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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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 Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 12:10 pm Post subject: Govt plans to make English a 2nd language in universities |
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Vietnam to raise its game
By Andrea Pérez, EL Gazette | October 2016
Source: www.elgazette.com/
Vietnam plans to make English the second language of its universities. The minister of education, Phung Xuan Nha, announced in August a roadmap to achieve the goal this academic year, urging universities to ‘improve their English teaching methods’, Vietnam News reports.
Under the foreign language teaching plan, around 61 universities and academies must reach Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) teaching standards and should start using English at meetings. University students will do all presentations and class discussions in English too. According to Vietnam News, the ministry will help universities in ‘training capable English teachers through new programmes that focus on training in remote areas’.
Currently, the English language is only mandatory in secondary schools from grade ten (15 and 16 years old) onwards, and is an optional subject in primary schools, with one or two lessons a week. But under the new plan, from 2018 students from grade three (8 and 9 years old) and above will have four English lessons a week, the website reported.
Despite the ambitious plan, the present state of English proficiency in the country is regarded as poor. The ministry has admitted that Vietnam has a shortage of 7,700 teachers, and only a third of English teachers at primary and high schools meet teaching standards.
(End of article) |
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skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 477
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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I saw this too. Hmmn - best laid plans an aw that?
At the same time another dept is planning to make schools teach many more languages in addition to English.
Paradoxically there are a lot of Vietnamese with good levels of English [and other languages] but they don't want to become school teachers. Finding a way to attract competent Vietnamese into teaching [and I think the key here is pay and conditions] is needed.
Meanwhile, money is squandered paying foreigners to go into schools and 'teach' but that is a road Japan and Korea have been down to no avail. |
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TRH
Joined: 27 Oct 2011
Posts: 340
Location: Hawaii
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 2:32 am Post subject: |
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| skarper wrote: |
| Paradoxically there are a lot of Vietnamese with good levels of English [and other languages] but they don't want to become school teachers. Finding a way to attract competent Vietnamese into teaching [and I think the key here is pay and conditions] is needed. |
This almost goes without saying. Teacher pay in Vietnam is miserable. It can start as low as 2 million a month. Even very senior teachers make about 12. Pensioners have told me their pensions are 4-5. My favorite personal anecdote was the young lady who sold coffee on the sidewalk outside of one of my schools who had a degree in English and told me that she could not afford to work for what the schools paid. I think that says it all.
| skarper wrote: |
| Meanwhile, money is squandered paying foreigners to go into schools and 'teach' but that is a road Japan and Korea have been down to no avail. |
I would like to take exception to this part of your comment, particularly the quotation marks. I taught at government middle schools for all of my three years in Vietnam and I found it both rewarding for me and I believe valuable for the children. I must have been doing a passable job as the school I taught most at asked my language center for my return each year. I should add that more than half of my classes were at the top track within the school and that teaching the lower tracks and some time at other schools was time less well spent. Perhaps the best application of limited availability of foreign teachers is in the best schools with the best students.
Another area that needs looking at is the fees that students are charged to have foreign teachers. Having a friend who had step daughters in middle school, he and I had a unique opportunity to take a look at these fees. He was paying 80,000 VND per month for each girl above and beyond their regular fees for one period a week. This may not seem like much but we calculated it at roughly $60/hour for the whole class of 50. Granted that the language center will need a fee for service but even at a 100% markup that still leaves $20 unaccounted for. Each school might have several classes collecting this fee amounting to thousands a month. I suspect that it is lining the pockets of principals and district personnel particularly those who decide which language center gets the contract. If money is being "squandered" this is where to look. Direct hiring by districts could help resolve this but it's not going to fix itself. If the government really wants foreign teachers in the classroom, the government should cover the cost, not the parents. With the current system, the government is spending nothing at all and some operatives are lining their pockets.
Where I think the government and the industry should be going is with "teach the teacher." There should be evening classes custom designed for elementary and secondary school teachers. They could encompass both the teachers own fluency and EFL instructional techniques. I know there is a desire for improvement from the questions I used to get from the local English teachers, particularly the younger ones. Down the road this should be an opportunity for those younger and more ambitious than I. |
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skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 477
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 6:29 am Post subject: |
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I agree many foreign teachers working in schools do a decent or even exceptional job in difficult circumstances. But I contend many do not accomplish very much and the program is very expensive.
It would be child's play for professional English Teachers with experience of Vietnam to design a system that would work and be cost effective. But no-one is asking us. |
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Mixal
Joined: 08 Apr 2015
Posts: 80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 11:27 am Post subject: |
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| 12 million is a bad salary in Vietnam??? |
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skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 477
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Given 12M vnd comes out as about 540 USD - yes. If you are a senior teacher with perhaps 20 years experience that is very low. Of course, such teachers usually make a packet teaching private classes at home. But that is not the point. |
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Mixal
Joined: 08 Apr 2015
Posts: 80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, if the average salary in HCMC is around 8 million, I don't see how 12 would be a bad salary. |
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TRH
Joined: 27 Oct 2011
Posts: 340
Location: Hawaii
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Mixal wrote: |
| Well, if the average salary in HCMC is around 8 million, I don't see how 12 would be a bad salary. |
Remember that the average includes factory workers making Nike's. This link is to an interesting compilation of white collar wages in VN: http://outsourceit.no/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Adecco_Vietnam_Salary_Guide.pdf For instance an HR Manager/Trainer who arguably uses similar skills ranges from 20-50 million. A secretary makes 7-15 M which is in the teacher range. |
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Mixal
Joined: 08 Apr 2015
Posts: 80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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So, other cities do not include the lowest-paid workers in their calculations?
On the other hand, HCMC probably has the highest salaries in VN overall. I don't know how it is around the world, but I can tell you that teachers in Europe generally earn less than most white-collar workers. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 11:23 pm Post subject: |
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The corresponding August article from Viet Nam News, "Goal: English 2nd university language," can be found at: http://vietnamnews.vn/society/301102/goal-english-2nd-university-language.html#G1zIcj9QpkoLX7db.99. Notably, per that article:
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Besides, only a third of English teachers at primary and high schools meet teaching standards, according to the ministry.
In the recent national high school graduation exams, students fared worst in English out of the eight compulsory subjects, with an overwhelming number scoring 2-3.5 out of 10.
The public was shocked when the results were announced, but both the students and teachers admitted they reflect the candidates’ true ability.
Prof Trần Xuân Nhị, a former deputy education minister, said children should study English in kindergarten, adding that they are capable of learning new languages at a very early age. |
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TRH
Joined: 27 Oct 2011
Posts: 340
Location: Hawaii
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| Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| Prof Trần Xuân Nhị, a former deputy education minister, said children should study English in kindergarten, adding that they are capable of learning new languages at a very early age. |
He has the right idea but should have added that they will be much more capable of learning another language in Kindergarten. They should push the 3rd grade start all the way back. The 7,700 local teachers they are short is actually less than the 8,100 Giao Vien Nuoc Tay that I calculated would be needed to give every school child in every grade a foreign teacher for one period a week. The number would be a lot higher but I factored in two 25% dropout points after grades 5 and 8 and a 25 hour week for the teachers.
The current idea of starting mandatory English classes at grade 10 is absurd. I have taught those classes too, when my director begged me to. Perhaps one or two students wanted to learn and the rest were there because they had to be.
| skarper wrote: |
| It would be child's play for professional English Teachers with experience of Vietnam to design a system that would work and be cost effective. But no-one is asking us. |
Could you give us a rough idea of how you would do it? 100 words or less.  |
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skarper
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 477
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| Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:15 am Post subject: |
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| TRH - I certainly could but I surely shan't. |
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mark_in_saigon
Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 837
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:33 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| It would be child's play for professional English Teachers with experience of Vietnam to design a system that would work and be cost effective. But no-one is asking us. |
| Quote: |
| Could you give us a rough idea of how you would do it? 100 words or less |
Just spend the majority of the money charged students on actual costs. Ever notice the wealth of the guys who truly benefit from these businesses? They have big houses, cars, "relationships". They often speak English less skillfully than the students!
When VN teachers of English get perhaps 5% of the income from classes, and foreigners get maybe 20%, obviously we are not caring about quality of teachers or student outcomes.
One can easily "design" the system, but making it work here is a different kettle of fish. It is their kettle, and they do not want us deciding what goes in and what comes out. |
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I'm With Stupid
Joined: 03 Sep 2010
Posts: 432
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| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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| TRH wrote: |
| Where I think the government and the industry should be going is with "teach the teacher." There should be evening classes custom designed for elementary and secondary school teachers. They could encompass both the teachers own fluency and EFL instructional techniques. I know there is a desire for improvement from the questions I used to get from the local English teachers, particularly the younger ones. Down the road this should be an opportunity for those younger and more ambitious than I. |
The government are between a rock and a hard place. Imagine that you double the salary of English teachers in schools to attract higher level English speakers into the profession. What do you think the reaction of teachers of other subjects would be? Subjects that are arguably being taught a lot better than English is. Politically, it's a lot easier to pay foreigners much more than it is to pay Vietnamese teachers a little more, even if the latter is the more cost-effective long-term solution.
So you could invest in improving the level of English of the teachers, but that's difficult for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's a very slow process. It would take an estimated 200 hours of classroom study for teachers to go up one level. And the risk you run here is that you end up basically training teachers to get better paying jobs elsewhere. The other issue is one of maintaining that level. There are teachers who I'm sure were pretty good at English when the graduated, but 10 years living in an area with no other English speakers, teaching exclusively low-level classes isn't going to help them keep that level. Perhaps a way of getting around this would be to have pay scales linked to IELTS (or similar) scores, although I can't help but think that would just create a huge market for fake IELTS certificates. But as far as I know, no education system in the world has ever produced a population that's great at English by putting native speakers in classrooms.
Scott Thornbury said a while back that you're far better of spending 20 hours doing training in teaching methodology than you are spending 200 hours trying to improve the level of English of the teachers, and I can't help but agree. Yes having a fluent speaker is ideal, but it's not always practical. You also have to look at the aims of the education system. From what I've seen, Vietnam (along with Korea and Japan) prioritizes passing tests over communication and then is surprised when they produce students that are good at passing tests and not so good at communicating. It's like teaching someone to read and write sheet music and then being confused when you sit them in front of a piano and they can't play it.
Incidentally, I taught some of the professors for this scheme. It's not just university subjects, but vocational training too. They were great and eager to learn, but they were elementary and pre-int classes (pre-int and int by the time I finished with them  ), which is fair enough, because they weren't English teachers. It was successful, but I'm not entirely sure of the aims of the government. I mean none of them are likely to be delivering classes in English, because even if their level is good enough, their students' probably isn't. |
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