So many exam preparation centers have been created to satisfy increasingly high demand for obtaining IELTS certificates.

When searching for ‘chung chi IELTS’ (IELTS certificate), hundreds of results about the addresses of exam preparation centers can be seen.

On Facebook, there are many pages for those who have demand for learning English and practicing for IELTS. The owners of the pages are mostly parents with children going to secondary or high schools who are looking for others to join classes.

The exam preparations in the districts of Cau Giay, Thanh Xuan and Dong Da are always full of students with learning shifts available from early in the morning to late at night.

The receptionist at a center said the learners there are mostly from secondary and high schools. There are also primary school students, especially fifth grade students.

The receptionist at a center said the learners there are mostly from secondary and high schools. There are also primary school students, especially fifth grade students.

They want to obtain IELTS certificates, because ninth graders will be able to enroll in prestigious schools or schools for the gifted if they have IELTS 6.5-7.0. Good English skills will pave the way for students to study abroad later.

Meanwhile, some parents said they simply follow the crowd when sending children to the exam preparation centers, commenting that learning English is the ‘thing that everyone does’.

Experts say that going to exam preparation classes for international certificates is now in fashion. Students nowam are no longer satisfied with the certificates granted by domestic institutions, but they want international certificates.

However, they don’t recommend students practice for the IELTS exam too early. They said IELTS certificates are valid for two years only, and wonder why fifth, sixth and seventh graders also want IELTS certificates.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Hai, the author of ‘Cung con buoc qua ky thi’ (together with children to overcome exams), advised Vietnamese parents to equip their children with good Vietnamese skills before sending them to ‘pre-IELTS’ and IELTS preparation classes.

She received questions from parents about fourth, fifth and sixth graders attending pre-IELTS classes.

When Hai asked what the goals of the students for the next 1-3 years, most of the parents said they just want their children to pass the exams to normal high schools, and only 1-2 parents said their students would study in Australia.

Kieu Dung, a lecturer of English from Thang Long University, said fourth and fifth graders cannot understand IELTS with topics about all aspects of the life, such as archeology, astronomy and science.

Thanh Mai

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