Effective English communication remains a significant challenge for non-English major students at many Vietnamese universities, often hindering their academic and professional development. This study explores the key difficulties faced by non-English majors at Thu Dau Mot University in English communication and their engagement in classroom speaking activities. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study collected data from 100 students through questionnaires and interviews. The findings reveal four primary challenges: limited vocabulary, pronunciation difficulties, overreliance on the native language, and lack of confidence. These issues not only affect students’ ability to express themselves in English but also reduce their participation in classroom activities. Despite these obstacles, the study found that active engagement in speaking activities positively impacts students’ learning outcomes, highlighting the importance of supportive and interactive teaching methods. Engagement varied, with students demonstrating greater participation in structured activities than in spontaneous speaking tasks. Based on the findings, the study provides recommendations for fostering a more engaging and effective learning environment.

English language proficiency is crucial for academic and professional success, with effective communication skills playing a pivotal role. Collaborative teaching methods, particularly group work, can significantly enhance students' creativity, evaluation, synthesis, analysis, and comparison, as well as problem-solving, essential for developing collaborative abilities. Furthermore, non-English major students often struggle to develop their speaking skills due to limited practice opportunities. This study addresses this challenge by implementing group-work activities in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. A mixed-methods approach was used to gather data including quantitative data collected through a questionnaire administered to 71 non-major students at Dong Nai Technology University and qualitative data came from semi-structured interviews. The results showed that group work significantly improved students' fluency, coherence, and confidence. Students reported increased motivation and engagement in speaking activities. These findings suggest that group-work activities effectively enhance speaking skills for non-English major students.

International integration not only brings opportunities but also challenges for teaching and learning English. Like other universities, Thu Dau Mot University focuses on teaching English for non-majored students of different faculties to meet the curriculum as well as provide knowledge for them to be confident when communicating. However, teaching English to non-majors still faces a lot of difficulties due to a number of factors. This study aims to understand the attitudes of non-English major students toward learning English at TDMU. Quantitative methods are used through survey questionnaires related to students' attitudes toward learning English and factors affecting students' attitudes toward learning English, and also finding out their wishes when participating in English learning activities in class. The questionnaire was sent to 190 students of different levels (levels 3-5). The results of the study show that most students are aware of the importance of learning English but they are not highly motivated to learn. According to the analysis results, students do not have a positive attitude towards learning English for the following reasons: They haven't spent time studying because they have to work part-time job for paying tuition fee; The purpose of using this language after graduation has not been determined, and they haven’t found a suitable learning method. From these findings, some solutions have been discussed to improve students' English learning attitudes, help lecturers make appropriate adjustments to improve students' learning outcomes and meet the standards school output as well as meet the needs of society.

The aim of the study is to investigate the errors in writing of non- English major students at Thu Dau Mot University. This study focused on paragraphs because the researcher has found that diverse errors in students’ paragraphs and wants to improve their writing skill. Seventy-four English paragraphs were written by 74 non-English major students coming from different academic majors at Thu Dau Mot University. All of the errors in the paragraphs were identified, synthesized and classified into various categorizations. The findings of the study show that the most frequently committed errors were tense, spellings, singular/plural form, prepositions, word order, fragment. On the basis of these results, many recommendations and pedagogical implications were suggested to help EFL lecturers with some teaching strategies that will reduce problems regarding writing English paragraphs among English learners.