Abstract
The quest for global ranking has motivated higher education institutions (HEIs) in Vietnam to increase the number of international students in their enrolments. However, little is known about experiences of current international students in Vietnamese HEIs. This article offers a mosaic of international student experiences (ISE) in a Vietnamese-taught course offered by a Vietnamese university. The data show that teaching staffs play a crucial role in the satisfaction of international students, however, services and physical facilities are areas that need significant improvement. It also discusses other interactive aspects of ISE before presenting the case of an international student with disability to show how international mobility, aspiration, and personal determination can navigate him through a journey that was nothing short of extraordinary. This article is also to answer the recent scholarly call for a more geographically diverse and transformation-centred ISE literature, which is believed to remain relevant in the future.
Keywords
International students: The new asset in the internationalising Vietnam higher education
Some time ago a workshop was held by one of the two Vietnam National University systems (VNU) on the topic of how to attract international students and its role in improving educational quality and international exposure of the University. The workshop was participated by key personnel of the University as well as top administrators from its member institutions showing the significance of the topic of discussion. By the end of the workshop, the discussants and administrators still disagreed on which was the most effective way to increase international student enrolment. While many leaned toward the more mainstream internationalisation pathway of developing English Medium Instruction (EMI) courses, others, us included, advocated an approach that utilise the comparative advantages of local language and cultural programs, which have been shown to be instrumental in attracting international students to Asian destinations of international student mobility (Roberts et al., 2010; Wang and Chang, 2016; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Phan et al., 2022; Khanh and Ngoc, 2022).
Why has increasing the number of international students become so important in the agenda of Vietnamese HEIs in recent years while conventionally it was sending teaching staffs and students overseas the key element of internationalisation efforts? In fact, until recently diversifying the students’ countries of origins remained neglected by Vietnamese HEIs (Trần et al., 2014) and the perplexity of the senior administrators, who attended the workshop, on the matter manifested such trend. Yet started in around 2017–2018, the participation of top Vietnamese HEIs in global university ranking tables dramatically altered the way in which universities in Vietnam think about international students. This body of students, albeit insignificant in number, contributes directly to the ranking metrics in the areas that manifest the HEIs’ levels of internationalisation. Moreover, despite its humble weightage ranging from 2.5% (THE) 1 to 5% (QS), 2 international student ratio is one of the most challenging metrics along with PhD holders per student and citation ratios (VNU-HCM, 2021). This situation prompts Vietnamese HEIs to devise measures to raise the number of international students in their enrolments as international students are becoming a new asset in the global ranking game.
One of the most widely pursued initiatives is to offer courses that employ EMI, especially through the ‘advanced programs’ (chương trình tiên tiến), which usually involve the internationalisation of curriculum and seen as one of the key internationalisation efforts in Vietnamese HEIs (Tran and Marginson, 2018). This strategy has been proven effective in some cases (Nguyen et al., 2016 cited from Tran and Marginson, 2018), particularly in newly established HEIs where internationalisation was on top consideration from the beginning (Tran et al., 2018). However, in other long-established institutions, the effectiveness of EMI and its potential to attract international students seem to be limited (Tran et al., 2018). One of the most challenging aspects of this approach stems from the teaching staffs’ proficiency in English rendering their deliveries uneasy to be followed by both local and international students. Hence, EMI courses in Vietnamese contexts seem to be even more challenging with the presence of international students and deemed premature (Nguyen H. T., 2018). Studies elsewhere have also demonstrated that English-taught courses might even cause dual lingual barriers for students who came from non-English speaking countries (Wang and Chang, 2016). In 2016, a report by Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training stated that the ‘Advanced Programs’ Scheme achieves all its objectives except for only that of attracting the targeted number of international students to Vietnam (Trần, 2020) leaving EMI not the ideal, not to say only, measure to increase international students in Vietnamese HEIs.
Alternatively, some studies have shown that Vietnam’s competitive advantage in attracting international students lies in other factors than enrolling in English-taught programs in Vietnamese universities or obtaining an internationally recognised college degree in Vietnam. Elsewhere we argue that Vietnam’s most powerful pull factors is its economic growth and subsequent employment prospects along with desire to experience Vietnamese culture and society making the country a niche market for Asia-bound international student mobility (Khanh and Ngoc, 2022). Vietnam’s economic growth and strong ties with certain countries can also boost the demand for learning the Vietnamese language, obtaining knowledge of aspects of the country, and ultimately pursuing a formal degree in Vietnamese studies programs, which are fully taught in Vietnamese, in local universities (Phan et al., 2022; Khanh and Ngoc, 2022) making them among the most popular courses among international students in Vietnamese HEIs (Trần et al., 2018). Out of such insights and the current literature of Asia-bound international student mobility (ISM) (Roberts et al., 2010; Wang and Chang, 2016; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Jon et al., 2014), it is arguable that HEIs in Asia should utilise their ‘niche’ advantages of cultural and lingual distinctiveness to attract international students in imminent term (Khanh and Ngoc, 2022). And as international students who decided to travel to Asian destinations often not solely because of the quest for degrees from a world class institution, their experiences tend to be multi-faceted and can be transformative (Lipura, 2021; Kumpoh et al., 2021; Kheir, 2021) despite local HEIs’ mediocrity.
To understand this population of international students, a study on experiences of current international students enrolled in Vietnamese studies courses deem necessary. This paper is one of the first accounts, along with Phan et al. (2022), on ISE of Vietnamese-taught courses in a major metropolitan university in Vietnam. It also endeavours to contribute to the ISE in Asia literature, which will be subsequently discussed, and seek to provide practical recommendations for improving ISE in Vietnam as well as other Asian destinations. Such efforts answer the scholarly call of Phan and Fry (2021) for a diversification of ISE literature towards non-traditional Asian destinations of ISM including Vietnam, Brunei, and India. Together with other authors in this SI, we also would like to argue along the line of ‘transformative possibilities’ as the most exciting part of international education rather than simply pursuing an internationally recognised degree from a globally well-ranked HEI (Leve, 2021).
Literature review
International student experiences (ISE) in Asian destinations
(Un) Satisfaction
Satisfaction is an important aspect of international student experiences (ISE). The literature on student satisfaction emphasises the association between satisfaction and loyalty, while unsatisfaction tends to result in negative communication about experiences in HEIs (Paswan and Ganesh, 2009). International student satisfaction stems from a combination of factors in their multidimensional experiences (Perrucci and Hu, 1995; Arambewela and Hall, 2009; Ammigan and Jones, 2018). International student experiences in Asian countries have also been studied under the student’s satisfaction approach, which investigates whether the students are satisfied with their educational experiences in host institutions. In general, although some authors such as Jon et al. (2014) might show a relatively high level of satisfaction among international students in an Asian destination like Korea, findings from other studies tend to demonstrate as less optimistic picture. While international students expressed a good level of satisfaction in learning local Asian languages such as Mandarin Chinese (Ding, 2016) and teaching staffs (Alemu and Cordier, 2017), they seem not to be significantly satisfied with either overall academic experiences particularly in their main fields of study or supporting services (Ding, 2016; Alemu and Cordier, 2017; Jiang et al., 2020), especially when benchmarked with major receiving destinations (Ding, 2016). Another aspect of international students’ satisfaction in Asia is that different groups of students might experience varied levels of satisfaction. Alemu and Cordier (2017) pointed out that historical and cultural ties made students from East Asia more satisfied with their experiences in another Asian country like South Korea than those originated from outside the region. The varied levels of satisfaction in Asia-bound international student literature might reflect the diversity of students’ motivations in deciding to come to an Asian country to pursue higher education as shown in studies of Roberts et al. (2010), Ding (2016), Jiani (2017), Alemu and Cordier (2017), and Khanh and Ngoc (2022) among others. Motivations other than those of academic excellence nature or obtaining a world-renowned degree might have led international students to a diverse range of expectations beyond what the chosen host institutions had to offer. Hence, ISE in Asian destinations also need to be examined beyond the neo-liberal notion of satisfaction to fully capture the multiple realities on the ground and gain meaningful understandings of the Asia-bound flow of international students.
Classroom (lack of) interactions
Beyond satisfaction, other aspects of ISE have also been discussed. One of the more notable characteristics of classroom interactions among international students in Asia is that students from foreign countries are more often than not placed in separated settings from local students (Ding, 2016; Ma and Wen, 2018; Jiang et al., 2020). Such spatial exclusion has been argued to be negatively perceived by international students (Ding, 2016), and might have led to nationality homogeneity of students in the same class (Ma and Wen, 2018), which means students from one country dominate the class population. An all-international-student classroom was shown by Liu and Phan (2021) to hinder interactions between international and local students and, therefore, refrains international students from improving their local language competences, a development that might lead to international students’ discontent (Wang and Chang, 2016). On nationality homogeneity, such reality tends to frustrate those of minority as those of the majority have a strong tendency to converse in their mother tongues rather than utilising the classroom language of instruction leaving lingually minority students left aside (Ma and Wen, 2018). Such classroom environment often facilitates co-national communication rather than cross-national exchanges as presented in subsequent parts of this study.
Students’ cultural factors and their tendency to communicate
The lack of interactions between international students and Asian host countries’ people and place or with other students from different nationalities than themselves does not just stem from the environment, it is also characterised by students’ own circumstances and preferences. Asian international students in Singapore in Gomes’ (2017) study almost exclusively mingled with their co-nationals, a phenomenon explained by the strong sense of belonging that was instilled by common citizenry in a foreign country. Quinto et al. (2019)’s account on Korean students who studied English courses in the Philippines illustrated Koreans’ reluctance to speak to strangers or even classmates who were not very close to them. This happened due to Koreans’ strong awareness and judgement of the communication situations, levels of formality, and their audience as argued in previous studies (Quinto et al., 2019). A sense of ethnic hierarchy might also refrain communication between international students and local population as presented in the case of Korean students in Japan, who felt that they had lost the status previously enjoyed in home country and perceived as inferior by the Japanese to Westerners (Murphy-Shigenmatsu, 2002). This means that the tendency or willingness to communicate with their surroundings of international students might be influenced by factors involving identity and cultural perceptions of the realities around them.
Transformative
However, by engaging in international education, international students enter the process of self-formation which might lead to multiple self-trajectories involving various new developments in both that way they see and act in accordance with the formation (Marginson, 2013). This process has been shown in recent studies on ISE in lesser-known parts of Asia in the ISM landscape such as India and Vietnam. Lipura (2021), by investigating Korean students in Indian HEIs, showed that the diversity of Indian society, with both its positives and negatives, offered unique experiences, that she called everyday transformations, which brought about changes that are very different from what either home country or Western destinations have to provide. The marginality of place and its transformative impact are also discussed by Kumpoh et al. (2021) via the case of Bruneian students during and after their short-termed community outreach trips to Vietnam where they not only stepped out of their comfort zones but also faced challenges posed by the realities of local society. Exposure to completely new places and people of different economic, language, and cultural backgrounds might bring about certain initial bumps and shocks, yet eventually perspectives will be altered, skills will be obtained, and ultimately personal growths will be built after the trip as shown in personal reflections of returnees from the trip. Though such cases seem not to be the norm yet, the transformative impacts of international educational mobility are clearly visible though the specific characteristics of the transformation may vary from student to student as well as from host to host.
ISM can also provide transformative experiences for students of disadvantaged backgrounds. Kheir (2021)’s study shows that opportunities to study abroad in degree programs in Taiwan may provide under-privileged international students from lesser-developed countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia, a bridge to the wider world of international opportunities, or a kind of aspiration toward the future, which, without the empowerment brought by learning in Taiwan experiences, could not be imagined of by these students. Phan et al. (2022) also illustrates how unconventional international students in Vietnamese HEIs such as middle-aged managers, housewives, retirees, and young students seeking alternative higher education options could pursue ‘a meaningful life’ that ‘could bring them joy, satisfaction, hope and time for themselves’ rather than status of students at a world-renowned university. This study will also offer an example of how travelling to and enrolling in a HEI in Vietnam can bring transformative experiences to a student of disability.
ISE in Asia: Diverse, multifaceted-ness, mediocre, yet transformative
The aforementioned studies demonstrate the diversity, the multifaceted-ness, and the mediocrity of ISE in Asian destinations. Contrasting to students travelling to developed English-speaking destinations who usually seek academic excellence in reputed HEIs (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002) for career advancement and are usually satisfied with their experiences (Ammigan and Jones, 2018), international students in Asian countries are motivated by a wide range of factors from interests in the places, the cultures, and the people in Asian countries (Roberts et al., 2010; Wang and Chang, 2016; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Phan et al., 2022; Khanh and Ngoc, 2022), to seeking a free world (Lipura, 2021) and financial supports (Roberts et al., 2010; Wang and Chang, 2016; Kheir, 2021). In Asia, it seems, international education and ISE can mean so much more than just economic gain from a prestigious degree, global university ranking, and elite status of an international students in a developed Western country (Leve, 2021). Such diversity in motivations also means multi-faceted experiences that students would endure during the course of their studies which prompt investigations beyond satisfaction, and in fact, Asian HEIs, as shown in studies cited here, seem not capable of pleasing their international students. This prompts us to contemplate on the concept of mediocrity theorised by Phan (2017). Though Phan (2017) coined the term to conceptualise student experiences in transnational educational settings in Asia, the experiences of international students in Asian HEIs seem to share similar mediocrity as students showed unsatisfactory level of satisfaction in academic experience (Ding, 2016; Jon et al., 2014), frustration with all-international-student classroom arrangement (Ma and Wen, 2018; Liu and Phan, 2021), and lack of interactions with the local people and societies (Ding, 2016; Ma and Wen, 2018; Gomes, 2017; Quinto et al., 2019). Thus, ISE in Asian destinations seem to render the expectations of travelling to new places, meeting new people, and experiencing new environments of international student unmet.
However, looking beyond extrinsic dimensions of ISE, which mean how they think about the surrounding environments and people, could reveal intrinsic transformations at individual levels fostered by personal traits and circumstances as shown by Lipura (2021) and Kheir (2021) albeit inherent mediocrity in operations of the Asian international higher education enterprises. As ‘mediocrity in relation to a specific space and place can be transformative, evolving, generative, productive, and aspirational to many stakeholders concerned’, Phan (2017, 2018) demonstrated how a remote mountainous HEI in Vietnam could nurture aspirations of international students. Her treatment of the case of Sylvia (Phan, 2018), a financially disadvantaged student from the Philippines, illustrates how the enterprise of mediocrity can exert transformative impacts on international students with no fewer profound impacts than any other international students in better conditions.
Against such complex picture of ISE in Asia literature, this study aims at investigating both satisfaction and non-satisfaction aspects of ISE in a HEI in Vietnam, a lesser-known ISM destination in Asia. As it will be shown in the findings, international students in this study share many of the experiences discussed in the literature, yet several distinctive insights are also found.
The current research
The case university and the program in discussion
University A is a founding member of one of the two national university systems in Vietnam which comprises of seven member HEIs. While international students are enrolled in various undergraduate courses in University A, most of them are affiliated with the Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Vietnamese Studies program, which has been offered by the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies (FVS) exclusively for foreign students. Faculty of Vietnamese Studies had its origin as a unit specialised in teaching Vietnamese language for foreigners, mostly Cambodians, which was founded in 1980. The unit then evolved into the Department of Vietnamese Language and Culture in 1990. In 1997, the First Vietnamese Studies International Conference was held in Hanoi and featured 700 participants including 300 renowned scholars from 26 countries. This conference was the spark plug for the blooming of Vietnamese Studies programs across Vietnam including University A’s FVS, which was officially founded in 1998 with the core teaching team inherited from the Department of Vietnamese Language and Culture. In 2000, FVS matriculated its inaugural cohort of full-time BA in Vietnamese Studies with 13 students. Since then, the program has grown significantly over the years. During the period of 2015–2020, the total international enrolments in the program increased by 60% from 206 to 341. By the time of the survey for this research, the total enrolment of FVS’s BA in Vietnamese Studies program was slightly over 200, which made up 1.5% of University A’s student population. Besides full-time students, FVS also provide non-degree Vietnamese language courses which used to attract over 1000 short-termed international students annually. In terms of full-time student nationalities, 95% of students of the 2020–2021 academic year intake were Korean nationals.
The program’s courses are conducted entirely in Vietnamese language with a minimum language proficiency requirement as a prerequisite. Students then will spend the first semesters improving their language skills before taking up courses on Vietnamese culture, history, socio-economic issues alongside with other compulsory courses required by the Ministry of Education and Training for their conferment of a standard bachelor’s degree in Vietnam.
Research methods
This research employs a mixed methods approach to explore the experiences of international students in University A, a HEI in a major municipality in Southern Vietnam. Such approach, which involves qualitative and quantitative methods in a single study, allows researchers to have a holistic view of both similarities and differences and along with it a more complete understanding of the research topic (Creswell and Creswell, 2018). While the questionnaires were employed to survey the level of ‘satisfaction’, which is defined as an attitude stemming from what students perceive and evaluate on their educational experiences whether meet or exceed expectations (Elliot and Healy, 2001), the semi-structured interviews looked at what the students on the ground had to say about their experiences negotiating with their daily educational realities in a HEI in Vietnam.
Qualitative data collection and analysis
Profile of interviewees.
The interviews were later labelled, transcribed, and analysed. Themes that emerged from the interviews include their experiences in interacting with the people (faculty and staff members, co-national and non-co-national students), the environment (school and classroom facilities), and issues that they faced in their study and daily interaction. These themes were then employed in the questionnaire design process and subsequently used in coordination with quantitative data from the survey.
Quantitative data collection and analysis
The questions cover a range of issues including the teaching teams, international student services, and school facilities. The questionnaire was bilingual, Vietnamese, and Korean, reflecting the vast majority of Korean nationals in the international student population in the Bachelor of Arts in Vietnamese Studies program. 5-point Likert scale was used for close-ended questions where students were asked to grade the significance of individual factors ranging from ‘not satisfied at all’ (for satisfaction items) (1) to ‘highly satisfied’ (5).
The surveying stage was conducted during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, hence, the teaching and learning activities at the university were switched to virtual mode over an extended period of time. Besides, many of the international students had returned home for Lunar New Year celebration making them unable to return to Vietnam for their study. This significantly challenged the surveying process, which was eventually conducted online. The questionnaire was adapted to a Google Forms link and sent to emails of all international students of Faculty of Vietnamese Studies. 94 forms were returned, accounted for 47% of the total student population. The demographic characteristics of the samples and their years of study are presented in the following tables.
Percentages of sampled students by gender.
Percentages of students by nationalities.
Percentages of participants by year of study.
Regarding students’ cohorts, Table 4 shows that most of the samples came from either sophomore or junior years, while the remaining third fell into year 1 or year 4. This might be explained by the fact that freshmen tend to be reluctant due to their novelty in the new environment and less proficient in Vietnamese language, and students of final years should be occupied with their upcoming graduation preparation, thus making them reluctant to respond to our survey request.
The quantitative data was processed using IBM SPSS Ver 23.0 to calculate mean value and standard deviation for each of the surveyed factor. Subsequently, the factors were descriptively analysed based on its mean score on the 5-point Likert scale and the comparison with similar factors discussed in the literature and finally analysed alongside with qualitative data.
Findings
What is the most satisfied area of ISE in University A? Its teaching team
International students' level of satisfaction toward aspects of their experiences
Among the surveyed items, those related to the teaching staffs received the highest scores with all ranked 3.0 or higher, while other areas including student services and physical facilities were responded with significant lower scores as shown in Table 5 in subsequent sections. The participants particularly valued ‘teacher – student relations’ (M = 3.90, SD = 0.962), ‘teaching methods and competence in Vietnamese language courses in Vietnamese language’ (M = 3.84, SD = 0.942), and enthusiasm in facilitating students’ academic challenges (M = 3.80, SD = 1.053).
Students’ favourable attitude towards faculty members was also visible in the interviews. Many of the students spoke highly of the faculty members, or ‘thầy cô’ in their own words, which literally means ‘teachers’, a broad term in Vietnamese language for anyone in the teaching profession regardless primary or higher education. For them: The delivering method is fairly ok … the teachers are friendly and frequently talk to students. (Student-2) Most of the teachers are enthusiastic, fun and take great care of students. (Student-3) I have received a lot of support from the teachers… They always offer helps whenever I’m in need. (Student-4) The teachers teach with great enthusiasm and have great fond of students. When we couldn’t catch up [with what’s being taught] [they] would speak more slowly for us to better understand. (Student-5) In general, I’m very satisfied with the delivering methods of my teachers. [They are] very professional and enthusiastic. (Student-6)
In their opinions, the teachers are ‘enthusiastic’ in teaching and take great care for their students in their learning process. Enthusiastic (nhiệt tình in Vietnamese) in the Vietnamese context should mean ‘being eager or keen toward people or in doing something’ (Viện Ngôn ngữ học, 2003: 719). That means the students express appreciation to the kind of eagerness that their teachers put in their teaching and interaction with students. This can be a common trait of Vietnamese faculty members in programs that involve teaching international studies discussed by Doan (2012) and Phan et al. (2022). Elsewhere in Asia, the teaching team also has a significant impact on international students’ satisfaction as shown in Jon et al. (2014) and Ding (2016) with interaction between faculty members and students the key aspect of satisfaction (Wen et al., 2018). These insights help emphasise the interpersonal aspects of ISE in Asia, which could complement shortfalls in other areas of ISE such as service quality or academic excellence.
Faculty of Vietnamese Studies’s faculty members were also highly regarded in their teaching competence in Vietnamese language courses as well as subject matter courses. This is probably because the program orbits around contents related to Vietnamese language, culture, and socio-economic issues which are congruent in terms of lingual demand and delivery methods. This finding is consistent with those of Ding (2016), which reported a high satisfaction for teachers’ local language expertise and teaching. In Wen et al.’s (2018) study, international students enrolled in courses conducted in local language showed a higher chance of satisfaction compared to those in English-taught course. This might hint that courses delivered in local languages could attract international students and offer positive experiences to them given the teachers’ proficiency in the language and the field of studies that they teach.
However, even the highest scored element involving the teaching team cannot achieve a solid 4.0 of mean value and there were responses as low at 2.0 hinting a sense of dissatisfaction. A closer look at qualitative data can reveal areas of disappointments with certain faculty members. Student-5, who expressed his appreciation toward the teachers in the excerpt above continued to elaborate on a few of such encounters: There was one teacher who came to class late but left earlier [than the class time]. There are no right or clear criteria on evaluation and marking of exam papers. And [he/she] didn’t thoroughly address students’ questions. I’ve got two of such teachers. Except for them, other teachers are very enthusiastic [in teaching]. (Student-5)
The teaching staffs also seem not to be likely to intervene to settle students’ disagreements with each other upon matters such as group assignment. When we asked Student-1 why she did not raise the issue of project group conflict to the teachers in charge, she replied: I did raise the problem to the teachers, but [they] responded that it was my own issue, so it was me to solve, and to tell other group members do their part. (Student-1)
Despite that, it is reasonable to state that the teaching team is the most formidable element for satisfaction among the surveyed international students in University A. This is particularly more so when analysing other aspects of ISE which are student services and physical facilities as discussed below.
Student services: Some are ok, others are not
International student support services did not receive similar level of approval as did the teaching team. Among the services offered to international students in this study, participants were particularly pleased with pre-enrolment visa application support service, which received the highest score among all the services (M = 3.83, SD = 1.224) as it far outranked the immediate next items of enrolment guidance (M = 3.13, SD = 1.157) and ‘fully provided course information’ (M = 3.11, SD = 1.084).
Areas of services where the students expressed lowest level of satisfaction were the supports that they were supposed to receive when they faced challenges in life and study. Among them, pre-enrolment ‘accommodation finding support’ was the least satisfied (M = 2.02, SD = 1.238), while post-enrolment challenge supports were slightly better with 2.38 (SD = 1.201) for non-study challenges and 2.72 (SD = 1.305) for study challenges supports.
It is clear from the surveyed data that international student services in University A involve mostly procedural matters including visa support and information provision. There seems to be shortfalls in life supports regarding essential matters such as accommodation.
Qualitative data provides more insightful accounts on University A’s ISE in student services. The international students in this study also tend not to be well-informed in terms of other miscellaneous matters such as the exact amount of tuition fees that they must pay each term or teaching team information as reported by one interviewee: I received my class timetable when I started my second year. When I stepped into the class, the teachers all changed without any prior notice, so I didn’t know who the teacher was and what he was supposed teach. The same thing happened to tuition fee, already announced to the students but just changed…There were cases that I only knew [the amount] when [I] came to pay. (Student-1)
Senses of confusion, frustration, and eventual powerlessness were also visible in another student’s account: In Korea, like in Vietnam, we need 140 credits for graduation. But out a sudden, after I started my fourth year of study, the university said that [it] now changed to 120 credits. That means hardworking students can graduate 1 year earlier [than the 4-year norm], while we were already in our fourth year. If it had happened in our first or even second year, it would have been acceptable…Now we’re in year 4 then received this news of credit change… if it had been the case in Korea, [we] could have done something… We could voice our concern [in Korea] but, in Vietnam, it’s hand-tightened (bó tay). (Student-2)
Student-2’s constant comparison between Vietnam and Korea might illustrate the encountering between international students from a more developed country (Korea) and the local realities that went against their expectations. These negative experiences might influence the attractiveness of University A as a top-of-mind destination for Vietnamese studies courses, a possibility that Student-2 continued to elaborate in our interview with him: University B also has [Vietnamese Studies program], but [I] heard that [it] is quite difficult. But that’s still an option, not like before there was only this [University A] school. I think [the University] need to change a bit to attract more students, [it] should not continue to be like this. (Student-2)
Since services have been discussed in the literature as augmenters for ISE (Paswan and Ganesh, 2009), negative experiences in these areas should not be overlooked. While studies on ISE in traditional international student mobility destinations show that as academic reputation has the most significant role in attracting international students (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002) thus services might not have significant role in influencing students’ satisfaction (Ammigan and Jones, 2018), newly emerged Asian destination student mobility literature shows that services offered by host HEIs greatly contribute to the level of satisfaction in ISE (Ding, 2016; Alemu and Cordier, 2017) and substandard school infrastructure can negatively influence ISE (Roberts et al., 2010; Ding, 2016). This may be because international students tend to be attracted to Asian destinations by other factors than academic reputation of the countries (Roberts et al., 2010; Jon et al., 2014; Jiani, 2017; Phan et al., 2022; Khanh and Ngoc, 2022), hence services and facilities should be areas of concerns for this group of learners in Asian HEIs.
University A’s facilities: A below average reality
School’s facilities are the area that received the least satisfaction from the students. It was not a surprise to see how much the students lamented about the school’s facilities and compared with the facilities in universities in their home country: I visited the library once, [but I was] too sleepy so I didn’t go anymore…Libraries in Korea are spacious, for example a long table can sit a lot of people…[such] spacious space can make you feel more comfortable. (Student-2) I think this university is quite old…Because it was [built] long ago and part of the national university, so it is quite hard to change those things. (Student-1).
However, the classrooms, which were designed specifically to accommodate international students, received more positive feedbacks though complains also emerged: I think my classroom has air conditioners, TV, and loudspeakers, quite enough. (Student-5) Let’s talk about the classrooms in Block C, I think that the air-conditioners, I think ok. But the desks and the chairs there I don’t feel very satisfied because they are attached together, it’s quite inconvenient when I write. Another thing is that the desks are very small, it’s those things that can be changed, [it] would be better. (Student-6)
Surveyed data also confirm this trend showing that participants in this study seemed not very happy with the campus in general (M = 2.50, SD = 1.251) but they seemed to be slightly happier with the classroom (M = 2.83, SD = 1.289) as shown in Table 5.
Roberts et al. (2010) and Ding (2016) have shown how substandard school infrastructure can negatively influence ISE. However, University A was also aware of the limitations of its facilities and equipped the classrooms that were reserved for international students with better equipment compared with their Vietnamese counterparts. This kind of special treatments for international students are also witnessed in other studies on ISE in Asia by Ding (2016), Ma and Wen (2018) Jiang et al. (2020). Yet such spatial exclusion not only hinders interactions between international students, but also might contribute to the issues that will be discussed in subsequent sections.
Spatial exclusion and nationality homogeneity
ISE in University A is also characterised by nationality and spatial in(ex)clusion. As BA in Vietnamese Studies program is offered for foreigners, international students enrolled in this course study in separate classrooms in a separate block on campus. Such spatial exclusion is complemented by the nationality homogeneity of Koreans in the program, which turns the classrooms into a ‘Korean nationals’ environment’ as exclaimed by the only non-Korean interviewee in this study: When I’m in school, I have to live in a Korean nationals’ environment, not a Vietnamese surrounding anymore. (Student-4)
Separate classroom arrangements for international students and homogeneity of students’ origins in some Asian destinations have been reported to cause not only frustration to students from the minority side but also hinder the language acquisition process as those from the dominant group more often than not speak their mother tongue rather than the language of the destination countries (Ma and Wen, 2018; Liu and Phan, 2021). The fact that 95% of the students in the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies where Korean nationals seem to make non-Korean students felt lack of chances to practice the very language that he travelled to Vietnam to learn. Moreover, it may hinder communication in Vietnamese among international students as they opt for mother tongue due to lack of interaction with students from other nationalities. This is explained by Student-4: Except for subject knowledge, I haven’t not learned much [Vietnamese language] at the university, because I’m surrounded by Koreans, and they only spoke Korean to each other. And I also talk to a monk (also a student), who is also a Thai, in Thai. (Student-4)
Korean interviewees in this study also admitted that they rarely spoke Vietnamese in class. When asked which languages, Korean or Vietnamese, were more frequently spoken in class, the students replied: It is Korean. [I only speak to] one or two Vietnamese, because around me other people are also Korean, so we communicate in Korean. (Student-5)
Another student added: Because most of the students are Korean, so we don’t need to speak Vietnamese. (Student-6)
It seems like classrooms seem not to be the ideal environment for international students in this study improving their Vietnamese language due to the overwhelming presence of students from Korea making Korean classroom’s de facto lingua franca. Classroom nationality homogeneity not only refrain students from interacting in local language and with students from other countries, but it also led to moments of awkwardness among classmates of same nationality, which is discussed in the next section.
Negotiations among themselves: How group assignments can be counter-productive, and being co-nationals become odd
The all-conational environment, at times, was shown to have led to unwelcome negotiations in classroom interactions, especially when it came to collaborative tasks such as doing group assignments. It seems that the interviewees were unanimous in voicing that group assignments meant that only certain group members (like themselves) had to do most of the workload while others not-so-hardworking students would not have an equal share: I feel that only one person actually did the work, so I feel like don’t know whether it has any meaning or not. Maybe the teachers assigned group work for [students to] work together…There were things that some didn’t want to do, and at the end they just wouldn’t do it. (Student-1) I felt unfair. (Student-6)
Frustration against group work is not uncommon in international classrooms in Vietnam. Nguyen H.T. (2018) showed how international students in an EMI program got frustrated with their Vietnamese counterparts in group projects, while Truong et al. (2020) discussed Vietnamese students’ discontents with their lazy international counterparts in another EMI program. In this study, it was the Korean students who expressed powerlessness towards their fellow Korean group members. She wanted to complain her co-national groupmates about the proportion of work but hesitated to do so. In her opinion, she felt ‘reluctant’ to speak up and added: Perhaps it was more comfortable to talk [about this issue] to Vietnamese…Probably so, yes…I think that discussing such matter with Vietnamese can be more comfortable. (Student-1)
This piece of data strikes us when putting side by side with Truong et al. (2020). Vietnamese students in Truong et al. (2020) were reluctant to confront team members of other nationalities in the name of harmony, while the hesitance of Korean students in this study was channelled toward their co-nationals, not local Vietnamese. To them, it was the hard talks toward fellow country people that might disturb the harmony, not those with locals. As Koreans might feel reluctant to communicate with people, like the Japanese, who were perceived as having a looking-down attitude toward them (Murphy-Shigenmatsu, 2002), this could mean that the Koreans in this study saw Vietnam as a country where they felt comfortable to communicate as Vietnamese do not look down on Koreans, or in fact, look up.
Voice from the rare non-Korean student: how coming to Vietnam can be ‘gate-opening’ for an international student with disability
Among the interviewees in this study, Student-4, a Thai student with disability, attracted much of our interest. Conversed fluently in Vietnamese, he mostly told us about his international student experiences in a positive tone even when occasionally mentioned difficult situations in studying. This is drastically different from the accounts discussed in previous sections where Student-4’s Korean counterparts expressed a negative attitude towards their experiences. Thus, the final piece of discussion in this study is devoted to the case of Student-4 as a contrasting piece of the mosaic which shows how travelling to a developing country from a developing country to pursue one’s aspiration can facilitate transformative experiences, an observation that has been previously discussed in Phan (2018), which reported the case of a marginalised Filipino female student found her way in international higher education by enrolling in an international program in a remote mountainous Vietnamese HEI. The insight from this case study and that of Phan (2018) illustrate the point that though HEIs in developing countries like Vietnam can often offer international education of mediocre quality, which was manifested in students’ limited satisfaction and negative accounts of their experiences as presented previous sections of this study and elsewhere in the literature, they can also facilitate transformative experiences for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to aspire for more opportunities stemmed from their mobility.
A visually impaired student, Student-4 travelled from Thailand, his country of origin, to Vietnam twice before decided to enrol in the BA in Vietnamese program. As the story went, we gradually learnt more about his journey as an international student with disability in a learning environment where neither disabled students nor non-Korean nationals are the majority.
While Korean students come to Vietnam usually for reasons related to family or job opportunities (Phan et al., 2022; Khanh and Ngoc, 2022), Student-4 regarded his childhood encounters with the language as fortuitously by responding to the question on why he decided to learn Vietnamese as followed: There was no [particular] reason at all. I first heard Vietnamese when I was 6 or 7 years old. My mom told me that it was Vietnamese language…The strange thing was that though the language was alien to my ears back then, the more I listened to it the more I was fond of the language…I was too young then…I could just listen and practiced pronouncing along though [I] didn’t understand a thing.
Despite his early encounter, Student-4 was not able to develop his fondness for Vietnamese further due to lack of resources in his remote hometown and further engagement in formal education in Thailand in Bangkok where he eventually earned a law degree from prestigious Thammasat University. But his first impression of Vietnamese remained like an ember waiting for the right wind to glow. Sometime in his mid-twenties, Student-4 began to visit online foreign language forums with an initial intention to practice English. Then he looked for Vietnamese who could speak some Thai to teach him Vietnamese, in return, he helped them with Thai language. After spending days and nights in a year in 2011–2012 to verbally practice with a Vietnamese friend, who, in his words, showed him ‘every single detail’ of the Vietnamese speaking language, Student-4 began to ask himself:
Should I continue to learn in this pidgin-like manner?
It was this burning question that motivated him to make his decision to come to Vietnam, the country whose language he first heard 20 years earlier, to find a better way to learn the language. Such decision, during the interview, was recalled with so strong the enthusiasm that made us link it to the one made by Ho Chi Minh to travel out of Vietnam for patriotic cause. This analogy was also shared by Student-4. When we mentioned Ho Chi Minh, he simultaneously exclaimed unanimity and added: …[Ho Chi Minh] looked for the way to save the country…to put it more correctly I will use the word “grope” (mò đường). I could not see anything so I couldn’t look for (tìm đường) them, I had to grope.
The student’s ability to manipulate the nuances of Vietnamese vocabularies, visible sense of humour during the conversations, and his knowledge of the country surprised us in more than one occasion. Not only he could conveniently put forward an analogy related to Ho Chi Minh, but also be able to articulate words in a humorously self-deprecating manner. A person of visual disability, he chose to say ‘mò’ (grope) rather than ‘tìm’ (look for), which, to us, vividly illustrated his Vietnamese language command and sense of humour.
When engaged in international mobility, differently abled students should be equipped thoroughly with advice and supports from home and host countries, mostly from organised efforts (Johnstone and Edwards, 2019) or family members (Olave-Encina, 2019). In the case of Student-4, he was on his own to start the journey from scratch. As the conversation unfolded, we gradually realised that the ‘grope”’ versus ‘look for’ anecdote represents something that was bigger in the student’s personality. His visual impairment seemed to have nurtured his diligence, and it was this diligence that led him all the way to Vietnam. Prior to the trip to Vietnam in 2012, Student-4 had made several contacts with Vietnamese friends on online platforms to ask for information and help when he subsequently arrived. As a result, when he landed in Ho Chi Minh City, those friends provided him with initial support in a foreign country including taking him to University A with the purpose:
…to see what kind of environment University A was. I’m visually impaired, blind, can I survive here? It was not that Vietnam was not good, but the problem was that everything was totally unfamiliar (lạ nước lạ cái), how could [I] live on?
After this trip to Vietnam, which he learnt about the physical environment of both the University and the neighbourhood as well as set up contacts for other logistical issues, Student-4 returned to Thailand before coming back to Vietnam in early 2013 and stayed for the next over a year for enrolling Vietnamese language courses offered by FVS in University A. He returned to Thailand again in August 2014, then only travelled to Vietnam to enrol in the BA in Vietnamese studies program in September 2018, when he also obtained a C2-levelled Vietnamese proficiency certificate, the highest language qualification conferred to foreign nationals learning the language which waived him two semesters in the program. Compared with other students who started with either an A2 or B1 Vietnamese language certificate, Student-4 actually stood out of his classmate in terms of language command, which gave him a strong advantage against them.
International students of disabilities have to face multiple challenges stemming from both physical differences and social perspectives, which might significantly influence their performance (Osborne, 2018) or lead to negative experiences (Olave-Encina, 2019). In Student-4 case, though language seemed not to be a problem, his disability did have its toll on the student’s academic experiences. Open-book exams, an issue that did not emerge from other students’ accounts, proved to be extremely challenging for the visually impaired student, and caused a sense of inequality. To him, such practice was ‘the most difficult and painful part’ of his experiences. The sense of unfairness is manifested in the following excerpt:
“If open-book exams not allowed…I would fear no one. It’s not that I’m better than them, but the problem is that given that the Heaven took away my two eyes, but I still have my own talent, a working brain. But the teachers simply allowed open-book exams out of sudden, and I lose even before it starts, like halfway lost…Those in the class like open-book exams very much. So, at times I thought if an exam was all about opening book, then studying would not be necessary, just give students materials and show them where to open.”
He then had to make appeal to the faculty member in charge of each course to change to either oral form or ask for special assistance from a non-student Vietnamese friend, who could help him with reading out loud what was written in the books used in the tests. In his opinion, the faculty members were supportive whenever he made an appeal, however, it was on a case-by-case basis rather than an instituted practice for students with disability like himself. He told us:
“The teachers let me choose my own forms of evaluations. Either oral form or any forms of evaluation should be fine. Actually, they didn’t verbally say so, it was me who had to entreat. Because if I waited for the teachers to come up with a measure [for my case], it took forever. It was not that they didn’t want to help, but the teachers simply didn’t know what the matter was regarding my problem.”
While his point on the teachers being supportive has been visible throughout this study, what Student-4 shared with us also brought forward a sense of self-reliance and self-awareness instilled in him. It was probably such traits that turned his childhood impression of Vietnamese language to realisation by coming to Vietnam and pursued his aspiration. Yet his adventure was not meant to stop with simply a studying abroad endeavour, it has actually opened up new opportunities in a new home in a more – or – less unexpected manner. Unlike other interviewees in this study, Student-4 had to pay for his own living and tuition fees. Hence, he engaged in teaching Thai to Vietnamese. Arriving to Vietnam seemed to expose the student to a larger audience of Vietnamese learners, who filled all of his sessions from 6p.m. to midnight every day in a week enabling remittances to his parents and siblings in Thailand. When asked about his future plan after graduation, Student-4 openly talked about the very high chance that he would decide to stay in Vietnam despite possible challenges in terms of immigration matters. Vietnam seems to have a lot to offer:
Actually, I have not thought about returning to Thailand. Because returning to Thailand…well…how can I say. Generally speaking,…because my students are all Vietnamese, and here [Vietnam] I can operate face-to-face sessions, which earn much more money than returning to Thailand and teaching online classes… Well, it’s just that returning to Thailand I wouldn’t find any kind of job to earn much money.
By the end of our interview, it seemed to us that the student’s self-question of ‘can I survive here?’ was then answered, and as this article is being written, Student-4 had graduated as the best student of his cohort and officially opened a Thai language teaching business, a move that could not have happened had he returned to Thailand to teach Vietnamese, the language that he adores, to Thai people.
Aspirations for employment or further academic opportunities in Vietnam were also visible in our interviewees with other international students in this study, though not as strong and vividly elaborated as in the case of Student-4. A BA in Vietnamese Studies conferred by University A could give the students strong employment advantage in Korean companies. Moreover, it can open other educational opportunities as an interviewee mentioned: “First, [we] need to learn Vietnamese, then one or two other skills such as accounting…I want to study accounting and economics…So, if possible, I will enrol in a course in University of Economics for two years. After that [2 years], when I got the second degree, I would take the accountant license exam in Vietnam. With an accountant license finding a job would be much easier, the salary would also be much higher.” Student-6
Throughout the conversations, the visually impaired student expressed a strong sense of self-deprecation yet full of confidence on the road ahead. Each step that he has taken in Vietnam seems to be building up his further aspiration, which means opening up more paths to follow. Started off with money borrowed from his family members for first instalment of tuition fees for Vietnamese courses in Vietnam, he eventually could earn a decent living and remit parts of his income to the family still in Thailand, a thing that he had never thought of, by utilising his excellence command in both Thai and Vietnamese languages and networking skills. Though his case could be seen as rare, the transformative power of international mobility cannot be denied, and it also has the power to aspire those need it the most.
Concluding remarks: ISE in a developing country and the way forward
This study employs both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate ISE in University A, a HEI in Vietnam, a developing country that has not been recognised as a destination in ISM literature. As the study only investigated international students enrolled in one program in one university with over 90% were Koreans, making generalisations about international student experiences in Vietnam is not our aim. Rather, this study presents a mosaic of ISE in a destination-want-to-be in Asia. The first piece of the mosaic tackles neo-liberal aspects of ISE by covering self-perceived sense of satisfactions together with insights of students’ daily negotiations with faculty members, the place and among themselves in the context of a HEI in a country which has just taken off on its HE internationalisation path. Beyond that, what we would like to emphasise even stronger is the transformations that international students experience out of ‘struggles, adaptions, and discomforts’ (Leve, 2021). While everyday transformations (Lipura, 2021) could only be seen vividly in one particular case in this study, we strongly believe that other unspoken international students would have had their own unsaid transformations through the encounters between them and the very mediocrity they have complained about. At the end of the day, engaging in international education will foster self-formation, in one way or another (Marginson, 2013). We close our paper by calling for further studies on more diverse groups of international students so as to obtain more insightful understandings about ISE in lesser-known parts of the global student mobility picture including developing countries like Vietnam. This call, which has been recurred recently yet with more energy by Phan and Fry (2021), will remain relevant in the years to come to provide a fuller picture of ISE in Asian edu-scape.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
