Speaker
Description
This qualitative study explores how Vietnamese upper-secondary English teachers understand and enact digital competence and how their engagement with technology and generative artificial intelligence (AI) reflects emerging dimensions of digital teacher identity. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with nine teachers working in public high schools and language centres, with teaching experience ranging from one to 21 years, and analysed thematically. Findings show that teachers valued digital technologies for saving time, increasing learner engagement, and supporting lesson preparation, materials development, classroom presentation, practice, assessment, and task personalisation. Their accounts positioned teachers not only as technology users but also as pedagogical decision-makers responsible for selecting, verifying, and adapting AI-generated content. Nevertheless, most reported practices remained focused on content delivery, practice, and knowledge checking, while technology-supported activities promoting analysis, evaluation, creativity, and learner autonomy were less systematic. Teachers expressed uneven confidence and often developed their digital competence through self-directed learning. Limited practical training, preparation time, unequal access to devices, AI inaccuracy, student overreliance, and ethical concerns complicated their developing digital professional identities. The findings suggest that digital teacher identity is negotiated through tensions between innovation and established pedagogical values, and between technological efficiency and professional judgement. TESOL teacher education should therefore integrate hands-on digital pedagogy, critical AI literacy, and structured opportunities for teachers to reflect on their changing professional roles.
