EFL teachers’ perceptions of distance teaching: an explanatory case study at an open university in Vietnam

The advancements in technology offer great opportunities for education from distance. The adoption of distance learning in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has experienced fast-paced development in the Vietnamese context. However, little has been known about teachers’ perceptions regarding EFL distance teaching (DT). This case study explores this aspect in an Open university in Viet Nam. An explanatory sequential mixed-method design was employed to collect data from 35 EFL DT teachers. The quantitative data from the questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS version 20.0 while the qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews were codified thematically. The research findings revealed the perceptions of teachers regarding the advantages and challenges of DT offering for students and teachers. Besides, how teachers perceived the university policies of DT was also discussed. Drawn from our findings, this study provides pedagogical implications to enhance DT pedagogy and learning practice, as well as valuable recommendations for improved quality of EFL DT in Viet Nam and wider contexts.