Rate My Professor Minh Nguyen

Associate Professor Minh Nguyen is an applied linguist and language teacher educator in the English and Linguistics Programme within the University of Otago's Division of Humanities. She holds an MEd in TESOL from Queensland University of Technology and a PhD from the University of Auckland. Her academic career began as a Lecturer at Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies from 2005 to 2007. She then served as a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne from January to June 2008, followed by a position as Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore from July 2008 to October 2021. In this role, she contributed extensively to teacher education and applied linguistics research. She joined the University of Otago as Associate Professor, where she continues her work in linguistics and second language education.

Nguyen's research specializations include pragmatics in language teaching and learning, second language acquisition, family language policy and heritage language maintenance, and child language learning. Her influential publications encompass early works such as 'Criticizing and responding to criticism in a foreign language: A study of Vietnamese learners of English' (2005), 'Pragmatic development in L2 use of criticisms: A case of Vietnamese EFL learners' (2005), 'Criticizing in an L2: Pragmatic strategies used by Vietnamese EFL learners' (2008), and 'Modifying L2 criticisms: How learners do it?' (2008). More recent contributions include 'How well do ELT textbooks prepare students to use English in global contexts? An evaluation of the Vietnamese English textbooks from an English as an international language (EIL) perspective' (2021), 'Skill acquisition based approach to teaching L2 pragmatics' (2023), 'Learning how to write socially appropriate emails through textbooks: An evaluation of international English textbooks' (2024), and 'Institutional Pragmatics' (2023, co-authored with Hanh thi Nguyen). With over 1,265 citations documented on ResearchGate and 69 publications, her work has advanced understanding of L2 pragmatic competence and instructional strategies. She serves on the editorial boards of New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, and Applied Pragmatics. At Otago, she teaches courses including LING330 Interaction and Identity in Context and LING231 TESOL: Guide to Language Teaching.