The English language teaching in primary schools in Vietnam

Since the 1990s, English has been taught in a pilot program at language centres and some primary schools in cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Nguyen 2007). In 1996, English became an elective subject starting from Grade 3 (8 years of age), with two 40-minute periods per week (Nguyen 2011). These schools received sufficient teaching resources and support from the parents, but speaking competence was not achieved.

Seeing the need to improve the current system, the MOET publicized the aims of teaching English in primary schools and the policies to realize these aims (MOET 2003). The three aims were:

The MOET launched an English curriculum that gave the numbers of words that the students must learn: Grade 3, 120-140 words; Grade 4, 140-160 words; and Grade 5, 180-200 words (Nguyen 2011). The government set the aim of students communicating in English in various settings, and the solution was to learn vocabulary.

The vocabulary curriculum led to the use of various inappropriate textbooks for Vietnamese students. There is a debate on whether or not teachers should use English textbooks. Some teachers have complained that the textbooks have a boring style and are less than useful as a source for classroom teaching, while others have a more positive attitude (Harmer 2007). Textbooks are useful guidelines for both the teachers and students, while others demonstrated the danger of being restricted to a particular textbook and the lack of practice teachers end up with, in terms of preparing materials and instruction (Ander 2015). However, in the context of Vietnam, textbooks are basically used for almost every curriculum. According to (Harmer 2007), English teachers can use textbooks to take advantage of quality materials with a detailed syllabus for grammar, appropriate vocabulary, practice, pronunciation focus, and exercises. Moreover, some textbooks include a teachers’ book which assist the teachers with procedures and the implementation of new ideas. This advantage saves much time for teachers in comparison with preparing the materials and instruction by themselves. Furthermore, from the point of the students, textbooks provide a grammatical and fundamental framework that assumes the common needs of learners, as well as enabling them to study topics in advance (Hedge 2008) or revise previous topics, and consequently keep track of their own progress. Thus, selecting suitable textbooks is an important key to implementing the goals of a curriculum, as well as the education’s goals.

1. “Forming basic English communicative skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing for students to be able to communicate in English at schools, at home and familiar social environments.

2. Providing students with a fundamental knowledge of English to gain a primary understanding of the country, people and culture of some English speaking countries.

3. Building positive attitudes to English, and better understanding and love for Vietnamese through learning. Furthermore, student’s intelligence, personality and learning method will have also been gradually formed.”

As seen in Table 1, the most widely used English textbook from the school years 1999-2000 to 2010-2011 was “Let’s Go” (Educational Publishing House). Thai (2005) criticized the textbooks for being ambiguous, unappealing, lacking games and pronunciation exercises, and the attached cassette tapes were poor and insufficient in numbers. He did, however, praise the topics for vocabulary and the grammar was consistent. Moon (2005), on behalf of the British Council, also reiterates Thai’s opinions that the focus and types of activities in the textbooks were not appropriate for students.

The “Let’s Go” series is no longer published, and was replaced by the “Let’s Learn English” series. “Let’s Learn English” comes with three books, a teacher’s guide, and a workbook. This series was written by Vietnamese authors,⁴ and published by the Educational Publishing House of Vietnam, Panpac Education in Singapore, and the British Council in Vietnam.

4Nguyen Quoc Tuan Phan Ha Dao Ngoc Loc and Do Thi Ngoc Hien

Table 1. The number of school teachers and students from the school years 1999-2000 to 2010-2011 (Thai 2005).

No. Province Classes* Schools** Students*** Teachers Publisher and Material

8 Da Nang 1555/2017 94/95 54,091/67,656 - Educational Publishing House

9 Quang

Ngai 273 61/230 23,889 95 -

10 Khanh Hoa 237/3758 36/182 8102/113,783 - Centre for Educational Technology: Let’s Go

14 Dong Thap 2343/5726 306/306 72,893/153,368 326 Educational Publishing House

15 Tien Giang 531 60 18,478 58 Let’s Go

* Number of classes teaching this English pilot program over the total number of classes in the school.

** Number of schools implementing this program over the total number of schools in the province.

*** Number of students who were taught English by this program over the total number of students in the province.

Despite the previous setbacks, the MOET issued the national plan “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Formal Educational System in the Period of 2008-2020” in 2008 (Ngoc 2014). According to the latest MOET directive, issued in August 2010, the curriculum encompasses the following guidelines:

• The need for teaching English at the primary level;

• The principles for developing the curriculum;

• The objectives, teaching contents, recommended methodology, evaluation and prerequisite requirements for the implementation; and

• Specific directions for teaching contents for each grade.

(Nguyen 2011, 231) The school year 2010-2011 saw major changes in the primary school curriculum. English was to be taught as a compulsory subject from Grades 3 to 5, for a total of 420 periods (140 periods per grade). The curriculum was designed so that the primary school students would reach the A1 level in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages (Nguyen 2011). The CEFR provides a detailed recipe for leading instructors and curriculum developers to nurture the cognitive development and enhanced language skills in accordance with the generally accepted theories of language teaching (Thornbury 2006). This reference framework is widely used in different countries for various languages and is taken into consideration when developing and selecting textbooks for the different required levels.

The definition of the A1 level in the CEFR is shown in Table 2. The A1 level puts more emphasis on speaking and listening than reading and writing skills. Although in Vietnam, the exams almost never test speaking skills, so the students inherently focus more on grammar and vocabulary.

To supplement the new curriculum, the government defined the first official English textbook for primary school students. The series, “Let’s Learn English” was replaced by

‟Tiếng Anh 1, 2, 3” (English 1, 2, 3), which adopts a learner-centred and communicative approach, with a straightforward textbook structure and many listening and speaking activities. Eventually, “English 3, 4, 5” were published and used immediately. Table 3 consists of an example of the book map for Unit 1 and Unit 2 of “English 4”. The content

and the requirements of each lesson are very clear and focus on the communicative competence⁵ of the A1 level in the CEFR.

Table 2. The criteria for the A1 level in the European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council for Cultural Co-operation 2009, 24-26).⁶

5 The communicative approach will be discussed more thoroughly in the Communicative Language Teaching chapter. It refers to the ability to understand and to communicate effectively in authentic social and school environments.

6 “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning Teaching Assessment” was published by the Cambridge University Press.

Table 3. An example of a book map from an English textbook, “English 4” (Van et al. 2010)

In order for the country and the citizens to continuously improve their livelihood, it is paramount that the Vietnamese people can speak English fluently. The government recognizes that there must be a revolution in English language teaching because there is a more pressing need to acquire fluency in speaking and not accuracy in writing (Wright 2002). The government has made countless educational reforms in the last three decades.

Not all the reforms have led to the desired outcome of competent English speakers, but the latest reform has brought about a standard goal and a uniform textbook and number of hours of English language learning across the nation. Although it is too early to foresee the outcomes, the changes are likely to be more successful than in the past, because they make use of a proven, well-researched approach, the Communicative Language Teaching Methodology.

Due to the importance of the English language, and the demand for teachers, a good command of English is necessary to satisfy the market demands. In the 1960s, English was taught using grammar-based, translation-based, or repetition-based methods (now known as traditional language teaching). By the 1970s, a new approach was introduced, focusing on what the traditional approach lacked most, which is speaking the language proficiently.

The new approach, known as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), aims to teach language for the purposes of communication. In this chapter, the traditional and CLT methods will firstly be compared and contrasted, and then the advantages and disadvantages of both methods will be discussed. Afterward, a brief history of CLT, the evolution of the theory and the research and practice of CLT will be provided in order to see why CLT is important and necessary for the students’ developing communicative competences, especially in speaking proficiency.

4.1. Traditional language teaching methods

The ‘traditional language teaching approach’ is an umbrella term for language teaching methods developed before the 1970s. This term refers to some kind of teacher-centered instruction. The most commonly used methods were the grammar-translation, direct and audio-lingual methods. These methods were used for most of the 19^th century to teach modern foreign languages (Richards and Rodgers 2001).

As early as the seventeenth century, the grammar-translation method was the way languages were taught in schools. This approach focuses on analyzing and studying the grammatical rules of a language by translating to and from one’s mother tongue and the target language (Widdowson and Howatt 2004). Using grammar and vocabulary accurately is central to the grammar-translation approach (Larsen-Freeman and Anderson 2011).

Teaching English at a primary school in Vietnam, where so far - despite a recent language policy, according to the teaching of English mainly according to traditional teaching methods and social forms (grammar-translation method, focus on literacy, frontal teaching) is taught - to be aligned with the communicative approach.

The grammar-translation method is an academic exercise, using grammar to learn the target language, rather than an exercise to assist the learners in using the language (Cook