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The paper explores the influence of culture on the sense of self-efficacy in teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) of a group of university teachers in Vietnam. Research exploring the relationship between culture and self-efficacy is extremely rare despite the acknowledged importance of culture in the formation of self-efficacy beliefs. This study took the form of qualitative research with diverse, data collection instruments: individual interviews, focus group discussions, observations and journaling. Findings indicate that certain features of the Vietnamese cultural context impacted on the way the study teachers constructed their sense of selfefficacy. Specifically, under the influence of a Vietnamese sense of belonging, the study teachers tended to rely more on efficacy-building information from other people rather than from themselves. The perception of inequality in power may have heightened negative emotional arousal, thus contributing to a negative sense of selfefficacy among the teachers. The Vietnamese concept of face and the high status of teachers in the social hierarchy in part mediated teachers' sense of self-efficacy. The perceived burden of performing both parenting and teaching roles and responsibilities may have diminished the self-efficacy in teaching of female teachers. Finally, the contribution and implications of the study are discussed.

BackgroundJapanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is an arthropod-borne virus causing serious public health issues in Asia. JEV consists of five genotypes and recent studies have shown the emergence of JEV genotype I (GI) and its replacement of genotype III (GIII). Using an archival JEV collection, we investigated the molecular evolution of JEV in Vietnam over the last 48 years (1964–2012) in humans, mosquitoes, and pigs, within the global context.MethodsThe nine JEV isolates from humans, pigs, and mosquitoes sequenced in this study and 29 sequences available in GenBank were used to analyze the envelope (E) protein of the Vietnamese JEVs. A collection of 225 cerebrospinal fluid specimens from patients with suspected Japanese encephalitis (JE) was also tested and genotyped with real-time RT–PCR.ResultsThe 38 E genes identified with sequencing and nine Vietnamese JEV strains genotyped with real-time RT–PCR, belonging to two lineages, evolved in accordance with those in the rest of the world. The first GIII strain was detected in humans in Vietnam in 1964, and in mosquitoes in 1979, whereas GI strains were first detected in humans and mosquitoes in 1990 and 1994, respectively. After 2004, GI was the only genotype detected in Vietnam, demonstrating that the GIIII strains had been displaced by GI strains. Five haplotypes were identified in the Vietnamese JEVs, with SKSS predominant. The S123N and S123R substitutions in the E protein were already present in the Vietnamese JEVs.ConclusionThis study describes the long evolutionary history of JEV in Vietnam over 34 years, which correlates well with the global evolution of JEV. The Vietnamese GIII strains have been replaced by GI strains in mosquitoes, pigs, and humans. The predominant haplotypes of the Vietnamese strains support this genotype displacement in Vietnam. Further surveillance is required to confirm the disappearance of the GIII strains in nature and the emergence of new pathogens causing encephalitis in Vietnam, after the long-term use of JEV vaccines in that country.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12985-015-0278-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

There is a correlation between the multiplication efficiency of GI and GIII JEV strains when these two genotype strains co-infected on different cell lines with the predominance of GI strains in C6/36 and PS and the limited detection of GI strains in RD cells proving a possible mechanism of shift JEV genotypes in nature recent decades since GI emerging.