By Trinh Thi Thu Hien - EFL 523 Listening and Speaking Techniques Course

email: huyhienminh@yahoo.com - Home phone: 084 383 33 220 - Mobile: 098 919 6885

I have just found on internet a reading text that I like. It is about

Cultural Effects on Learning and Teaching English in Vietnam by
Nguyen Thi Hoai An. I would like to write some comments.
To begin with my some comments I would like to summarize the
writing as below: First, the author talked about the country was at year
of 1990s English gained its position from Russian and French because
of the open-door policy with the presence of multinationals in Vietnam.
Second, it is an overview of how cultural factors affect the learning and
teaching English in Vietnam. Ms An also pointed out that English
teaching is exam-oriented, aiming training for two most important
exams: high school graduation and National English exam. In the
writing, the author divided the effect of Confucianism into two issues:
traditional method and implementing CLT with two objects: learners
and teachers.
For learners’ attitude, the CLT was not welcomed in the past. The
Confucianism is stamped in classroom culture. The Confucian model is
teacher-centered, closed, suspicious of creativity and predicated on an
unquestioning obedience from learners. So that learners were good at
doing grammar exercises but bad at grammar usage for speaking and
writing. Moreover, the author frankly talked that English was taught as
a decontextualised subject. Learners were strongly affected by passing
the test. In fact, there are no real communicative tests in Vietnam, this
activity hardly see in class and is considered unrealistic and
impracticable. But some years later, the learners were hospitable to
learn communicative approach. Learners were willing to take part in
speaking English clubs, pair work and group work in classroom instead
of being subservient and quiet. Besides, the learners realize the need
of actual communicative context is to emerge but traditional learning
and teaching styles do not help them communicative with both native
and nonnative English speakers. The result of the survey suggest that
Vietnamese learners are no longer completely passive. CLT gradually
has worked well with learners.
For teachers’ attitude, one of the main reason for grammar translation
is that teachers are always expected to know all about the answers,
grammar rules. The power-distance relationship between teachers and
learners along with Confucian cultural inheritance make learners
exclusively depend on the teachers’ excellence. Teachers is viewed as
the producer, expertise to fulfill learners’ demand and blamed when
learning does not occur. But the teachers are open-mind to accept rote
learning is not the best way to learning English. They changed their
teaching methods from grammar and translation activities to more
communicative activities. With some difficulties, teachers have
accepted CLT. They have also agreed to change their important roles
in classroom.
In conclusion, the author give a sentence that Vietnamese education is
till heavily influenced by the traditional grammar translation centered
methods. There is still a long way to go but it is justifiable to take an
optimistic view of learning and teaching English in Vietnam.
With the above summary, I have more understanding about the
changing the learing and teaching English in Vietnam. I was a teacher
 By Trinh Thi Thu Hien - EFL 523 Listening and Speaking Techniques Course
email: huyhienminh@yahoo.com - Home phone: 084 383 33 220 - Mobile: 098 919 6885
at some language centers. I myself think that I am the one who was
affected by Confucian culture. I have said that changing a teaching
method need long time not immediately because the traditional
methods dominate for long time. For learners’ attitude, I agree with Ms
An‘s arguements. Even now, learners are motivated by passing tests,
they do not pay much attention to speaking English. Furthermore, the
topic is not familiar with them, for example, in class 12 students will
learn about economic reforms. They say that we do not understand
real meaning of some words such as: inflation, National congress... but
when I taught them one unit about Future jobs, they discussed
enthusiastically. They do that because they know speaking English is
not used in classroom, it is used outside classroom. If they want to
have a job, they should speak English well because most of enterprises
would like to employ who can communicate with English. They are
aware of the importance of English so learn now is better than later.
With the changes of teaching methods, my students are not
completely passive, they get used to working in pairs, groups. After the
reading text, I require my students summarise then speak out so that
they not only can understand reading easily and they also can learn
new vocabularies, structure in real context. I often tell them that: when
they speak out that mean their knowledge not rote learning. In my
opinion CLT should be understood flexibly, not only teach speaking, we
can combine some skills such as: teaching reading with speaking,
listening with speaking, and writing with speaking. So that learners
make full use of change to practice English.
For teachers’ attitude, I also agree with the writer. The teachers are
always under pressure that they know every answers when they are in
front of students. If any teachers can not give answers, they will be
considered as bad teachers then students do not respect the teachers.
So sometimes, we avoid students’ difficult questions. I know that it is
not good but we are affected by culture. I would like my teacher, Mrs
Rosemary, give me some suggestions for this situation. Teachers in
Vietnam are assesses by the results of learners’ exams. In order to
help students can do exams well, we often teach students grammar
and vocabularies by learning by heart. Now I am facing a real situation
that is I stopped teaching for two weeks to learn MS class of Southern
Newhampshire, at the same time my students took part in midterm
test. They get very poor result, only eight out of thirty eight students
get 5 points. then I am blamed for bad teaching methods. I am very
sad. I can give more information, my students learn when they are
pushed up by me, head teacher.
To sum up, I believe that sooner or later CLT approach will be not far
from both teachers and students. Day by day I can feel the change
clearly. After graduating from high school, students will be able to
communicate with English both speaking and writing.