Reasons why students cannot speak English

Large class sizes, academic teaching methods that focus heavily on vocabulary, and a lack of motivation or opportunities for practice limit students' English listening and speaking skills.

According to Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Huu, Director of the National Foreign Language Project, Ministry of Education and Training , Vietnam is among the countries that use English as a foreign language. Currently, statistics on the English proficiency of Vietnamese people lack scientific basis because this requires criteria, tools, and precise sampling methods.

"Overall, the basic English proficiency of Vietnamese people improves year by year. Learning is also easier because our writing system is similar to English, unlike Chinese or Thai," Ms. Huu said at the 11th New Directions East Asia International Conference on Foreign Language Testing on October 28 in Hanoi .

Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Huu speaks at the 11th New Directions East Asia International Conference on Foreign Language Testing on October 28 in Hanoi. Photo: BC

However, Ms. Huu said that achieving a uniform level of proficiency across the country is very difficult. The first reason is the large population, and not everyone has the motivation to learn English.

Many students with high test scores still cannot speak English due to shortcomings in school teaching. Firstly, in the old high school curriculum (2006 curriculum), the teaching method was academic, with students learning more vocabulary, grammar, and phonetics than listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.

Secondly, English is a skill-based subject that requires as much practice and application as possible. However, students lack opportunities to listen and speak. Class sizes are large, and even group or pair work limits time and space.

"Many places lack the infrastructure to support effective English language learning," Ms. Huu shared.

Finally, the absence of listening and speaking sections in the high school graduation exam has somewhat negatively impacted the teaching and learning process, as the lack of exams means teachers and students don't invest as much time and effort.

Mina Patel, testing expert at the British Council, at the 11th New Directions East Asia International Conference on Foreign Language Testing on October 28 in Hanoi. Photo: BC

Mina Patel, an assessment specialist at the British Council, agrees with this view. According to her, learning is effective when two factors are present: motivation and favorable learning conditions.

Everyone in the world , not just Vietnamese people, has the ability to learn languages. The difference lies only in the conditions they find in their learning environment. If motivation only comes from superficial factors like needing to pass an exam, it's not strong enough to drive individuals to achieve greater results.

She said that students should enter the classroom with interests and a desire to learn. If they see the purpose of learning English instead of passively absorbing it, they will participate more and be more motivated.

To achieve this, teachers need to adjust their teaching methods. They need to actively engage with students and understand their interests in order to design the most suitable curriculum.

According to Ms. Huu, the direction of innovation in English language training is to develop learners' communicative language skills. Under the new general education curriculum (2018), English is a compulsory subject from grade 3 to grade 12. Students are encouraged to listen more and gradually improve their skills naturally. The goal is for students to reach level 1 according to the 6-level Foreign Language Proficiency Framework of Vietnam by the end of primary school. Similarly, the goals for secondary and high school are level 2 and level 3, respectively.

Ms. Huu stated that the program had been piloted, and students had fairly consistent listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, especially listening and speaking. Currently, the 2018 program is only being applied widely up to grade 4, so it will take another 6-8 years before a final assessment can be made.

From 2020 to the present, the average English score in the high school graduation exam for candidates nationwide has ranged from 4.58 to 5.84 out of 10 points. In four years, English has twice been the lowest-scoring subject in the graduation exam.

Dawn

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