Students of Cau Kieu Secondary School (Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City) are guided by teachers during English listening class.
Launched in November 2022 and popularized in Vietnam since January, ChatGPT currently attracts millions of users with continuously updated features. The boom of this tool also "paves the way" for a series of seminars and training courses on the use of AI in education from the ministerial to the school level throughout 2023, marking a turning point for learning and teaching foreign languages in particular and subjects in general.
Changing the "game"
With experience in teacher training and teaching in both the public and private sectors, Master Khuu Hoang Nhat Minh, Director of Development and Academics at Origins Language Academy, assessed that the trend of using AI such as ChatGPT, Bard... is currently popular in big cities and with young teachers. "However, older teachers and some provinces have not yet adapted to these tools," said Mr. Minh.
Another trend is that the integration of AI in the classroom is increasingly in-depth, personalized and helps remove barriers, instead of just stopping at lesson preparation support as before. For example, teachers now only need to grasp pedagogical principles to be able to create materials suitable for new methods, such as teaching foreign languages through tasks. Or students can directly chat with AI to develop pronunciation and communication skills, according to Mr. Minh.
"However, there are still some limitations such as the use of AI is only popular in the text to text area (returning text answers) but has not yet gone into depth in text to image (image answers), or the teacher training content has not gone into the nature of AI but is only stopping at guiding available commands for teachers to practice more. Not to mention, AI sometimes gives wrong answers, affecting the quality of learning", Master Minh shared.
According to experts, as AI becomes more widespread, teachers' roles will change from imparting knowledge to coordinating technology. This means that teachers will directly instruct each student on how to interact with technology, instead of having to teach an entire class as before. On the other hand, the importance of personality education must also be emphasized so that students can know how to use AI safely, selectively and critically.
AI tools like ChatGPT are considered to be "game-changers" in foreign language teaching and learning.
"In 2024, there will be more innovations with generative AI. This is also the year that the trend of using AI can be divided into two. One is that teachers who have effectively applied AI will continue to transform other ways of using it. Two is that those who encounter barriers or doubt the quality of content created by AI will lose faith and temporarily forget about this tool until there is another 'boost' like ChatGPT", Master Minh predicted.
"Another notable application of AI is to support students in developing good foreign languages such as English. Previously, training speaking and writing skills mainly came from the long-term accumulated capacity of both teachers and students. But since AI, the 'game' has changed thanks to the creation of better and more standard sample papers, as well as supporting teachers in guiding students' expression. This could be a trend in 2024 and help provinces and cities dramatically increase the quality of candidates," Mr. Minh noted.
New trends
On the international front, Dr. Phung Thuy Linh (Linh Phung), founder of Eduling International and Director of the English Program at Chatham University (USA), commented that many educational technology (edtech) products have in common the outstanding point of designing systems based on findings from the science of learning, creating teaching models, using data and technology to promote learning outcomes.
"The combination of the above factors is recently called learning engineering. Specifically for the Eduling Speak application, the role of AI in this system is to analyze learner data to create new content and optimize learning opportunities, while also providing immediate feedback and assistance to learners," Linh shared.
According to Dr. Linh, many teachers now see edtech products as an indispensable part. Technology helps combine teaching materials in different formats, create learning activities, and provide documents that are language tasks for learners to practice outside of class. "Teachers themselves also save working time thanks to AI technology like ChatGPT," said Ms. Linh.
Students of Nguyen Huu Tho High School (District 4, Ho Chi Minh City) in English class with foreign teachers
"Many new foreign language teaching methods are also increasingly popular, such as task-based, project-based, or content-based teaching... The essence of these methods is to start teaching with meaning and content, not with language forms such as vocabulary and grammar like the traditional way," the English expert added.
Dr. David Bish, Academic Director of EF Education First (EF), informed that in the world , including Vietnam, there are some prominent trends in English learning. For example, the English proficiency of young people is declining in some places, and the same is happening with the English proficiency of women. "Some Asian countries may also be 'turning their backs' on English, such as China and Japan," Mr. Bish noted.
Another highlight, according to the EF English Proficiency Index 2023, Vietnam is currently ranked 58th out of 113 countries and territories and is in the group with average proficiency. The two leading regions are the Red River Delta and the Southeast. And overall, the English proficiency of Vietnamese people has increased by 9 points, ranking 7th in Asia and higher than India, China, and Japan.
“The data shows Vietnam’s remarkable growth, as just two years ago, Vietnam was in the low proficiency group due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. English teaching and learning in Vietnam is more effective and flourishing than ever,” Dr. Bish commented.
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