HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
----- 🙦 🙤 -----
END-OF-TERM PAPER
Subject: Second Language Acquisition
Balancing Academic and Interpersonal Competence in
Second Language Acquisition: A Critical Analysis of
Pedagogical Priorities in Vietnamese EFL Contexts
Student’s name: Lý Đăng Hưng
Student code: 1029240030
Instructor: Nguyên Quang Tiến, Ph.D.
Ho Chi Minh City, June 2025
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .....................................................................................2
2.1. Conceptualizing Communicative Competence ......................................................................2
2.2. Beyond Grammar: The Multifaceted Nature of Communicative Competence .....................2
2.3. Application to Vietnamese Context ............................................................................................3
CHAPTER 3. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM ........................................................................3
3.1. Exam-Oriented System and GTM Influence .........................................................................4
3.2. Lack of Interpersonal Practice ...............................................................................................4
3.3. Pedagogical and Curriculum Limitations ..............................................................................6
CHAPTER 4. DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTION ....................................................................6
4.1. Pedagogical Innovations: Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT)……..............................6
4.2. Assessment Reforms………………...………………………...………….............................7
4.3. Structural Challenges in Implementing Interpersonal Competence……………...................8
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................9
Chapter I. Introduction
In Second Language Acquisition (SLA), two fundamental competencies control learners’
capacity to communicate: academic and interpersonal competence. Academic language refers to
the use of language in formal, structured, and educational or professional settings; for example,
essay writing, comprehension of academic text, and giving presentations. On the other hand,
interpersonal competence is evidenced in informal exchanges such as small talk, sociability, etc.
Although these skills are interrelated, in the EFL contexts, Vietnam in particular, they are not
equally taught.
English education in Vietnam has long been biased toward academic skills, and this is
fueled by standardized tests and inflexible curricula. This has led to a situation in which many
students perform very well in written and contrived tests, but often struggle to communicate
effectively in a real conversation. Students may even get great results in proficiency tests such as
IELTS or TOEFL and still fail to conduct natural conversations in real-life or multi-ethnic
environments.
This disconnect creates a lack of communication—a disconnect from what learners know
about the language intellectually and what they can actually do in practice with it. The focus is
on the language becoming academic, not interactive. Many learners has a good grasp of grammar
rules, while their oral production is ossified. It replaces the acquisition of naturalistic language
use, particularly in ad-hoc and social situations, by an emphasis on meticulousness to be correct,
on the mere amount of memorization, and by the capacity to perform on the test.
This paper sets out to redress this balance by questioning the underlying pedagogic
priorities that condition the communicative profiles of Vietnamese learners. Drawing on the
research of Cummins and Canale & Swain, it highlights the less developed dimension of
1
interpersonal competence and recommends pedagogical adjustments to help students balance
academic and communicative needs.
Chapter II. Literature Review
2.1. Conceptualizing Communicative Competence
According to Cummins (1980), language proficiency is divided into two types: BICS (Basic
Interpersonal Communicative Skills), which develops through social interaction, and CALP
(Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency), which requires formal education. BICS typically
emerges within 1–2 years of exposure to a language in immersive settings, whereas CALP takes
5–7 years to develop.
These two skills are frequently misconceived to emerge in a parallel manner. Moreover, a
student may be fluent for social purposes, but not for academic purposes, or academic purposes
and not social. This difference is significant when assessing learners' real EFL proficiency.
Cummins’s theory is relevant in the Vietnamese context, which illustrates how students can
ironically be a high academic reader on paper and a shy speaker in L2. BICS is delayed, as there
are few opportunities for informal speaking in the classroom or in daily life.
2.2. Beyond Grammar: The Multifaceted Nature of Communicative Competence
This model includes:
•
Grammatical competence – familiarity with the rules, vocabulary, and syntax
•
Sociolinguistic competence -knowing the social and cultural rules of language use
•
Discourse competence – the ability to maintain coherence and cohesion in long
stretches of text
•
Strategic competence – repair strategies and dealing with communication breakdowns
The Vietnamese EFL curriculum essentially focuses on grammatical proficiency. Devoid of
the amalgamated components, learners are often unable to produce language in a manner that
2
serves as a well-functioning instrument able to be used in a variety of communicative genres.
Canale & Swain (1980)'s framework also shows that fluency of English should handle
breakdowns, adapting to interlocutors, and the need to modify from one register to another, which
are usually overlooked in most Vietnamese language classrooms.
2.3. Application to Vietnamese Context
These theoretical frameworks explain why Vietnamese learners are good at passive skills
(reading, listening) and structured outputs (writing essays, answering test items), and they are
weak at speaking spontaneously. Without actual use of language, in the way of conversation and
social interaction, language freezes and loses context.
For example, a student might comprehend and produce the sentence, "Would you mind
helping me?" in writing, but may misapply it or be reluctant to use it in face-to-face interactions
because of a lack of sociolinguistic cues. This illustrates the necessity to introduce authentic
communication practice into the classroom. In addition, a lack of opportunities to receive
naturalistic input beyond the classroom occasioned by restricted use of English environmental
print and media fosters poorer overall fluency.
Chapter 3. Analysis of the Problem
To shed some critical light on the discrepancy between academic proficiency and
interpersonal skills in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Vietnam, this chapter
critically unpacks three leading edges of the divide. The article discusses how structural,
pedagogical, and systemic constituents materialize learners’ communicative inequalities without
affecting their academic success. Through bringing together data, theoretical knowledge, and
context-specific knowledge, analysis seeks to identify root causes and provide a way forward for
specific pedagogical interventions
3
3.1. Exam-Oriented System and GTM Influence
Vietnam’s test-centric education system places memorization and precision above
fluency. The Grammer-Translation Method (GTM) prevails, and there are few chances of
students’ participation. Most classrooms are teacher-centered, based on rote learning rules and
translation.
Students are often trained to take English national tests that evaluate language knowledge,
but not the ability to use it to communicate. The washback from these tests, in other words, only
serves to continue traditional pedagogy and to silence new ways of teaching. Even more, the
success in English is determined by the test score, not communication ability, orienting students
to succeed in society or work in a way that is not suitable for social or occupational realities.
This has also resulted in an overdependence on course books and predesigned scripts,
with little attention given to improvisation, individualization, or real language use. Since much of
their language learning is done in artificial pattern-drill exercises rather than authentic, meaningfocused communication, the students’ ability to know what to say in spur-of-the-moment or realworld situations is underdeveloped.
3.2. Lack of Interpersonal Practice
Although communicative language teaching has been increasingly advocated in theory,
the situation in Vietnamese classrooms is somewhat different, whereby the need for
interpersonal communicative skills as a part of the syllabus has not been effectively implemented.
Its speaking activities, if any, are often scripted, highly structured, and simply unable to create
the real thing: organic language. Students are rarely encouraged to initiate thematically relevant
conversations, express their views, or get to grips with the unforeseen.
Teacher talk-oriented exchanges are a type of question-answer pair, where the students
say very little more than what the teacher's question dictates them to say, thus not allowing the
4
students to negotiate meaning or develop strategies for turn-taking purposes. Canale and Swain
(1980) state that this type of interactional strategy is a part of strategic competence, which helps
learners to compensate for and repair communication in real-life breakdowns. However, in
Vietnamese EFL classes, students are rarely offered practice opportunities to develop these skills.
Such a lack of genuine communication may be attributed to pedagogical legacy and
institutional limitations. Overcrowded classrooms, examination stress, and a fiercely held belief
of being risk-averse bring together both teachers and the taught away from open expression. This
fear can ultimately lead to the fear of making mistakes, so that students become silent rather than
actively participating. However, as Lourdes Ortega (2009) has argued, interaction as a
meaningful phenomenon is the "motor" of SLA: when opportunities to use language for
meaningful purposes are withheld from students, their interpersonal skills wash out, no matter
what they know about language as a system.
Access to English-poor environments outside school is also an exacerbating factor.
Students have little chance to speak English in the real world, so the language is only theoretical.
This confines them to a limited linguistic environment that they might never be able to escape,
and an impoverishment of their potential time-to-time will begin to inhibit their ‘memory’.
In other words, this formal dialogue deficit is not just classrooms in academic institutions;
it is a general failure across the languages curriculum to address the issue of how students' L1
knowledge interacts with limited opportunities for L2 development, and ignorance, in their
project of this hour. To promote balanced language proficiency, students need to have sustained
opportunities for interactively communicating through meaningful conversations that reflect
natural communicative interaction.
5
3.3. Misalignment with SLA Goals
A fundamental concern in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is the development of
communicative competence, or one’s capacity to use language in ways that are both effective
(e.g., successful in achieving communicative goals) and appropriate (resembling language used
by native speakers) and that occur within normal, face-to-face, social settings. This includes
academic proficiency (CALP) and interpersonal communication skills (BICS), needed for
learners to succeed in heterogeneous social, academic, and occupational settings.
For the Vietnamese EFL system, though, there remains a wide disparity between these
aspirational objectives and classroom practices. As academic English is prioritized in high-stakes
tests and classroom instruction, we tend not to pay enough attention to, or even ignore, the
acquisition of interpersonal skills that are essential for study abroad, international cooperation, as
well as job integration. – Even high-scoring IELTS students (for example, band score 7.5 or
above) often have problems in real-life situations (like job interviews/goal internships, or just
chatting with people) because they lack speaking confidence and strategic competence.
This lack of coherence brings to the fore the question of whether the current EFL
practices can achieve congruence even in a broader sense of SLA. Employers value soft skills,
including the ability to work in a team, communicating effectively, and cross-cultural
competence—all of which depend on strong inter-personal language capabilities rather than high
levels of academic literacy.
Chapter 4. Discussion and Suggestions
4.1. Discussion
The findings illuminate another long-standing weakness in Vietnam EFL learners, i.e.,
despite doing reasonably well across the skills, they face significant difficulty in spontaneous and
6
interactive language use. And the problem isn't just one of personal ability, but one of structural
curriculum and assessment.
A major issue is the overemphasis on formal correctness and test-oriented teaching.
These practices support the development of learners' academic writing and reading, but result in
ill-prepared readers and writers of the language in everyday, informal interactions. The general
lack of communicative activity, including negotiation of meaning and turn-taking has often
resulted in compartmentalized competence: high in CALP, low in BICS.
Conceptually, this divide mirrors the age-old distinction between competence and
performance (Chomsky, 1965) and is particularly stark in relation to EFL, where language use is
not practiced beyond the classroom. Furthermore, as Ortega (2009) and Long (2015) have
warned, communicative competence should be encouraged through interaction that is sensitive
and authentic, not through rehearsed conversations.
This research also demonstrates the effect that the absence of in vivo speaking situations
has upon learners’ pragmatic confidence. There are students who may know grammar but feel
shy to talk and make mistakes. Moreover, they’re unable to understand indirect speech and nonverbal cues, making interaction less than natural.
4.2. Pedagogical Suggestion
In teacher preparation, practice for developing socio-pragmatic competence and speaking
skills must be part of the training. Storytelling, warm-up talk, and pair interviews in-class
assignments can also encourage taking turns, active listening, and spontaneous speech. The use of
communication repair strategies and the frequency of their deployment and the rate of a single
strategy need to be taken into consideration in assessment frameworks, which should consider
both written and performance-based assessment as well as a variety of communicative tasks
(dialogue tasks, presentations, pragmatic listening test), if we are to obtain a more holistic picture
7
of communicative competence. Curricularly speaking, we cannot separate BICS and CALP.
Students should be equipped not just for tests, but for real life — for ordering food, for correcting
a misheard conversation, for exchanging business cards. This shift is hoped to pave the way to
greater balance in EFL pedagogy for the benefit of both academic and social realms of life.
4.3. Structural Challenges in Implementing Interpersonal Competence
Although communicative competence is a policy priority in national curriculum
statements, its realization is challenged by system-wide constraints. Most teachers don’t have
knowledge of those active methods, like task-based or student-centered learning. This gap is
attributed to a teacher education system that continues to favor the transmission of knowledge
rather than learner-centered pedagogy.
In addition, many institutional cultures overly value quantifiable test scores. There,
communicative acts take a backseat to the exam preparation. Teachers have often taught what
they think works best for their students, even if this was against the advice of methodologists, due
to both time and the rigid syllabi they follow due to high numbers of students in classes. These
institutional constraints hinder the practical implications of communicative theories and
perpetuate the imbalance between academic skills and conversational skills.
As a result, the overlooked role of interpersonal communication in the Vietnamese EFL
classroom should not be addressed through pedagogical reform but by considering more deeply
how institutional re-alignments, such as time provision in teacher education programs and in the
curriculum, which deserve further exploration in future SLA literature.
8
References
Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second
language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1–47.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/I.1.1
Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting educational
success for language minority students. In Schooling and Language Minority Students: A
Theoretical Framework (pp. 3–49). California State Department of Education.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED249773.pdf
Long, M. H. (2015). Second language acquisition and task-based language teaching. WileyBlackwell. https://www.wiley.com/en us/Second+Language+Acquisition+and+TaskBased+Language+Teaching-p-9780470658949.
Ortega,
L.
(2009).
Understanding
second
language
acquisition.
Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203777268
Saville-Troike, M. (2012). Introducing second language acquisition (2nd ed.). Cambridge
University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/introducing-second-languageacquisition/10.1017/9781107415379
Robinson, P. (Ed.). (2013). The Routledge encyclopedia of second language acquisition.
Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203135945
9