English Language Education and Students’ Development of Social Capital

Social capital—social relationships and networks—has become a key resource accumulated with other forms of capital to enhance graduate employability. However, the connection between students’ employment prospects and social capital is still vague in English language education. Thus, this chapter reports a mixed-method case study to fill the missing literature on how different forms of English language education can contribute to fostering the development of social relationships for students and enhancing their employability beyond graduation. Data were collected from 15 interviews and 319 responses to a survey with undergraduates and graduates of Information Technology and Tourism Management in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. The results showed that the formal English education was perceived as the most popular form of students’ participation, but the non-formal and informal English education were identified as the more dominant in terms of developing social relationships for students. Social relationships established from English learning activities outside the formal system were perceived to contribute to graduate employability more than that of the formal one. The study implied that the formal English language education should consider integrated work-related activities into the curriculum to better develop social capital for students.