On September, 15th 2025, ULIS-VNU organized the International Conference “Teaching and Researching Vietnamese, Southeast Asian and West Asian Languages and Cultures”. The conference was among the university’s series of UNiC 2025 conferences to celebrate the 70th anniversary of ULIS-VNU and was organized both onsite at Sunwah Conference Hall, ULIS and online on Zoom meeting platform.

Attending the event from ULIS were Vice President and Head of the Office of Science, Technology, and Development Cooperation Dr. Hoa Ngoc Son; President/Chairman of the Vietnam Linguistics Association/President of ULIS Alumni Network Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Lan Trung, leaders and lecturers of the Faculty of Vietnamese & Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arabian language and culture, along with a large number of undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Distinguished guests included Assoc. Prof. Dr. Trinh Cam Lan – Faculty of Linguistics, Vietnamese Language and Vietnam Studies, USSH-VNU, invited scholars, numerous local, international delegates and presenters.

In his opening remarks, Vice Rector Dr. Hoa Ngoc Son expressed heartfelt gratitude to the scholars and guests for their presence. Appreciating the content and quality of the research papers presented within the conference framework, as well as the efforts of the university’s faculties in organizing the conference, Dr. Hoa Ngoc Son expects that the conference can provide opportunities for lecturers and researchers to share ideas in research on teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language to foreigners, as well as Southeast Asian and West Asian languages and cultures, thereby developing together and creating a free academic environment in the context of increasingly deep and widespread national development cooperation and digital transformation.

At the plenary session, President/Chairman of the Vietnam Linguistics Association and President/Chairman of the ULIS Alumni Network, Assoc. Dr. Nguyen Lan Trung presented a keynote report entitled “The Role of Vietnamese Language Teaching in Diplomatic Policies.” The report highlighted assessments of Vietnam’s position from 1980 to 2010, reviewing the country’s foreign policies that adapted to each period. By the same token, the speech also affirmed that the demand for learning Vietnamese among overseas Vietnamese communities and foreigners is increasingly growing.

This was followed by the keynote report/speech: “Sociolinguistic Competence and the Development of Sociolinguistic Competence for Learners of Vietnamese as a Foreign Language” by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Trinh Cam Lan – Faculty of Linguistics, Vietnamese Language and Vietnam Studies, USSH-VNU. The report shared content on topics such as: sociolinguistic competence within the communicative competence system, the sociolinguistic competence framework for learners of Vietnamese as a foreign language with strategies and directions for linguistic development for both teachers and learners.

Following the plenary session, the conference was divided into 4 parallel sessions on three main streams: Vietnamese Language Teaching 1 & 2, Southeast Asian Language and Culture, and West Asian Language and Culture. With a total of 20 reports presented both in-person and online, the conference provided multifaceted and opened up new directions in research, developing teaching methods and studying the languages and cultures of Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and West Asia.

The International Conference on “Teaching and Researching Vietnamese, Southeast Asian and West Asia Languages and Cultures” has ended successfully. Throughout the conference, students, learners, post graduate students, teachers, and scholars have gained additional knowledge about Vietnamese, Southeast Asian and West Asian languages and cultures, opening up opportunities to apply these research directions and teaching methods in the future.