Vietnam - English teaching program may fail ‘cause of the lack of teachers’

LookAtVietnam - A lot of primary schools in HCM City still dare not approach the pilot program on teaching English to primary school students, because they do not have English teachers.

Different curricula for different schools

Primary schools in HCM City are following different English teaching curricula – optional English, intensive English, Cambridge’s English teaching program and extracurricular programs such as DynEd and Phonics.

The tuitions and teaching hours also vary: 30,000 dong per month for optional English (4 hours per week), 50,000 dong per month for intensive English (with native English speakers, 8 hours per week), 150 dollars for Cambridge’s program (6 hours per week, foreign teachers appointed by Cambridge University).

Besides the curricula chosen to be applied by the schools, students of the schools are also following the pilot English teaching program set up by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Parents have complained that the curricula and teachers change so regularly that it badly affects the children’s learning. Nguyen Thi Minh, a parent whose son is a fifth grader of a primary school in district 3, said that the school has changed English teachers twice within the first three weeks of the new academic year.

Le Tan Luong, a parent whose son is a student of a primary school in district 8, said that he can see English lessons in the boy’s timetable. However, the boy has not had any English lesson so far this academic year, because the school has not found teachers.

Especially, Nguyen Dat Su, Deputy Headmaster of the Luong Dinh Cua Primary School, said that the school does not put English lessons into the students’ timetable, according to the parents’ wishes. As such, the school will only have 16 French intensive classes.

According to Su, parents have agreed to replace English lessons with the lessons about life skills,  because they believe that their children can learn English at foreign language centers instead of at school.

Meanwhile, the document released by the district 3’s education sub-department said that first graders will begin learning English from the ninth week of the first semester of the 2011-2012 academic year, and they will have 8 English periods per week for which parents will have to pay 50,000 dong a month. Those students, who do not follow the English intensive program, can follow the optional program with 2-5 periods per week.

Overly high requirements set on English teachers

The Ministry of Education and Training has required all the teachers who teach English at grammar schools must have at least 550 points from TOEFL or 6 points from IELTS. Meanwhile, the requirements have been described as too high and impractical.

Tran Thi Ngoc Van, Headmaster of the Tran Quoc Thao Primary School in district 3, said that looking for standardized English teachers proves to be the biggest headache for her. The school now has 13 qualified English teachers, who sign the contracts on working for the school for one year. However, the supply sources of teachers are unstable, while the qualifications of the teachers are uneven.

As for Luong Dinh Cua Primary School, Su said that his school does not have the English teachers who get monthly salaries from the state budget. Therefore, the school has to hire teachers under temporary labor contracts. Meanwhile, with the modest pay of 30,000 dong per teaching period, it is very difficult to find qualified teachers.

“In order to ensure the high quality of the English teaching program, it is necessary to classify students, put students into suitable classes and have standardized teachers. Meanwhile, these requirements were cannot meet,” Su admitted.

Hoang Manh Ung from the Phan Dinh Phung Foreign Language Center, also said that it is very difficult to find qualified English teachers for primary schools. If teaching English at a primary school, one would get the pay of 1.6 million dong a month, too low to ensure his life.

Source: NLD

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