The impacts of integrating social emotional learning into English lessons for non-majored students at a university in Viet Nam

Abstract

Social emotional learning plays a crucial role not only in academics but also in everyday life. Integrating social emotional learning into non-majored students in learning English is necessary at a university in Vietnam. This quasi-experimental study, which included both pre- and post-tests, was conducted to compare the improvement levels of four skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing — after integrating social emotional learning into the curriculum for 40 students, as measured by their scores. In addition, during the 8 weeks of social emotional learning intervention based on the English 3 textbook, students actively participated in the activities. In addition, in-depth interviews with 10 students provided qualitative data. The statistical results showed that all four skills of the students improved when applying this experiment. Furthermore, qualitative findings emphasized that social emotional learning brought many positive impacts to students. The study confirms the effectiveness of social emotional learning and provides pedagogical implications for integrating social emotional learning. The study also suggests further exploration of the impact of social emotional learning at multiple levels of education in Vietnam.