The Politburo has released Conclusion No 91 on continuing to implement the eleventh Central Committee of the Party’s Resolution 29 dated November 4, 2013 on renovating education and training to satisfy the requirements of industrialization and modernization in the context of the socialist-oriented market economy and international integration.

One of the tasks mentioned in the resolution is improving students’ foreign language skills and gradually making English the second language at school. Four major goals have been set up: use English as a communication tool through four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing; develop basic knowledge of English, and through English, obtaining knowledge about people and cultures of English speaking countries and other countries in the world; use English to improve the quality of other learning subjects; and form the habit of lifelong study.

There are many things that need to be done to reach the goals, because Vietnamese students’ English skills are not of a high level, and the problem lies in the teaching strategy.

Nguyen Hoang Chuong, a respected educator, noted that most Vietnamese students study English at school just to pass exams. Teachers focus on teaching grammar, while exam questions are mostly designed to test students’ reading comprehension and writing skills.

Chuong mentioned seeing one teacher of English at high school who could not speak well when communicating with American colleagues at an exchange, and other teachers like him also exist.

Dien Nguyen, a VietNamNet reader and teacher, said he once witnessed teachers of English ‘running for the hills’ when a delegation of foreign teachers visited the school as they could not communicate with the foreigners.

Another reader (Myhong), in his email to VietNamNet, talked about his story about how he learned English.

“I learned English from 6th to 12th grades, but I could not speak English after finishing high school. After graduating from a university, I went to learn English for 1.5 more years and my English skills improved a little. Later, I got a job and now I often play tennis with foreigners, so my English has become much better,” he wrote.

Other readers admitted that they struggled with English at general school but their English is still very poor.

“Students don’t have many opportunities to practice English. Teachers of English are not qualified enough. There are too many students in every class. The teaching strategy focuses on grammar, and it doesn’t pay appropriate attention to listening and speaking practice,” wrote reader Le Minh Quoc about the reasons behind the low quality of English teaching. 

Dinhluong Le, also a reader, said the major problem lies in big size of classes at most public schools. 

“How can students practice speaking English if there are 50-55 students in a class and a teaching period lasts only 45 minutes?” he said.

How do students improve their English skills at private foreign language centers, but they can’t do this at school? 

There are three reasons, according to Dinhluong Le. First, at foreign language centers, students are classified based on their current English skills (which can be identified by an entrance test). The teaching will be more effective if teachers run classes with students of the same abilities. 

Second, private schools are equipped with better teaching aids. Third, there are only 10-15 students per class.

According to GiaTran, though teachers are told practice communication skills, they don’t have time because most of the time is spent on grammar lessons. 

He said that students’ skills won’t improve if classes with 50-60 students continue to exist. 

Chuong suggested five solutions to the problems.

First, re-setting the goals of the general education program in English, especially for high school students. Students should learn English to be able to listen and speak. Only a low number of students want to have in-depth lessons and choose to study English at higher education level.

Second, it is necessary to provide four periods of English a week. English must be a compulsory exam subject for entrance exams to secondary and high schools, and for high school finals.

Third, learning lessons from countries that have succeeded in teaching English.

Fourth, teaching English as a second language in the country.

Fifth, teachers and students should use English every day.

Thanh Hung