Introduction

As the world has been with the Industrial Evolution 4.0, humankind has witnessed radical changes in many industries and social activities (Hariharasudan & Kot, 2018). For a deeper and wider adaptation of this disruptive change, Vietnamese authorities attempt to enhance global integration progress, cooperation capacity, and national competitiveness that higher education earns considerable stake (Tran, 2013). Regarding this effort, the expectation is to influence the educational quality and the modernization of higher education levels (Baporikar, 2021) since higher education produces skilled manpower for national growth (Machin & McNally, 2007). As the emerging international standardization, foreign language holds a crucial role. English is crucial for both native and non-native speakers (Hariharasudan & Kot, 2018; Sukarno, 2020) and used in a wide range of areas like technology, science, and business (Chang & Goswami, 2011; Hariharasudan & Kot, 2018). Thereby the enhancement of learning foreign languages is indeed in all levels of education, considerably significant for tertiary education level (Harman, Hayden & Nghi, 2009). The changing context creates a growing number of English language learning activities plugging in tertiary education curriculums (Tran, 2013). English language acquisition offers excessive opportunities in diverse economic contexts (Khuong, 2015) that students are at an advantaged edge of professional preparation and employable graduates (Machin & McNally, 2007). In the Vietnam scenario, whereas Tran (2013) exerts that plenty of detrimental evidence is unearthed such as class size, widened gaps of pre-existing linguistic competencies, limited reference, exaggerated grammatical knowledge, over-dependent upon the scoring system, and primitive pedagogic approaches. Affording these drawbacks, the quality of English learning amongst higher education students are remarkably influenced such including out-of-balance English skills comprehension, foreign language learning avoidance, and demotivated learning efforts (Sawir, 2005; Nguyen & Vu, 2016; Wearring at el., 2015; Truong, 2017). In a study of Truong and Wang (2019), Vietnamese learners like other non-English speaking peers have been with great potential; however, their insufficient self-confidence prevents foreign language acquisition and also teachers consume the underestimation of Vietnamese Students’ ability. Thus, many studies of the different scholars have used an assortment of innovative pedagogical approaches to enhance English language learning outcomes (Dinh, Hoang & Le, 2018; Nguyen & Tran, 2019; Nguyen & Duong, 2020). For higher education, learners' comprehension accommodates various determinants as pre-existing linguistic capability and learning strategies (Khuong, 2015; El-Omari, 2016). In terms of learners’ conception, foreign or second language learning attaches to the disheartened learning experience, and there are many learners gaining drawbacks of learning effectiveness (Tran, Baldauf & Moni, 2013). As known, English language acquisition requires a long and costly journey for all learners to achieve the highest learning quality and proficiency. As mentioned, learners are considered as a variable elaborating into one of the crucial domains of research in second language acquisition (Nguyen & Duong, 2019), and findings should be done on the employment of various factors, which affects the English learning process either positively or negatively (El-Omari, 2016; Muftah, 2017, Pham & Bui, 2019). Having a good understanding of affecting factors helps the related authorities determine the teaching style, the pedagogical approach, and methods (Nguyen, Warren & Fehring, 2014; Truong & Wang, 2019). At present, many recent studies on factors impacting on English language learning of the learners exist. They employ limited scope to specific groups of learners restricted to a particular institution (Dinh, Hoang & Le, 2018; Bui & Dang, 2018; Nguyen & Tran, 2019; Nguyen & Duong, 2020). Significantly, understanding those factors and its quality becomes pivotal to all relatives with the purpose of facilitating the learning process and enhancing the learning experience (Du, 2020). Thus, this paper aims to find out determinants of English learning quality of the students in 8 tertiary education institutions in Ho Chi Minh City and its angle with higher education quality on teaching. By unearthing drive factors affecting English language learning quality, the author expects to learn additional perspectives on the quality of higher education and draw out some recommendations to the related authorities in the related issues.

Literature Reviews

Concepts of Quality and Quality in Education

As known, businesses operate and provide a product or service to customers, and schools or institutions operate and provide education as a service to not students as key customers and their relations as parents, guardians, and families (Deshpande, 2000). Education is associated with the logic of service marketing that has received aiding by delivering quality service and sustainable competitive advantage (Irene & Jeannie, 2008; Brown, Varley & Pal, 2009; Quintal et al., 2012; Ho & Law, 2020). In higher education, students/ learners are associated with the educational product. More importantly, they are the cornerstone of quality enhancement (Carvalho Pereira &Terra Da Silva, 2003; Obermiller, Fleenor & Raven, 2005; Ho & Law, 2020). As for the economic perspectives, quality is linked to product features incorporating the customer’s subjective evaluation interpreted by the provided service (Alzhrani, Alotibie & Abdulaziz, 2016). Indeed, quality is multi-dimensional conceptualized for those involved with products, services, and processes, and quality is defined respecting its specifications (Thompson, 2019). Quality is the repetition of work, process, or actions that create the prevention and/or mitigation of deficiencies (Eldin, 2011). However, the concept of quality is misconceived, misinterpreted by many academicians and practitioners. Knowledge achievement, skills, and behavioral competency discoursing in education curriculum are perceived as drivers of learning and teaching quality assessment. And for the expectation and perception of parents and society, the attitude and behaviors of students are vital variables that influence the process of delivering a quality education (Beerkens & Udam, 2017). However, it is hard to measure. The relevance between the learning environment and activities, which is the crucial element, offers a better possibility for Students’ success and meets the universal needs of students and society. Hence, one notion of quality is accepted as the conformance to standards including process and outcomes, wherein quality for procedural assessment will assure acceptable standard met (Elassy, 2015). So forth, this ascribes the procedural concept of quality (Farooq et al. 2007). With this regard, quality is depicted under the specifications (1) an outstandingly adapts premium standard, (2) an excellence of delivering consistently to standard, (3) fulfillment of purpose that acquires assurance goals, (4) the reassurance of stakeholders’ return on investment, and (5) a transformation that students acquire through the genuine learning process (Teeroovengadum et al., 2019; Budiharso & Tarman, 2020). The practicality of procedural quality correlates with an assurance system that benchmarks multi-facets of higher education institutions curriculum, teaching and learning capability, academic-related infrastructure and facilities, financial-related issues, and administrative comprehensibility (Ulker & Bakioglu, 2019). Adding points to quality perspective, organizations strive to gain sustainable competitive advantages which differentiate the organization from the competition (Papanthymou & Darra, 2017). Organizations demand an additional perspective of quality consideration that creates increasing impacts. For instance, professional services’ quality is perceived as complexity interpretation and understanding and is because of the involvement of numerous elements. As different stakeholders or social referenced groups as financial providers and the local community, local government, etc.; receivers as students, learners, etc.; employers like business owners, managers, contractors, etc.; and delivers as a pedagogue, administrator, etc. define quality differently (Tsinidou, Gerogiannis & Fitsilis, 2010; Laura et al. 2015; Thompson, 2019). And satisfying customers' needs and requirements remain the foundation of quality (Tsinidou, Gerogiannis & Fitsilis, 2010; Budiharso & Tarman, 2020). In tertiary education, quality addresses the combination of leadership quality and culture quality, ongoing enhancement and innovative progression of education and its process, employee involvement and development, information management, customer-centric quality, and partnership establishment (Psomas & Antony, 2017). Thus, quality conceives in terms of the transformational concept (Farooq et al., 2007).

The associated terms such as efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and quality are interchangeably used (Jain & Prasad, 2017). The complexity of their assessment relies on the multi-facets of a professional service interpreting by "educational activity", "educational process" and “educational services” (Polyakova & Azizova, 2020). Quality education holistically accommodates related organizations, pedagogical environment, legal scheme, etc. As such, quality of education is confirmed as systemic objects that are determined by conglomerates of teaching and learning goals, capability, administrative process, and its results (Polyakova & Azizova, 2020). The consideration of performative systems that attached learners with quality of teaching, approaches, curriculum content, quality instructors, quality assessment (Jain & Prasad, 2017). And for the expectation and perception of parents and society, the attitude and behaviors of students are crucial variables that influence the process of delivering quality education. However, it is difficult to measure. For quality education, the relevance between learning environment and activities, which is the crucial element, offers a better possibility for students’ success and meets the universal needs of students and society. The quality also attaches to providers who are leaders and/or management, reassure adequacy of supports in learning and teaching, appropriate environment, and program, in turn, satisfying the Students’ need of learning and development. Significantly, to meet the future expectation of both learners and society, the diversification of study options, also its appropriateness and accessibility are essential for producing a workforce with not only technical but also academic proficiency. Furthermore, knowledge and skills comprehension is active in citizenship, employment, and social connectedness. As afore discussion, the enhancement of education management, infrastructure, teaching facilitator competencies, resource and curriculum development, and leaner-centric approaches in teaching and learning are drivers of the relevance and quality in education.

In addition, higher education has a range of stakeholders including learners/ students, scholars, governments, international institutions, employers, professional accrediting bodies, and other related communities (Marshall, 2018). And quality assurance is driven by a top-down (government) approach (Williams, 2016; Kaçaniku, 2020). Whilst the concept of quality enhancement is established following the bottom-up (institutional) approach (Williams, 2016; Hill & Wang, 2018; Kaçaniku, 2020). Significantly, to meet the future expectation of both learners and the society, the diversification of study options, its appropriateness and accessibility, is essential for producing a workforce with both technical and academic proficiency (Pont, Nusche & Moorman, 2008). Furthermore, knowledge and skills comprehension is essential for being active in citizenship, employment, and social connectedness. Moreover, the enhancement of education management, infrastructure, teaching facilitator competencies, resource and curriculum development, and leaner-centric approaches in teaching and learning are drivers of the relevance and quality in education (Pont, Nusche & Moorman, 2008). Therefore, learning outcomes and learning quality is the crucial variable for higher education institutions to assess the management performance (Harvey & Williams, 2010; Allaism 2014). Academic achievement, grading systems, professional academic judgments, diversification of curriculums, and infrastructures are connected to quality (Sadler, 2017). Similarly, quality is depicted as “fitness for purpose” espoused by most legislators and administrators in the tertiary education sector (Elassy, 2015). Therefore, constructed curriculum attaches expected outcomes with the assessment scheme to evaluate students’ academic performances (Doherty, 2008). To reassure the output quality, students are assessed by fundamental skills such as critical thinking, analytical thinking, problem-solving, and communicative comprehension (Aamodt, Frølich & Stensaker, 2016). This is shown in the study of Krsmanovi? and Petrovi? (2009) that foreign language achievement is driven by the evaluation of learning outcomes (Krsmanovi? & Petrovi?, 2009).

Factors Influencing Quality in Education

One of underpinned quality and management of quality are addressed as the functions of procedural control, continuous advancement, adherence, and breakthrough (Van Kemenade, Pupius & Hardjono, 2008). As quality education accommodates mainly unpredictable and dynamic processes, the extent to which involves humans with all needs, aspirations, and pre-knowledge, achieving and maintaining quality is a challenging task. This acquires a transformative quality of an educational institution (Mastoi, XinHai & Saengkrod, 2019). Additionally, quality is known as a customer focus and control concept (Al-Omoush, Alrahahleh & Alabaddi, 2015). Thus, educational quality is attached to educational service performance, the credibility of faculty/ department, physical capability, environment, international cooperation, and administrative quality, etc. (Lee & Tai, 2008; Mastoi, XinHai & Saengkrod, 2019). In line with consideration for higher education inputs including faculty resources, financial resources, teaching resources, student structure, and development target that also determines quality (Habibulah, Rouf & Rana, 2012).

As one of the key stakeholders, students are upholding the university quality. The quality of enrolled students or input students is attached with institution education in the preliminary stage (Habibulah, Rouf & Rana, 2012). Indeed, students are driven by factors including the learning environment, curriculums, future work expectation, financial supports, social factors, wellbeing factors and, etc. (Luu & Lam, 2018). As students are participating in the learning and teaching process, institution quality is attached to student satisfaction and academic performance (Van Kemenade, Pupius & Hardjono, 2008).

In line with educational outcomes and student satisfaction, teaching quality is accepted as an indicator that has defined the quality distinctiveness among institutions (Xiao & Wilkins, 2015). Lecturers/ teachers’ roles attach to controlling teaching quality resulting in the enhancement of educational quality because their qualifications, experiences, and creatively pedagogic approaches represent credentials for teaching capability (Kirmani & Siddiquah, 2008). Thus, lecturers are in relation with the assurance of university’s value commitment explicating in terms of effectively-bridging communication with students, an enhancement to Students’ academic work and performance (Cardona & Bravo, 2012). In addition, the lecturer's scholarly research work, research projects, and leading students’ research work are amended to the university's quality principle (Griffioen & De Jong, 2015)

Factors Influencing Quality in English Language Education

Language education upholds a crucial role in community life since language is essentially a communication medium of humankind. Educational research determines socio-cognitive student characteristics influencing students’ self-investment in learning and academic development (Davis, 2003). Concurrently, foreign language learning is a prolonged process where the learner’s achievement is determined by numerous factors. Despite various determinants of foreign language learning and teaching, this paper depicts significant factors affecting the quality of English learners. Moreover, many studies show these factors are whereupon relevant to the teaching and learning process in a training program (e.g. Hoang, 2008; Krsmanovi? & Petrovi?, 2009; Wright, 2011; Ngoc & Iwashita, 2012; Phakiti, Hirsh & Woodrow, 2013; Nguyen, Warren & Fehring, 2014; El-Omari, 2016; Gover, Loukkola & Peterbauer, 2019; Nguyen & Duong, 2019; Du, 2020).

Students’ Motivation and Attitude

Student-centered learning (SCL) is an approach to education (Wright, 2011; Gover, Loukkola & Peterbauer, 2019). Then, learning motivation and learning attitude are determined as one of the driving factors in the process of foreign language acquisition (Oroujlou & Vahedi, 2011). Affective learning strategies associate with main personality traits the extent to which proceed confidence and positive cognition (Du, 2020). In this perspective, Guslyakova and Guslyakova (2020) exert that the conglomerates of metacognitive, affective, and social learning strategies and emotional intelligence create influence upon English language proficiency. To a positive extent, motivated learners are attached to individual learning which affords significant influence upon outcomes (Du, 2020). Whereby Du (2020) addresses those proactive learners innovatively construct learning strategies, self-determination works, and make needed adjustments that are driving by learners’ self-awareness. Having deluded motivation and a negative cognitive state leads to degrading learners’ performance, and potential. For instance, Vietnamese students are not passive at all. Nevertheless, self-shyness and face-saving attitudes hinder individual potential (Truong & Wang, 2019). Additionally, a positive cognitive state such as high interest and enjoyment during the learning process links to high performance (Baeten, Dochy & Struyven, 2012). Thus, the concrete association is needed between the domain of students' motivation and the diversification of learning strategies (Du, 2020). Both external motives and inner motives interfere in foreign language acquisition (Nguyen & Duong, 2019).

Students' Objectives

Language learning is an active process that develops through the construction and application of a system of rules (El-Omari, 2016). And, in the long term, students' attempts to acquire acceptable comprehension, understanding, and language usage are the cornerstone to foreign language achievement (El-Omari, 2016). Similarly, comprehension helps construct knowledge and skills in a dynamic communicative context (Ngoc & Iwashita, 2012). Indeed, communicative competence is determined by linguistic rules’ acknowledgment, using language regarding situational appropriateness, the relatedness of communicative competence in a discussion, and language learning approaches (Chang & Goswami, 2011). However, in Vietnam tertiary education, most English language learners study English to cope with examination and test, or/and at least to meet the graduation requirement, leading to insufficient assessment of comprehensibility (Ngoc & Iwashita, 2012). In the study of Ngoc and Iwashita (2012), due to the negative impacts of high-stakes exams, the English language in Vietnam is consequentially more grammar-oriented than communicative competence (Ngoc & Iwashita, 2012). To explain this drawback, learners afford that establishing the concrete foundation of grammar comprehension is essential for acquiring proficiency as a native speaker (Nguyen & Duong, 2019).

Quality of Teaching Facilitators

Teaching facilitators are known as lecturers in higher education institutions) determine the success of English language teaching and learning (Hong, Wendy & Heather, 2024). Experienced teachers can fix the deficient points of the curriculum or the pre-existing resources (Krsmanovi? & Petrovi?, 2009). However, Hoang (2008) depicts English teaching facilitators without English teaching training are incapable of the task, which results in conflicts of knowledge and inappropriate teaching approaches. According to Krsmanovi? and Petrovi? (2009), pedagogues’ knowledge attributes in multi-aspects of content, context, pedagogy, personality, and reflection. Therefore, the student's learning process is interfered with by the teacher's personality and teacher-learner relationship (Nguyen & Duong, 2020). Besides, the workloads of lecturers are a considerable element that influences quality. In Vietnamese universities, an English teacher is assigned 500 hours of lecturing per year regardless of the scientific research, and other pedagogical administrative duties (Bui & Dang, 2018).

Teaching/ Education Curriculum

According to the Glossary of Education Reform and Null and Bohan (2005), the term curriculum that concerns the lessons and academic content in a specific course/program refers to the expected knowledge and skills a student is required to gain, including the lessons, assignments, projects, presentations, tests, assessments. There are various methods of evaluating student learning (Null & Bohan, 2005). Teaching the English language, especially to non-English speakers, requires deliberately planned programs (Kaplan, 2019). When constructing a program, it needs a systematic learning outcome, and learning quality through the controlled class sizes, teaching supports, and continuous professional development, the extent to which reassures quality outputs (Hill & Wang, 2018). Indeed, In Vietnam settings, universities employ various assessment systems to weigh student comprehensibility of foreign languages (Tam & Hung, 2019) and for the English language, populous assessment systems are identified in Vietnam’s context following IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, and recently PTE (Tam & Hung, 2019). Thus, those tests restricted with the program's well-defining teaching approaches, credential assessment, and international recognition qualifications are internationally accepted. English spoken universities system then employs this qualification to weigh non-speaking English students’ capability (Tam & Hung, 2019). Whilst Vietnamese higher education institutions have implanted their constructed English language teaching program for students, simultaneously accepting the international qualification as alternatives. However, each program has advantages and drawbacks which results in gaps in learners’ achievement. In addition, the program provides teachers with frameworks that encourage innovation in teaching approaches. In addition, problem-based learning stimulates students’ use of deep processing that bridged newly learned knowledge process knowledge information is learned in the contextual extent, and so forth in a realistic situation (Wijnen et al., 2017). This provides more realistic interaction that is asserted in various studies to be an effective element in English language education.

Learning Environment

According to Sa?lam & Sal? (2013), the learning environment is conceptualized by interpersonal relationships, attached emotion, and structure of pedagogical approaches and classroom configuration, expectations of teachers attached to students as well as students’ attitudes, class management, and disciplinary problems. In line with the inclusion of physical configurations, efforts of teaching and learning, and cultural and social drivers which are depicted as learning environments (Sabani et al., 2020). The productive learning environment encourages learning experience and achievement (Sa?lam & Sal?, 2013). The learning environment is perceived as the home nurturing fundamental psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Baeten, Dochy & Struyven, 2012). This accounts for the distinctiveness of the physical environment from the online environment. With the growth of technology and the Internet, the online environment creates a borderless platform for numerous students joining the class which resolves geographical barriers (Baber, 2020). Online learning offers a significant solution for higher education during a pandemic time when requiring distance learning. E-learning environment replaces face-to-face once with virtual appearance (Stephan, Markus & Gläser-Zikuda, 2019). The online learning environment then influences both languages teaching methods, learning strategy, and learning outcomes (Surjono, Muhtadi & Trilisiana, 2019; Baber, 2020).

The Suggested Research Model

The author proposes a research model comprising 5 independent factors namely (1) students' attitudes and motivation, (2) quality of teaching facilitators, (3) students' objectives, (4) students' learning environment, (5) teaching/ education curriculum, and one dependent factor as English learning quality of students. The following hypotheses are as follows: as shows in Figure 1.

H1: Students' attitudes and motivation impact on English language learning quality.

H2: Quality of teaching facilitators' effects on English language learning quality.

H3: Students' objectives influence English language learning quality.

H4: Teaching curriculum affects English language learning quality.

H5: Learning Environment effects on English language learning quality.

Figure 1: Proposed Research Model

Source: own (2021)

Research Methodology

A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods has been employed with 2 types of secondary data and primary data.

• In terms of the secondary data, theories relating to the quality of higher education focusing on English language education and its quality in published journals, books, and other sources such as websites, business, and educational organizational reports, etc. have been searched and analyzed. As a consequence, factors affecting the English language learning quality of students have been found and confirmed.

• And regarding the primary data, techniques and tools are conducted in qualitative and quantitative modes. First, interviews have been completed with 7 experts including researchers and head of English departments/ faculties in 8 universities in Ho Chi Minh City in the field of English language education and its related quality for students to discover potential or hidden factors and measurement scales for the research. Furthermore, 3 group discussions and 3 in-depth structured interviews were conducted with 25 random students to gain a deeper understanding of the observed variables as the crosscheck to get the results better. After that, the questionnaire has been developed as the key tool for data collection. The content of the questionnaire has been adopted and adapted from the questionnaires of the previous studies (e.g. Hoang, 2008; Krsmanovi? & Petrovi?, 2009; Wright, 2011; Ngoc & Iwashita, 2012; Phakiti, Hirsh & Woodrow, 2013; Nguyen, Warren & Fehring, 2014; El-Omari, 2016; Gover, Loukkola & Peterbauer, 2019; Nguyen & Duong, 2019; Du, 2020) based on receiving experts' recommendations, students’ viewpoints from the qualitative research results, and also from the outcomes of theory meta-analysis. Before implementing the official survey, a pilot test has been conducted with 15 students to test comprehension and provide feedback to improve the clarity of the questionnaire. For the official survey, with the random sampling technique, there are 315 students sending responses for the questionnaires and after filtering, there are 235 qualified questionaries meeting the criteria for the analysis.

Findings &Discussion

Findings as shows in Table 1 and 2.

The results show that the highest Mean is "Curriculum" which indicates students’ attention in relating the teaching contents and student assessment approaches throughout their English learning process. This means more and more students are appreciated with the design of a rich, varied, and selective curriculum. The lowest mean is "Students' Objectives", meaning that students evaluate the quality of English language learning as impacted by their academic goals, especially students who are not majoring in languages. as shows in Table 3.

The results present the variable StuObj1 = 0.250 < 0.3 and it must be removed from the model. Thus, there are 24 observed variables accepted and included in the EFA factor analysis. In terms of EFA analysis, the first EFA results of 24 observed variables depict that, five (5) factors have been extracted at Eigenvalue = 1,081 of which the extracted variance is at 70.019% and KMO is at 0.820. However, the variable QuaTea1 has a loading factor coefficient under 0.5. Thus, QuaTea1 is also removed, and 23 variables will be processed with the second EFA. The following is the result of EFA: as shows in Table 4.

The EFA results point out that the EFA factor analysis is appropriate. The EFA analysis results of the dependent variable are as follows: as shows in Table 5 and Table 6.

This result expresses that violate multicollinearity or autocorrelation does not exist in the model. Also, regression analysis results are displayed as follows: as shows in Table 7, Table 8 and Table 9.

The result confirms that factors as Students' Motivation & Attitude, Students' Objectives, Quality of Teaching Facilitator, Learning Environment, Curriculum are statistically significant in the model and have a positive impact on the English language learning quality of students. As a consequence, the linear regression equation is as follows:

ELLQ = 0.472*StuMotAtt + 0.197*QuaTea + 0.179*LeaInv + 0.122*StuObj + 0.113*Cur

On the other hand, the variance inflation factor (VIF) is very small (less than 2) demonstrates that these independent variables are not closely related and completely, multicollinearity phenomenon does not exist.

Discussions

As confirmed in the findings, the results identify 5 factors affecting English language learning quality. The β coefficient of Students' motivation and attitude is at the highest (β = 0.472) and it is concluded that students' motivation and attitude in English learning have a positive and strong impact on English learning quality and this presents the great significance and meaningfulness for educating the students’ awareness and motivating students to learn English, especially in the current trend of global citizenship training and education. In addition, according to the recent ranking released by the EF English Proficiency Index (EPI), Vietnam owns the ranking of 65^th out of 100 countries and regions in terms of English proficiency, and from that data, it requires tertiary education institutions to have suitable approaches to develop and motivate right attitudes in the students’ English learning. More of that, the factors as Students' Objectives, Quality of Teaching Facilitator, Learning Environment, Teaching Curriculum achieve β coefficients range from 0.113 - 0.197 which are higher than 0, and completely, they impact positively on English language learning quality. As a result, it is concluded that all Hypotheses H₁, H₂, H₃, H₄, H₅ are accepted.

Recommendations to Related Authorities

As shown in the study results, most students are attached with great importance to learning English and show their high interests in how to improve their English proficiency. Therefore, tertiary education institutions should research to build a better learning environment, invest in the enhancement of the teaching facilitators’ quality, and innovate the curricula to suit each specific learning purpose for building up the competitive advantage. The recommendations are detailed as follows:

• In the context of the fast social and technological changes, tertiary education institutions and the related officers or administrators should focus on developing teaching methods and knowledge transmission approaches to create better motivation for the students in their learning process. As known, with the outbreak of IoT, many new teaching methods are available on websites, YouTube and books, etc. Thus, facilitators studying and applying teaching methods in developed countries are also for improvement of students’ learning motivation. Also, seminars are open to raise students’ awareness of the importance of self-study efforts and to guide the right attitude of students to learn English. Especially in the time of the Covid-19 epidemic worldwide, not only English but other subjects should use many methods to study in which online education is a must and popularity. Therefore, the facilities for online teaching methods are required by educational institutions to improve and apply with the significant Vietnam context.

• As for the higher education institutions, more qualified facilitators of English teaching should be recruited and remained to gradually enhance the education quality and create competitive advantages. One of those approaches is upgrading the recruitment criteria to attain qualified facilitators and lecturers. More, higher education institutions should concentrate to design training sessions and exchange teaching experiences among institutions and lecturers.

• Finally, educational institutions should have a consultatory team to provide advice to students on how to study and choose suitable courses for their learning objectives. In addition, regular evaluation surveys should be done to ensure that the training program suitability for the learning and research goals of students. Academic advisors are requested to create a feasible study plan for their students to build a learning path which is aligning with their objectives.

Conclusion

As the findings from the analysis of theoretical content relating to the English education quality for students with the use of qualitative and quantitative research methods, the study has identified five factors that affect English language learning quality, which is: (1) Students’ Motivation & Attitude, (2) Quality of Teaching facilitators, (3) Learning environment, (4) Students’ Objectives, and (5) Teaching Curriculum. This study result is consistent with the studies of Hoang (2008), Krsmanovi? and Petrovi? (2009); Wright, 2011; Ngoc and Iwashita (2012), Phakiti, Hirsh and Woodrow (2013), Nguyen, Warren and Fehring (2014), El-Omari (2016), Gover, Loukkola and Peterbauer (2019), Nguyen and Duong (2019), Du (2020) Therefore, some recommendations and implications for managers of educational institutions are given to improve training performance and present as a pedagogical example in classrooms. However, limitations of the study still exist. The limitation is the sample size by its completion with small sample size and definitely, results will be more accurate with larger sample sizes. Thus, further research is also implied throughout its limitation with the hope of huge contribution to management theory and practice.

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