Vietnamese pre-service language teachers’ technology-mediated task creation: An ecological perspective

As an emerging context in CALL literature, Vietnam provides the international research community striking insights into attempts at CALL integration and its links to national educational development, from macro-level policy development to meso-and micro-level implementation. This qualitative study explores the major assessment task of a course “Integrating ICT in Language Teaching and Learning,” as well as lesson-plan data from a group of four pre-service teachers, to provide insights into the influence of macro-level policy on those who are really in charge of its implementation—trainee language teachers. Analysis of lesson plans and semi-structured interviews revealed themes of growth in technological capabilities, technology overload, simplification of the relationship between theory and practice, and external influences on pedagogy. We draw on these findings to argue for a holistic, contextualised, ecological approach to teacher training in CALL.