Vietnam Students Weak at Foreign Languages, Experts Say

Vietnamese students are still weak at foreign languages though language training centers have been mushrooming in Vietnam, especially in big cities like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, experts said. Most local students just learn foreign languages to pass their exams and get university degrees, while they do not think they will use foreign languages in their future jobs, experts attributed. Many students are even afraid of learning foreign languages, they added, admitting that Vietnamese students are much inferior to regional students in listening and speaking. Nguyen Huy Hoang, head of the English Division under the Huynh Thuc Khang High School in Quang Ngai province, said though students are forced to learn foreign languages for seven years at high schools, most of them after graduation still cannot speak any foreign languages. The same is occurring with university education. Dr Lam Quang Dong, dean of the English Faculty under the Foreign Language University of the Hanoi National University, said university lecturers have to teach what students learned at high schools because many students are “foreign language illiterate again”. In order to improve foreign language skills, many students go to foreign language centers, where they are told that they can practice the four necessary skills intensively. However, many of them have not fulfilled their dream. In fact, the training curriculums now applied in Vietnam’s education system is still problematic, which does not allow students to intensively practice the four necessary skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Meanwhile, teachers do not have many opportunities to go abroad to practice English to improve their knowledge, Dr Dong explained. Vietnam adopted a project on foreign language training for the period 2008-2020, under which primary school pupils are compulsory to learn English right at grade three and at least 60,000 English teachers will be standardized by 2020. (VietNamNet Feb 22)