THE Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), along with universities and English language teaching associations, agree that university graduates in Vietnam generally have poor English skills, which do not allow them to use English in their jobs, the VietNamNet Bridge has reported.
Doan Hong Nam, a representative from the US Educational Testing Service, said students need to have 480 periods of English to get a good score in the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), the minimum level they need to have to be eligible for employment. However, currently most Vietnamese universities only offer 240 periods of English teaching according to the curriculum set by the MOET. Those universities have admitted that students do not have enough periods to improve their English skills. Therefore, it is necessary to remove periods from other subjects to focus on teaching English to students.
MOET’s Deputy Minister, Banh Tien Long, said the ministry only has part of the responsibility for English teaching quality, while universities have to take a bigger responsibility for students’ poor English skills. Currently, about 54 percent of universities do not check the English level of students. As a result, students with bad English skills are put in the same class with those with good skills. On average, there are 48 students in every class, which proves to be a very high number, and students do not have enough chance to practice English.
Furthermore, the evaluation of English is based on reading and grammar exercises, and the use of English for communication is ignored. Only 10 percent of the total time spent on English teaching is in the language laboratory.
The lack of English teachers is a prominent problem, according to the MOET. Many English teachers at universities are also unsatisfactory. They generally have low English skills because they do not keep updated. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on building up a contingent of English lecturers, assessing them periodically and sending them abroad for re-training.
