Biography
Dr. Loc Tan Nguyen
Dr. Loc Tan Nguyen
School of Foreign Languages, UEH University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Title: Teacher professional learning to enhance ESL/EFL teachers’ pronunciation pedagogy
Abstract: 
Recent research has shown that many ESL/EFL teachers overlooked explicit pronunciation teaching in their English classes and that their pronunciation teaching was ad hoc, usually in response to individual learners’ pronunciation errors through recasts and/or prompts. This body of work has also demonstrated a lack of initial training and professional learning opportunities in pronunciation pedagogy leading to the teachers being unconfident teaching pronunciation. Although leading scholars of the field have argued for the facilitative role of professional learning to teachers’ pronunciation pedagogy, limited research has been done to describe and understand how teachers translate into practice the pronunciation pedagogy knowledge they receive from professional learning activities. In this talk, I will reflect on my four years doing research at Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand, which led to my PhD degree in Applied Linguistics and five articles published in peer-reviewed journals. First, I will describe what motivated me to do my PhD in New Zealand. Then, I will present how I designed and conducted my research, discuss the main findings from each of the two phases of the project, and outline the way in which the phase 1 findings informed a teacher professional learning intervention which was carried out in phase 2 of the research. Finally, I will conclude by discussing the limitations and directions for future research.
Biography: 
Dr. Loc Tan Nguyen is currently a lecturer at the University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (UEH University), teaching different English courses (both undergraduate and graduate levels), including phonetics and phonology, pronunciation, academic writing, and curriculum design. His research focuses on pronunciation teaching and learning, teacher cognition, teacher education, and professional learning for language teachers. He has published in a range of peer-reviewed journals in Linguistics and TESOL such as System, RELC, and TESL-EJ. 
Dr. Loc Tan Nguyen obtained his PhD in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand. He has been an ESL/EFL instructor and ESOL teacher trainer for 15 years with experience from Vietnam and New Zealand. His work involves assisting undergraduate and postgraduate students in their pathways to academic achievements by applying his skills and expertise from his experience and doctoral research. His skills and knowledge have also been useful in helping immigrant workers from Asian countries and their families develop language competency and skills which helped them integrate into New Zealand life and cultures.