VNUHCM Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

Digital tools in teaching and learning English in alignment with education 4.0

2023-10-19T03:55:46+07:00

The paper is a commentary to present the influence of Industrial Revolution 4.0 on the field of education, outlining some features of Education 4.0 so that it can meet the demands of the 21st century as well as the requirements for teachers to maximize their support for learners. Accordingly, the paper discussed the current trends of foreign language teaching in the era of Education 4.0, with a special focus on the application of artificial intelligence technology in English teaching through digital tools. The article explored some of the world’s common-used digital tools for teaching and learning English, aiming to support learners to improve their self-learning and proficiency in four important language skills, i.e., listening, speaking, reading and writing so that they manage to become effective communicators and own lifelong self-learning competence. The paper provided a detailed description of some of these tools and their benefits, offering a valuable resource for foreign language teachers and learners in Vietnam in the context of Education 4.0. Thereby, the ultimate expectation of this paper is to enable English teachers’ instruction for their learners to improve their language skills and acquire the 21st-century skills for effective communication and lifelong learning.

Developing a mentoring model to support international publication at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City

2023-10-19T04:03:36+07:00

International integration is a good opportunity to improve the quality of research and training and increase the ranking of Vietnamese universities. This study is conducted based on the framework of the theory of change, behavioral models, and mentoring approaches to support faculty members in achieving success in publication. The research used a survey method with questionnaires administered to 59 faculty members, in-depth interviews with 10 faculty members, and SWOT analysis to understand faculty members' perceptions of the importance of publication, the barriers, strengths, opportunities, and challenges, as well as motivating factors and the support needed for the publication. The results showed that faculty members have desires to publish their research, as well as an awareness of the role of publication in their personal career and the development of their institutions. However, faculty members face numerous obstacles, barriers, and challenges, including factors related to the quality of papers’ content, finance, time, publication processes, and language. Based on the theoretical foundation and the identified support needs, the authors proposed a comprehensive mentoring model for international publication that directly supports each article and author group. This model focuses on supporting key categories including: content upgrade advice, technical support, language support, financial support, writing space support, and other academic connections. This model has been applied and tested by the Advisory Center for Publication and Project Development (CAP) over the past 1.5 years and achieved some initial successes.

The foreign policy of the United States under the Biden Administration on the strategic competition with China: the analysis from the individual level in international relations

2023-11-13T04:10:27+07:00

The United States foreign policy greatly affects the nature and evolution of the United States-China strategic competition, especially since 2017. The paper uses an individual-level analysis approach in international relations to analyze the U.S. foreign policy on the U.S.-China strategic competition under President Joe Biden. In studying the foreign policy of a country, it is equally necessary for many individuals to participate in foreign policy making or influencing. With the complicated development of an ongoing international relations phenomenon, the paper focuses on “The foreign policy of the United States under the Biden Administration on the strategic competition with China: the analysis from the individual level in international relations” to provide more multi-dimensional interpretations of how the United States reacts to the current U.S.-China strategic competition. The study delves into and analyzes individual characteristics, including personality, work experience, etc. of President Joe Biden and the implementation of the U.S. foreign policy on the strategic competition with China through various methods of international relations research, international event analysis, and especially the individual-level analysis. Research results show that despite continuing the strategies of Donald Trump on the strategic competition with China, Joe Biden deployed the softer, more cautious, and limited confrontation with China. The individual aspect is one of the factors affecting the U.S. policy making and implementing.

The assessment of the teaching and learning quality of the Library – Information B.A. training program according to the AUN-QA accreditation standards

2023-11-13T04:17:00+07:00

Identifying strengths and limitations of teaching and learning activities to improve training quality is of great significance to educational institutions. The research overview is conducted to clarify how teaching and learning activities are organized as well as the criteria for evaluating teaching and learning activities to ensure teaching quality. By using the mixed research method with the parallel design: in-depth interviews with specialized lecturers along with a questionnaire survey with students, the article evaluates the quality of teaching and learning activities of the Library – Information B.A. training program at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City, according to the six criteria in standard 3 of the AUN-QA accreditation standard version 4.0. The study shows that the teaching and learning activities of the program's specialized subjects well meet the criteria in standard 3, and the lower rated criterion is the level of “assisting students in developing start-up”. The research results provide an understanding of the teaching and learning activities of specialized subjects under the Library – Information B.A. training program and are the basis for proposing measures to improve the quality of teaching and learning activities of this training program. Some discussions are mentioned in order to improve the teaching and learning quality of the Library - Information B.A. training program.

A comparative study of the English translations of Truyện Kiều

2023-11-18T04:01:49+07:00

Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh (A New Cry from a Broken Heart), more commonly referred to as Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kiều), by Nguyễn Du is considered to be among the most prominent works in Vietnamese literature. Therefore, Truyện Kiều has been translated into multiple languages around the world, including French, Japanese, Chinese, and English with a considerable number of versions available. This study focuses on analyzing, assessing, and comparing the quality of the English translations of Truyện Kiều by Huỳnh Sanh Thông (1983) and Michael Counsell (1994), using Juliane House’s Model of Translation Quality Assessment (2015). In general, Huỳnh Sanh Thông’s translation (1983) is more faithful to the original version in terms of content and figurative language, along with a detailed list of footnotes. Regarding Michael Counsell’s translation (1994), there is a complete lack of footnotes, and there are many changes compared to the original version, with additions to and reductions from the content in order to maintain the poetic form and rhyme scheme. Afterwards, recommendations for future poetry translations from Vietnamese into English are provided, including the followings: (1) the translation must include sufficient and detailed footnotes to provide clear explanations on the cultural, historical, and linguistic elements in the original version, (2) the translation needs to be faithful to the original version with limited changes made to the content, the order of events, as well as limited additions and reductions made to the original content, (3) the translation should prioritize the content over the poetic form, and (4) the translation needs a specific function and target audience.

Thanh Tâm Tuyền and the literature of freedom

2023-10-24T04:18:05+07:00

Thanh Tâm Tuyền (1936–2006) was a great writer of South Vietnamese literature in the 1954–1975 period. His works are extremely diverse in genres, having made remarkable contributions to the modernization of Vietnamese literature in many aspects. However, in general, critics have drawn more attention to Thanh Tâm Tuyền’s unique innovations in poetry rather than his prose fictions whose achievements are also very notable in fact. On the basis of reading Thanh Tâm Tuyền’s short stories and novels from the perspective of narratology, poetics and existentialism, the paper contributes to analyzing, explicating and interpreting his narrative art. Specifically, we argue that freedom is an important core in Thanh Tâm Tuyền’s fictions and even in his entire writing career. Firstly, Thanh Tâm Tuyền had a special narrative style, with which he did not create narrative worlds, situations and characters as the mediums of his ideological statements and conclusions, but very discrete ones, sometimes full of structural flaws and incompletedness, which, however, can stimulate his readers to freely figure out and contemplate various metaphysical problems in their own way. Second, the article presents an understanding of the nature of life suggested by Thanh Tâm Tuyền’s prose fictions, which is also related to the concept of freedom: his short stories and novels, to some extent, indicate human suffering of living without freedom, with the term understood as being honest with oneself to escape from illusions and invisible impositions.

The study on tea drinking culture in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea and the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam

2023-11-13T03:50:32+07:00

Tea is not only good for health as well as the mind, and a spiritual drink that enlightens people, but also contributes to developing culture and art in each country. If the Goryeo Dynasty of Korea favored the culture of "whisked tea" (點茶法), using powdered tea as in the Song Dynasty, then in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, the culture of "leaf tea" as in the Ming Dynasty ascended. During the Joseon Dynasty, the art of tea drinking declined and disappeared with the policy of “Supressing Buddhism Revering Confucianism” (崇儒抑佛). However, Zen tea masters and late Joseon Confucian scholars still drank tea and wrote poetry about tea, which revived the Joseon art of tea ceremony and helped it be passed to these days. It can be said that the Korean art of tea drinking today is inherited by Zen masters and Confucian scholars of the Joseon period. Compared to the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) - the last feudal dynasty of Korea lasting more than 500 years, Vietnam experienced many dynastic changes in history with the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1910) as the Vietnam's last feudal dynasty. With the idea of understanding the tea culture in the last feudal dynasties of the two countries, the author focuses on the tea culture of the late Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) of Korea and the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945) of Vietnam. The study focuses on analyzing and comparing the similarities and differences between the tea drinking cultures of the two dynasties from a historical perspective. This paper consists of the three main parts (1) an overview of the tea drinking culture of the Joseon period, (2) an overview of the Nguyen dynasty’s tea drinking culture, and (3) a comparison of the tea drinking culture through tea products and tea enjoyment space (tea room) of the two dynasties. This study uses the method of synthesizing and analyzing domestic and international scholars’ papers, the historical-cultural interdisciplinary research method, and the comparative method to clarify the three above- mentioned issues.