This paper reports on ViVEXELT (Vietnam Virtual Exchange for English Language Teaching), a project supported by the British Council and the National Foreign Language Project in Vietnam (digital learning innovation fund pilot) that aims to set up a sustainable model of continuous professional development (CPD) for English language teacher education. It addresses capacity building and digital innovation and subject-specific e-competencies enhancement with the creation of English language teaching knowledge-sharing communities of practice supported by Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)- Virtual Exchange (VE) courses.

ViVEXELT focuses on the development of its participants' English language teaching competencies (speaking and online interactional skills in particular, see Moorhouse, Li & Walsh, 2020), critical digital literacy and intercultural awareness 'in' action, while doing the online course, 'on' action', reflecting on the course after its completion and 'for' action, thinking how their can apply their learning to their future ELT practice.Â

A novel international Vietnam/UK ELT community of practice was created through Virtual Exchange that also addressed the need to further develop a student-centred ELT approach in Vietnam (Le, 2020) and in the UK.

The paper will evaluate the positive impact that ViVEXELT had on English language teachers and students in teacher education in Viet Nam and in the UK, including the collaborative creation of a breakout room guide for online synchronous sessions.Â

(we woudl be interested in delivering a featured or plenary talk, as the project went very well and had wide reach)