Pham, Tina (2023) Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in Teaching the Vietnamese Language: an Autoethnographic Study. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

This thesis explores my journey while adapting to embrace Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in my teaching over the past decade. The study is an autoethnography and gives my heart a voice to reflect on my pedagogy. The thesis stems from the challenges that BYOD presented in education when students were permitted to bring their own mobile devices into the classroom for learning purposes. Consistent with the global trend, in 2013 my son’s school adopted a BYOD program and his very first device entered my kitchen, the heart of my home, and initially caused me a significant amount of heartache. However, it led me to ponder if the students I taught also enjoyed using their devices in my Vietnamese classroom. Drawing on my self-perceived feeling as a ‘digital immigrant’, and my assumption of my students as ‘digital natives’, I was led to believe that I would experience numerous obstacles and challenges to adapt and transform my existing pedagogy into one that might be more suitable for teaching. This autoethnography, designed as 15 autoethnographic vignettes, is the story of my fear and joy while adapting to embrace BYOD in my teaching from 2016 to 2020 and especially following COVID-19, as digital technology became a natural part of life. This dissertation enabled me to analyse the boundaries between the personal and professional, to reminisce about my education and immigrant experience, to accept the reality of existence, and to self-cultivate and self-develop to become a better educator. This new knowledge in teaching and learning the Vietnamese language in a BYOD learning culture will hopefully engender confidence in Vietnamese language teachers, and assist digital course development.

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