It might feel a bit self-centered to share every little update on social media, starting with “I’m so happy to announce that…”. Instead, I’d like to jot down some of the things I accomplished in 2025. This isn’t just to brag or show off, but to reflect on my own journey and to share helpful resources for myself and anyone else who might find them useful.
In 2025, I’ve had the pleasure of giving 1 invited talk and presenting 3 conference papers, 2 focused on task-based language teaching and 2 on designing humanistic materials. Plus, I’ve secured 2 successful grants: one for developing task-based materials and another for teacher innovators sharing their stories. I’ve also contributed a professional article on professional learning communities for TBLT, defended and submitted a dissertation on teaching learners how to learn through task-based interaction, and edited a 30-page newsletter for a professional organization.
Invited Talks & Conf. Presentations
1. I had the pleasure of speaking at the 3rd Annual Seminar for Teachers of Heritage Languages Less Commonly Spoken in San Diego, San Diego, USA. I shared some ideas on how to make learning heritage languages more engaging through meaningful tasks. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with educators and researchers from diverse heritage languages, and I truly appreciate Marija Petrovic for organizing the seminar and inviting me. Beyond meeting with these incredible educators, I also gained valuable insights from them. To get ready for my talk, I even had the chance to work with my daughter on a language portrait that reflected her own bilingual journey. This experience reinforced my belief that educators should embody the values they teach. My approach to raising a bilingual child is a blend of research and personal experience, which makes the theory and practice work harmoniously.
Phung, H. (2025, March 02). Engaging heritage language learners with meaningful tasks. Invited talk given to the 3rd Annual Seminar for Teachers of Heritage Languages Less Commonly Spoken in San Diego, San Diego, USA
In June, I had the pleasure of co-presenting a talk on taskifying literature at the 2nd Venice-Tempe Vietnamese Language Teaching Symposium, which my esteemed colleagues Trang Phan and An Sakach organized. I’ve been using literature/reading circles as a strategy for years, from teaching EAP to my advanced Vietnamese courses at both the University of Hawaii and UC San Diego. This time, my partner shared a more organized account of her approach, complete with a full classic Vietnamese Dế mèn phiêu lưu ký. We believe that reading circles can be a fantastic way to break down texts like literature into manageable pedagogical tasks.
Nguyen, H. & Phung, H. (June 29, 2025). Taskifying literature: Using reading circles to engage heritage learners. The 2nd Venice-Tempe Vietnamese Language Teaching Symposium.
My partner and I co-presented two talks on the humanistic approach to materials development. In the first talk, we laid out the rationales and framework for humanistic materials design in language teaching drawing on the works of Brian Tomlinson.
Nguyen, H. & Phung, H. (July 12, 2025). A humanistic approach to LCTLs materials development. The 41st COTSEAL Annual Conference.
In September, my partner demonstrated how the humanistic approach to materials development (Tomlinson, 2023) can make SEALC-sponsored proficiency-based reading materials more engaging and relevant for Vietnamese heritage learners. The slides are available on her website.
Nguyen, H. & Phung, H. (September 26-27, 2025). Humanizing proficiency-based reading materials for Vietnamese heritage learners. SEALC Fall 2025 Hybrid Symposium. Honolulu, Hawaii.
The ‘humanistic’ theme has been important to me as we move more towards digital transformation. In 2018, I presented a talk where I suggested that “the next of TESOL is not about integrating technology into traditional classrooms, but how to make a virtual classroom as authentic and human as possible.” which was made into a blog post in my Vietnamse blog during the pandemic.
Phung, H. (2018, February). Humanizing the digital classroom: Is it the next of TESOL? Paper presented at the Hawai’i TESOL conference. Hawaii Tokai International College, Kapolei, Hawaii.
This was before the Covid pandemic, and it’s a reflection on my long observations with a design focus on human-centered approaches. As more advanced technologies emerge, the need for humanity becomes even more apparent (see my blog post in 2018). These two talks offer specific frameworks and examples of how to humanize materials and language teaching. When GenAI can handle most language tasks, what truly matters is the human touch and connection.
Dissertation Defended/Submitted
2. I defended and submitted my dissertation during the summer, which focuses on the impact of metacognitive instruction on L2 learners’ task engagement and the methodological implications of alternative statistical model specifications in a quasi-experimental context. The findings contribute to ongoing methodological innovations in instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) by (a) empirically evaluating the efficacy of metacognitive instruction and (b) identifying optimal analytic approaches for causal inference in short-time series, longitudinal intervention research.
Phung, H. (2025). Metacognition and Engagement in Second Language Task-Based Interaction: A Comparative Interrupted Time Series Study [Ph.D., University of Hawai’i at Manoa]. https://hdl.handle.net/10125/111257
I want to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Nicole Ziegler, and the dissertation committee (Professors JD Brown, Graham Crookes, Gonzalez-Lloret, and Mary Kim) for their unwavering support, even during the summer. They took the time to read and provide insightful feedback on my writing, which was invaluable in shaping my research. This has been a long project I’ve undertaken, and I have learned so much from doing it.
This dedication reflects my long-term commitment to understanding how we learn. When I first started teaching English, I realized that without a deep understanding of how learners acquire a language, it would be impossible to effectively teach them. That’s why I decided to pursue further studies in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) during my graduate school years. My dissertation focuses on applied SLA or ISLA in real-world settings, but I draw on one of the most extensively researched theoretical frameworks of SLA: the cognitive-interactionist approach.
VietTBLT, a New Initiative on TBLT
3.Working with my colleagues from the previous project, I co-founded VietTBLT. Conceptualizing it as a research and development group focused on research, pedagogy, and community to advance Vietnamese language teaching through Task-Based Learning and Teaching (TBLT), we started with the first Professional Learning Community (PLC), a one-year program for teacher learning. We received funding from the National Language Research Council (NLRC) for a public workshop series.
I am grateful to my amazing collaborators, Chung Nguyen and An Sakach on this initiative to really see if and how TBLT works in practice. I consider it as my next step in mission of bridging research-practice gap (I have learned a lot from the Multiolelo project and I want to do more that just sharing research findings. We wrote a brief report of what we did during 2025 and I hope more presentations/publications will be produced in near future.
Phung, H., Nguyen, C., & Sakach, A. (2025). Sustaining teacher development in TBLT through a professional learning community (PLC). GUAVA Newsletter, 5, 20-25.
5-Year Celebration of GUAVA Newsletter
4. In 2025, GUAVA Newsletter celebrates its fifth year of existence. I began editing and designing it in 2021. When I embarked on this project, I didn’t want it a mere collection of news and updates, but a professional platform for Vietnamese educators to share their perspectives. That’s why I invite my colleagues to share their experiences and perspectives. Over the five years, it featured 16 articles, with contributions from over 10 educators spanning various generations. This achievement fills me with pride as a small contribution to a small professional organization, as I firmly believe that “small is beautiful.” and “the power of being part of a small, close-knit, and context-relevant community of practice.”
A Funded Teacher Development Project
5. I was invited to a grant writing team, and my conceptualization was elaborated upon. As a result, the proposal was accepted for funding, which will be implemented in 2026 to enhance teacher learning. This aligns with my previous experiences in teacher empowerment, such as the English Language Teaching Fair (2012) and The Moonshine (2018). The project focuses on teacher voices, emphasizing a teacher-driven approach to professional development.
This project continues my ideal that teachers can bring about positive changes when empowered. Innovations are rarely driven by external forces but are contextually relevant. The project aims to document and disseminate small innovations, making them visible, shareable, and applicable. We strive to package teacher knowledge and combine it with insights from research. Additionally, the project seeks to support teachers in innovating through exploratory practice and action research. Instead of requiring them to write reports, we encourage them to document their practices in a multimodal format, incorporating not only text but also storytelling and multimedia elements.