It has been generally well-known that most people faced some problems in learning English as a second or foreign language in non-English speaking countries; for example, in Lao People Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). This paper has a main purpose to explore students-teachers' weakness towards English language learning as a foreign language of a Continuing Summer Program for Bachelor's degree of Teacher Education in English at the Faculty of Education (FOE), the National University of Laos (NUOL) in Lao. A study focuses on the reasons that impact on their poor English performance. Data were drawn from the question "Why Lao students weak in English?". This question was administered to 30 English students-teachers in order to respond with their own views. Each respondent listed ten reasons that mentioned why students are poor in English language performance. Based on the findings of this research, main causes have been included namely: first, the majority of students stated that the English teachers are not well-trained; for instance, they use Lao language when teaching, so they cannot perform well to attract the interest of the student. Secondly, students lack of English foundation background. Third, students lack of confidence to use English because they are afraid of mistakes and shy feeling. Fourth, the curriculum is inappropriate for helping students to improve their English proficiency. Last but not least, English language is difficult to learn due to students are not well-motivated, encouraged and gained learning strategy. Furthermore, students do not practice speaking English with English native speakers, and class environment is crowded and noisy that is not fulfilled with teaching pedagogy.

Similar to other Southeast Asian countries in the world, Cambodia has established her higher education institutions to develop human capital with high knowledge and professional ethics to serve the country over the period of contemporary history. Clearly, colonization, political ideologies, and global economic development tendencies have directly influenced Cambodian public higher education institutions within her various political regimes and social transformation. The purpose of this study is to examine the Cambodian higher education development in the seven different regimes through historical perspectives from the French colonial period to the present period. This paper uses a predominantly descriptive approach relying on secondary sources such as academic papers, textbooks, government documents, non government organization documents, and development partner reports. Therefore, this research could be significant for researchers, academicians, and policymakers to deepen their understanding about Cambodian higher educational history in order to reform its system to the benefit of education quality and student academic success.

This paper aims to investigate learning English strategies and the requirement of English needs of the undergraduate students at the National University of Laos (NUOL). The study employed a survey design which involved in administering questionnaires of rating scales, and adapting the items from (Barakat, 2010;Chengbin, 2008;Kathleen A, 2010;Patama, 2001;Richards, 2001), to measure learning English strategies and the needs of English skills from 160 Lao undergraduate students of NUOL. The findings of this study revealed that speaking skill was the most important skills that students needed to improve in their undergraduate program. All participants reported a medium frequency use of strategy on learning English. The most frequently used strategies involved in using vocabulary books and electronic dictionaries to remember new English words. Based on the research findings, the researchers provided some recommendations for course developers to be reconsidered and redesigned the curriculum and syllabus including the instructional materials, learning behaviours and learning strategies of the English courses in all faculties in order to enhance the quality of learning and teaching activities as well as to meet the learners' needs and social demands for their prospective careers and country's development.

In the context of global and national economic development, higher education in Cambodia plays a significant role to develop human capital with technical knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes for sustainable economic growth, social development, and alleviation of poverty. When the civil war in 1998 was over, the Royal Government of Cambodia considered higher education as a top priority on the list of priorities in order to be integrated into the Association of South East Asian Nations Community by 2015 through implementing numerous mechanisms and policies to promote quality education for the students. This paper will discuss the status of national and institutional policies to promote educational quality to ensure academic success for students in a Cambodian public university. The documents and data of existing government ministries, development partners and higher education institutions will be used in the analysis of policies.

This paper aimed to examine and compare the value systems of youth from the ethnic minority and majority groups in the South of Vietnam. Rokeach' value theory and value system survey (Rokeach Value Survey -RVS) are employed to investigate these value systems. Research samples were conveniently selected from a total of 102 students (60.6% females) in a youth ethnic minority vocational college and two public universities. The findings were consistent with the previous studies conducted in Vietnam and other developed countries. Results indicated that terminal values of students from both groups tended to have more emphasis on personal and political values that reflected the concern of psychological stability and independence. Youth from minority groups showed less tendency toward a relational and social orientation, whereas youth from ethnic majority group displayed a less concern on values related to hedonistic and individualistic values. For the instrumental values, both groups gave a higher ranking for moral values than competency and intrinsic values. Youth from ethnic minority groups tended to have more emphasize on accomplishment and competent values than youth from ethnic majority group. The terminal values of young people from ethnic minority and majority groups are more alike than their instrumental values. Significant differences between two groups were only found in some values. The findings contribute to the existenting literatures and suggest longitudinal studies on comparing value systems among ethnic groups in order to promote the value exchanged trend happened during the context of globalization in Vietnamese modern society.

The Cambodian government aims to promote students' academic success in the country's tertiary education. In order to reach this goal, it is important to explore possible potential factors that determine the educational attainment of Cambodian students. There has been no previous research on students' academic success in Cambodian higher learning institutions, while this topic has been widely researched in the United States and some developed countries since the 1970's. Accordingly, a number of research models have been developed by famous scholars to determine institutional factors which lead to the outcome of better academic performance in post secondary education. Therefore, this paper intends to conceptualize the academic experiences connected to existing institutional policies for contributing to the enhancement of students' academic success in the specific context of Cambodian higher education institutions. In this paper, Astin's theory (1984, 1993, 1999) and a Tinto's theory (1975, 1993) are employed to link the concept of institutional policies and Cambodian students' academic success because they model the relationship between institutional experiences of students, which are deemed to be relevant to the current status of Cambodian educational policies. Based on these concepts, this paper will propose ten variables as predicting factors that influence institutional policies toward students' academic success and will design a conceptual model to elaborate this influence within the Cambodian educational system. Thus, this model to predict students' academic success is proposed as a result of a literature review among the relationships of theoretical model of student input (pre-entry attributes), academic environment (institutional experiences and policies), and students' academic success. Based on these relationships, ten propositions are developed.

The Malaysian government aims to help the bottom billion countries, which are its neighbouring countries in the South East Asian region, for their human capital development through providing university postgraduate scholarship projects. Those countries include Cambodia, Laos PDR, Burma or Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV), which are favourite countries for its technical assistance. Due to the countries' various educational systems, postgraduate students have experienced some academic difficulties during their studies and research in Malaysian universities. A qualitative research method is employed to investigate students' living strategies, perception of academic success, and academic adjustment problems in a Malaysian university. Research samples were conducted conveniently selected from a total of 17 students made up of 6 Cambodian, 4 Laotian, 2 Myanmar, and 5 Vietnamese postgraduate students (47, 05% females and 52, 94% males) who have studied in the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) so called the Research University in the academic year 2012/2013, where they have attended the schools of educational studies, social science, and materials and mineral resource engineering. The result showed that the most difficult problem in term of academic adjustment which is English language difficulty in their new learning environment. In order to remedy such matters, they must strive to study hard, to improve English proficiency, and to make good relations with their academic staff, thesis supervisors, and other postgraduate students. In other words, social adjustment is considered as one of the important strategies that enable them to cope with the context of Malaysian culture. Based on the findings, the researchers provide recommendations to facilitate CLMV students to make better adjustments in a Malaysian research university and to achieve their academic endeavour.

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