist the change when they cannot see any development in their students' learning (Thao & Mai, 2020).

Time
To implement the change of PRs successfully, teachers need a sufficient amount of time to train, plan, practice, revise, collaborate with their colleagues (Thieman, 2000;Ali;El Zaatar, 2011), learn new things, use new materials, apply new approaches (Prestine & McGreal, 1997, analyze, and incorporate the reforms into teaching philosophy (Flamholtz & Randle, 2008). Therefore, the implementation of change without considerations of the impact of time is challenging to be successful.

Relevant studies
Many studies have investigated the factors influencing EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs. Nisbet and Collins (1978) conducted a case study to examine some theoretical frameworks about teachers' responses to change. Forty primary teachers in the Queensland educational system partook in the project. The survey findings showed that teachers recognized the change values that led to their acceptance of the change. However, the study also found some external negativities: teachers' lack of support and training, excessive workload given by institutions, and strong beliefs in previous educational methods.
In the study by Huberman (1981), this author singled out two influential factors of educational change, named the quality and amount of technical assistance and sustained central office and building-level support. Moreover, the ongoing administrative support plays an essential role in encouraging teachers to implement the changes.
In the book "The new meaning of educational change", which was well-known as the state-ofthe-art reading in the field of change, Fullan (2001) pointed out two levels of influential factors of educational change. The first one is the local level. It includes the teacher, the principal, the student, the parent, the community, and the district administrator. The regional and national level is the next one. It includes governments, the professional preparation of teachers, the professional learning of educators, and the future of educational change.
Emo (2010) contributed to the literature of educational change with his study. The participants were K-12 (ages 5-18) and university teachers from eastern South Dakota, in the northern Great Plains, USA. The study was designed as a qualitative study. This study found that some external factors, including the administrator, colleague, personal support, and trust, play an essential role in encouraging the teachers to change. Ibrahim et al. (2013) conducted their study to investigate four factors affecting teachers' resistance to educational change in the UAE. The participants were 255 male and female, foreign and national teachers teaching different grade levels. The study was designed as quantitative research, using a survey of 39 statements on the Likert scale. The study's findings showed that teachers resist change because of external reasons, named their beliefs in change agents and their principals or leaders.
It was noting the fact that very few studies were conducted in the Vietnamese context. Furthermore, those previous studies did not explain how external factors affect teachers with different backgrounds, such as their genders, educational qualifications, workplaces, teaching experience, teaching areas, and ages. Therefore, this study addressed two main research questions as follows: (1) What are the most influential external factors hindering EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs?
(2) How are external factors of EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs affected by different variables in light of their backgrounds?

Methodology
This study was conducted as a mixed-method approach, using a questionnaire and semistructured interviews to collect data to find the answers to the research questions. The two methods, when combined, allow the research to assess both outcomes and processes of the social phenomenon.
The questionnaire was adapted from the study by Thieman (2000) and then developed by the research team with five items representing five factors presented in the literature review on a 5-point Likert scale, strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree. Before being employed in the official study, the questionnaire was piloted with the participation of 30 EFL teachers who would be excluded from the actual study. These teachers were kindly required to respond to the questionnaire as well as give comments on the items that they found the word choices or grammar uses inappropriate. The collected data from the pilot was objected to SPSS 20.0 to check the reliability of the questionnaire. The Scale test results indicated the instrument's reliability (α = .84). Accordingly, it was then employed to collect the official data. It was sent via emails, provided by acquaintances of the research team, such as friends, colleagues, and lecturers, to 102 participants who were high school teachers working in the Southwest of Vietnam. Table 1 below displays the information of the participants for the survey.
In terms of semi-structured interviews, all questions investigated EFL teachers' perceptions of external factors affecting their responses to ELT PRs. SPSS software version 20.0 was used to analyze the quantitative data from the questionnaire. First of all, a Scale test checked the reliability of the instrument. Then, the Descriptive Statistics test determined the average level of the external factors affecting the EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs. To answer research question 1, One-Sample T-Tests were administered to compare the mean scores with the test values following the critical understanding of the average recommended by Oxford (1990). Next, the researchers used one-way ANOVA tests and Independent Sample T-tests to answer research question 2. All data of the results were rounded to the 2nd digit. Then, when p-value was under 0.05, it meant the differences were significant, and the effect size was then calculated. According to Cohen (2013), Eta-squared value (η2) indicates the effect size, including small (from .01 to .06), medium (from .06 to .14), and large (above .14).
The semi-structured interviews were conducted after distributing the questionnaires. The interviews involved six participants who were recruited according to their mean score in the questionnaire. The six teachers included three from the "most affected" group (named A, B, and C) and the other three from the "least affected" group (named D, C, and F). After that, the researchers contacted the interviewees via their emails and phones. The interviews were conducted on Zalo, Skype, and Zoom platforms for ensuring safety from the COVID-19 infection. Each interview lasted approximately thirty minutes. Vietnamese was used in the interviews to avoid misunderstanding and encourage the interviewees to express their ideas more rapidly, comprehensively, and accurately. Recording and note-taking were used to save the contents of the interviews under the permission of the participants. After that, the Vietnamese transcription versions were translated into English. To clarify misunderstandings, the research team contacted the interviewees via email or directed phone calls. Finally, the data were interpreted and analyzed according to themes in the study framework.

Results and findings
This section consists of the results of quantitative data and qualitative data for the two research questions.

Research question 1
What are the most influential external factors hindering EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs? As observed, the mean score of the external factors hindering EFL teachers' response to ELT PRs was high (M = 3.77).
A One-Sample T-test (test value 3.5 and the mean score 3.77) was run and the results of the test (t = 5.994; df = 101; p = .00) showed that the external factors highly affected EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs in the current study. Besides, the factor on students' learning outcomes got the highest mean score (M = 4.53), followed by that of the factors about institution managers' leadership (M = 3.79), time (M = 3.74), and previous educational policies (M = 3.39).
On the other hand, the lowest mean score belonged to professional community/ colleagues (M = 3.34). It can be assumed that the factor on students' learning outcomes affected EFL high school teachers' responses to ELT PRs the most, and the most negligible influential factor was the factor on their professional community and colleagues.
First, Table 2 shows the results of the Descriptive Statistics Test run on the whole questionnaire.
Then, a One-Sample T-test (test value 3.5 and the mean scores of each factor) was run, and the results of the test showed that the factors on students' learning outcomes, institution managers' leadership, and time highly affected the participants' responses to ELT PRs (p < .05). On the other hand, the ones about previous educational policies (t = −.99; df = 101; p = .325) and professional community/ colleagues (t = −1.651; df = 101; p = .102) just moderately affected the participants' responses to ELT PRs.

Research question 2
How are external factors of EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs affected by different variables in light of their backgrounds?
A series of One-Way ANOVA tests were run to test whether a significant difference was found among teachers' responses according to their backgrounds (including gender, qualification, workplace, teaching area, age, and teaching experience) on the extent that the external factors affected teachers' responses to ELT PRs in the current study. Table 3 displays the results of the test.
Following up is One-Way ANOVA tests run on each external factor to examine whether the influence level of these external factors was affected by the participants' backgrounds (Tables 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8).

The factor on students' learning outcomes
The results showed that the participants with different genders, workplaces, teaching areas, ages, and teaching experiences were affected at the same level (p = .07; p = .88; p = .56; p = .71; & p = .62). In contrast, the results indicated that the teachers with master degrees (M = 4.83; SD = .38; SEM = .08) were affected by the factor on students' learning outcomes more than those who have not got master degrees (M = 4.44; SD = .75; SEM = .09) (p = .01). Then, the effect size (η 2 = .20) showed a large effect of teachers' qualification on how they perceived the impact of their students' learning outcomes on their responses to ELT PRs.
Despite the results from the questionnaires, the findings from the interviews were a bit different. Specifically, the interviewees with master's degrees shared that students' learning outcomes were important, but not at that high level. Teacher D remarked, In my opinion, the score is also important, but it's not everything. However, if I applied a type of ELT PRs that brought bad results to my students' learning outcomes, I would also consider whether I should continue or not.
(D; Female; Master; Gifted HS; City; At 30s years old; 5< Exp<20) To explain why those with master's degrees thought that, they shared that it depends on some other institutional or contextual factors. Teacher B said, Eh . . . It is hard to say whether the factor on students' learning outcomes is the most important factor. This depends on the teaching context. For example, for the school where the teachers are under pressure because of their students' achievement, it is important. It happens in my school. For bachelor teachers, all agreed that the factor on students' learning outcomes was the most influential factor in their responses to ELT PRs. One of them stated, There are many influential factors but the most important factor is students' learning outcomes.   In short, the statistical analysis found that the teachers with master's degrees were affected more than their counterparts. However, rather than focusing only on the factor on students' learning outcomes, some teachers with master's degrees were aware of other factors affecting their implementation of EFL PRs, teaching context as an example.

The factor on institution managers' leadership
In the interviews, except for teacher F, the one with the highest teaching experience, the others indicated that institution managers' leadership strongly affected their responses to ELT PRs. Teacher D presented, However, the direction of the leadership is still an important factor. If they want to apply or not apply some types of ELT To sum up, the quantitative data showed that the influence level of the factor on institution managers' leadership was not affected by the teachers' backgrounds; however, the experienced teachers, who built a strong bond as well as trust with their superiors during the working periods, might feel more empowered than the others.

The factor on time for implementation
However, in the interviews, three out of five teachers at the age of 30s or older mentioned time as a factor affecting their responses to ELT PRs. Teacher F shared, The activities introduced in the reforms are very good because they help students be more active. However, in a classroom with 40-45 students crammed into a small room and a lesson with 45 minutes, it is very difficult to apply these reforms to improve students' communicative competence or their abilities to cooperate. As a result, I cannot adapt ELT PRs in my teaching. The youngest teacher and two others at the age of 30s did not mention this factor as an influential factor affecting their responses to ELT PRs.
Although no significant difference was found in the results from quantitative data, according to the findings from the interviews, the factor on time for implementation might not significantly affect young teachers' responses to ELT PRs as much as it seemed to influence the older and more experienced ones.

The factor on previous educational policies
In the interviews, both master teachers mentioned that the factor on previous educational policies strongly hindered their responses to ELT PRs. Teacher D stated, Although ELT PRs aim to increase the time of teaching listening and speaking skills, the curriculum still mainly focuses on grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Besides that, because of the final goal, students' good scores in the exams, I often avoid adapting these reforms to get the goal. (D; Female; Master; Gifted HS; City; At 30s years old; 5< Exp<20) In terms of those having bachelor degrees, two out of ten indicated the mismatch between the reforms in teaching and learning in practice and the educational policies affected their motivation for applying reforms in their teaching. Teacher A remarked, The curriculum offers those skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, for testing, they will test vocabulary and grammar, etc. Therefore, it is very difficult for teachers to apply the new teaching methods of ELT PRs. (A; Male; Bachelor; Gifted HS; City; At 30s years old; 5< Exp<20) In sum, besides the educational qualifications strongly affected the influence level of the factor on previous educational policies.

The factor on professional community and colleagues
In the interviews, only teacher F mentioned this factor as an influential factor hindering her adaptation of ELT PRs in her teaching. Teacher F quoted, Besides that, the reaction of colleagues to a certain type of ELT PRs also affects me. For example, I want to apply this type of ELT PRs but my colleagues protesting it for some reason also influences my psychology.
(F; Female; Bachelor; Regular HS; Countryside; At 40s years old; Exp>20) To sum up, there was no difference from different groups of teachers in light of their backgrounds.

The factor on school facilities
Besides the five external factors proposed in this current study, the findings from the interviews also indicated that school facilities externally affected teachers' responses to ELT PRs.
Both teachers with master's degrees found it challenging to implement the reforms when the quality of school facilities was insufficient. One of them said, The number of classes is too large, so it is difficult for teachers to successfully apply a type of ELT PRs for improving communicative competence. Typically, it is difficult to organize interesting activities in my class, with 50 students. Both teachers and students face difficulties that the teacher fails to manage the class and the students are difficult to absorb the lesson. Two out of four teachers with bachelor's degrees recognized the lack of sufficient school facilities to enhance their resistance to ELT PRs. One of them stated, Also, I like using technology in my teaching. However, the school has only one projector, which is usually broken, and lacks computers. Then, how can I do it? (F; Female; Bachelor; Regular HS; Countryside; At 40s years old; Exp>20) In summary, the factor on school facilities was indicated as an external factor affecting EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs. Although the respondents mentioning school facilities as a hindering factor came from both groups in terms of teachers' qualifications, the percentage of the teachers with master's degrees affected by this factor was higher than that of their counterparts.

Discussions
First, the current study found that the teachers were highly affected by external factors, including students' learning outcomes, institution managers' leadership, and time. At a lower level, previous educational policies and teachers' professional community and colleagues also remarkably impacted the teachers' responses to ELT PRs. Last but not least, the factor on school facilities was found as a remarkably influential factor affecting teachers' responses to the reforms.
Regarding the factor on students' learning outcomes, the most influential external one in the current study, Thieman (2000), argued that when students show improvement in learning, teachers continue implementing new teaching techniques and changing their beliefs in teaching. Besides, Paine and Fang (2006) stated that this factor serves as a standardized measurement for teachers' development shift accountability for being a good teacher in the Chinese educational context. Consequently, it was understandable to observe the star mean score on students' learning outcomes in the current study (M = 4.53). Sharing countless similarities in terms of cultures, traditions, and even educational philosophies, Chinese and Vietnamese teachers are under much pressure from their students' achievements (Lan, 2017). In a worse case, the pressure may also lead to some negativities in English teaching and learning that educators tend to find ways as applying grading leniency to comfort the students' grading expectations (Stroebe, 2016) or even have got the achievement obsession. Inferred from the study by Romanowski (2004), which investigated the students' obsession with grades, teachers may also have got equivalent consequences of the obsession, namely anxiety, cheating, unhealthy competition, worry, fear, and so on. Further than the abovementioned teacher-related consequences, easy grading also deteriorates students' learning outcomes as well as their learning efforts (Bonesrønning, 2004).
In terms of the factor on institutional managers' leadership, the teachers indicated that they were strongly affected by their superiors' commands. This finding was similar to the experience of China's reforms in professional development (Paine & Fang, 2006), which stated that the reforms were overcontrolled by the government as a top-down orientation. In the same vein, Fullan (2006) accentuated that educational reforms usually land on teachers without their engagement in the decision-making process. In other words, the government frequently evaluates teachers' quality based on licenses and setting standards. While teachers' voices should be heard to anchor to the strengths of particular groups of local practitioners in the classrooms (Fullan, 2001;Rubdy, 2008), throughout the participants' narrations, the planning stage of the reforming processes seemed to lack teachers' engagement. For this issue, Reitzug (1994) and Ibrahim et al. (2013) informed that the managers should support, facilitate, encourage, and even involve their workers in the change planning stage to promote the implementation process. Without these institution-related factors, the reform processes and similar innovations may still be overambitious and unachievable in English teaching and learning in Vietnam (Hoang, 2010;H. T. M. Nguyen et al., 2018;Van Huy & Hamid, 2015).
The time limit for implementation was also a remarkable external factor affecting teachers' willingness to accompany ELT PRs in the current study. Many previous studies indicated the critical role of time for implementation in the reform process (e.g., Prestine & McGreal, 1997;Thieman, 2000;Flamholtz & Randle, 2008;Ali;El Zaatar, 2011). The teachers were under high pressure with time for learning, being trained, planning, practicing, revising, collaborating with colleagues, learning new teaching techniques, using new materials effectively, applying new teaching approaches, deeply analyzing, and incorporating the reforms into teaching in practice. Backtracking to the literature review, this excessive workload intentionally decreases teachers' motivation to accept changes (Nisbet & Collins, 1978).
Besides the factor on teachers' professional community and colleagues, previous educational policies were informed as an external factor that moderately affected the teachers' responses to ELT PRs. The mismatch between the reforming policies and the students' learning assessment was why the teachers refused to change their teaching methods in the current study. Related to the impact of previous educational policies on the ways teachers accept changes, Thieman (2000) and Darling-Hammond (1990) highlighted that educational changes must be highly correlational; besides, the alignment of the required curriculum, mandated teaching strategies, and national testing must be vigorous. However, in Vietnam, while the MOET has been making considerable efforts with EFL teachers by encouraging them to apply communicative teaching techniques in order to help improve students' oral communication (H. T. M. Nguyen et al., 2018), in-class testing and even the National examination have still been concentrating on the grammar, vocabulary, reading, and writing evaluation (Le Ha, 2009;Phuong & Nhu, 2015). Consequently, teaching approaches have been more testoriented to meet the expected grading outcomes rather than develop students' oral communication skills that are obligatory to fulfill the social requirements in Vietnam (Pham & Bui, 2019). Located far from Vietnam, this teaching profession de-professionalization also occurred in the Anglosphere countries such as the UK and Wales. One of the significant problems of standards-based education there was about the assessment which had driven teachers in those two countries to improve the students' test scores, not to meet their sustainable needs, including life-long learning, global competitions, and so on (Donert, 2010;Kohn, 1999). Backtracking on the importance of oral communication skills, Kassim and Ali (2010), who conducted a study to investigate the role of English communicative skills needed at the workplace, stated that not only do they provide more chances in job promotions, but sufficient English competencies also advance workers to become global human resources.
According to Leithwood et al. (1998), teachers are inspired and encouraged by the mutual support among the professional community. Emo (2010) confirmed the importance of a collegial community in the professional development reforms. Nevertheless, the current study found that the factor on professional community and colleagues did not significantly affect the teachers' responses to ELT PRs. In another culture with several similarities like China, Paine and Fang (2006) remarked on the importance of collegial interactions and collaborations in the educational context. Besides the curriculum materials used to instruct teachers how to run their classes in practice, the public, conversational aspect of teaching is crucial.
Moreover, both contexts have been affected by the Confucianist/ collectivist culture (Jones et al., 2021). However, the current study results showed some mismatches in collegial interactions that their colleagues did not much influence the participants. It is worth raising some queries as to why the teachers did not have strong interactions among the professional community or what caused the insufficient influence level of the factor on professional community/ colleagues. Keashly and Neuman (2010) partly explained these issues by mentioning the necessities of conflict management in creating a collaborative and collective working environment. Therefore, initial training in academic settings about dealing with conflictual or hostile cases should be obligatory for preservice teachers in Vietnam and other educational contexts.
Interestingly, this current study found that the factor on school facilities significantly affected the teachers' responses to ELT PRs. This finding was in line with the study by Huberman (1981), which found that the quantity and quality of technical facilities and school building-level support strongly affect educational changes. According to L. Nguyen et al. (2020), school-related factors significantly impact students' learning outcomes, the most influential external factor in this current study. That is why the teachers complained about how the unqualified teaching facilities had lowered their teaching and their adoptions of ELT PRs. To be especially worrisome for the dissatisfaction with environmental conditions, such as unqualified facilities and infrastructures, can negatively affect people's productivity (Leaman, 1995). Eventually, developing countries whose economic potential is not strong enough to maximize educational support may find it challenging to meet the expectations and objectives of ELT PRs.
Among several aspects of teachers' backgrounds, their educational qualifications, ages, and teaching experiences differed the influence level of the external factors, consisting of students' learning outcomes, previous educational policies, and the potential factor on school facilities. The most prominent was that the more qualified teachers paid more attention to the influence level of external factors than the teachers with lower degrees did in the current study. The findings were in line with the study by Waters and Vilches (2008), which affirmed the role of educational levels of professional support in implementing a reforming process.

Conclusions
This study was conducted to explain how external factors affected EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs in the Mekong Delta (Southwest) of Vietnam. Also, the study aimed to investigate the impact of the teachers' demographic information on their perceptions of how they responded to those external factors. According to the study results, the factor on students' learning outcomes was the most significant external factor affecting the teachers' responses to ELT PRs. Besides, teachers' qualification strongly affected their perceptions of the influence of external factors on their responses to ELT PRs in general. Also, the ways teachers perceived the influence of their students' learning outcomes and previous education policies were significantly affected by their qualifications.

Implications and recommendations
The study contributed to a better understanding of how external factors affected EFL teachers' responses to ELT PRs. It may help many educational stakeholders, such as EFL teachers and their students, educational administrators, and researchers interested in this field.
First, this is a good chance for the EFL teachers to reflect on their teaching and the external factors affecting their beliefs in implementing ELT PRs in their practices. Thanks to that, they can adjust their beliefs in teaching and find ways to increase their students' achievements. Also, EFL students passively get the benefits from their teachers' changes.
Second, educational administrators may better understand the inferiors and what could have hindered their adoption of ELT PRs externally. Consequently, they can organize sufficient professional development plans, strategies, programs and activities, and increase the quality of their suggested reforms and their credibility.
Finally, scientific researchers interested in the topic will gain a foundation of external factors' theoretical knowledge. Also, this foundation has drawn an in-depth view on what affect Vietnamese teachers' responses to ELT PRs, so they can discuss this particular educational context with others that share different or similar backgrounds to generalize their findings.

Limitations and suggestions
The current study cannot avoid a few limitations that need fulfillment in further research. First, the sampling was small to generalize the findings, especially the number of participants for interviews. Therefore, further research can involve more teachers at different teaching levels, including primary, secondary, and higher education, in all provinces in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Besides, other stakeholders, such as academic leaders or headteachers, trainers, students, policymakers, and even students' parents, should have a chance to raise their voices. In so far as PRs can be linked to national interests, it does not mean that PRs also meet the public needs (Hawkins & Furuto, 2008).