GOOD

MORNING!
Catherine C. Larga
BEED3A
 BEST PRACTICES OF
ASEAN INTEGRATION IN
EDUCATION AND THE
ROLE OF ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TEACHING IN
LAO PDR
Red
represents the blood that was shed
for freedom and independence

White
white circle represents the prospects

for peace and a bright future

Blue
blue signifies the country’s

prosperity and the Mekong River.

 BEST PRACTICES OF
ASEAN INTEGRATION IN
EDUCATION IN LAO PDR
 BEST PRACTICES OF ASEAN
INTEGRATION IN EDUCATION IN LAO PDR

2. Bilingual Education
• Expansion of Access
• Recognizing the linguistic
• Lao PDR has made efforts to
diversity in the country, efforts
expand access to education,
have been made to
particularly at the primary
implement bilingual education
level, by increasing the
programs, particularly in rural
number of schools and
areas where minority
reducing geographical
languages are spoken
barriers to education through
alongside Lao.
infrastructure development.
 BEST PRACTICES OF ASEAN
INTEGRATION IN EDUCATION IN LAO PDR

3. Teacher Training and 4. Gender Equality

Professional Development
• The government has taken
steps to promote gender
• Emphasis has been placed on equality in education, aiming
training and professional to ensure equal access to
development for teachers to education for girls and boys
improve the quality of and to address gender
education delivery. disparities in enrollment and
retention rates.
 BEST PRACTICES OF ASEAN
INTEGRATION IN EDUCATION IN LAO PDR

5. Community Participation: 6. ICT Integration

• Efforts have been made to

• Encouraging community
participation in education
decision-making processes
has been another focus.
integrate information and
communication technology
(ICT) into the education
system to enhance teaching
and learning outcomes,
particularly in urban areas.
 BEST PRACTICES OF ASEAN
INTEGRATION IN EDUCATION IN LAO PDR

7. Public-Private 8. Inclusive Education

Partnerships
• Promote inclusive education
• Collaboration between the policies and practices to
government and private sector ensure that children with
entities has been encouraged to disabilities and other
improve the quality and marginalized groups have
efficiency of education delivery, equal access to education.
particularly in areas such as
infrastructure development and
skills training.
 THE ROLE OF ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TEACHING IN
LAO PDR
 ENGLISH IN LAOS
• Laos is a former Francophone nation.
• 1893 to 1953- the nation was occupied by France. It also had
strong alliance with the Soviet Union.
• 1986- a major shift in language ideology has occurred, when
Laos started to open up to the market-oriented system.
• From 1989–92, the Soviet Union became politically unstable,
leading to its eventual collapse. These events led the Lao PDR
government to normalise relations with Western governments
and its neighbours in Asia. It also redirected its language
policy. It gave freedom to students to choose one from a
selection of foreign languages (i.e. Russian, French, English) to
study. Most students chose English.
• 1997- Laos gained official membership of ASEAN and the
government anticipated a greater role of English for ASEAN
integration which formally took place in 2015.
 ESBE CURRICULUM AND
MULTILINGUALISM
English was made a compulsory subject in Grade

1997 6–9 of lower secondary school. More recently, the

anticipation of the ASEAN integration has led to the policy
of introducing English in earlier grades of primary school.

• Laos-1 stated: “English is a foreign language that is introduced

from primary education Grade 3 since the year 2010.”

• The current Lao curriculum stipulates that English is not taught in the
first two years of primary education. As Laos-1 stated, “we don’t have
English in Grade 1 and in Grade 2.
 ESBE CURRICULUM AND
MULTILINGUALISM
• However, the curriculum consistently provides curricular space for
English from the third grade of primary school onwards. The
curriculum allocates 45 minutes of English instruction, two to three
times per week for students in Grade 4–6 of primary school.

• Students in secondary school (Grades 7–12) receive up to 50

minutes of English instruction for two to five times per week
Table 4.2. English in Laos’s basic education
Challeges in Implementing
English as a Subject
in Basic Education
(ESBE) in LAO PDR
 Challeges in Implementing English as a Subjectin Basic Education(ESBE)
• A major challenge with teaching ESBE in Laos • Mainly focus on teaching grammar and reading.
has been the prevalence of a traditional They also shy away from implementing creative
learning culture which emphasises teacher- and innovative approaches to assessment,
centred learning which leads them to continuous use of “paper-
. based assessment” (Laos-1). This means that
• Teachers are expected to read aloud and students are tested using multiple-choice
students are expected to repeat what grammar questions written on papers, and
teachers say. teachers mainly teach English to prepare
students to sit tests.
• Students did not participate in IELTS in 2019
and no records are shown to indicate their • The latest data from 2018 shows that while the
participation in EF EPI in 2020 either. Those net enrolment rate reached 98.8 per cent in
who participated in TOEFL iBT in 2019 did not primary education, it dropped more than half in
perform better than most of their peers in secondary education (34.7 per cent). This means
the ASEAN region. that more than half of primary pupils did not
continue their education to secondary school.
Challeges in Implementing English as a Subjectin Basic Education(ESBE)

• During the Covid-19 pandemic, Laos government implemented a

lockdown of the whole nation during the early stages of the
pandemic.
• The government attempted to deliver digital learning; however, it
could not reach all student populations. To tackle this issue, the
government delivered English lessons through television
channels.
• Laos states that English lessons have been “conducted through
TV programme and it is now still showing in the educational
channel.” Laotian children who could access the internet can
learn English through digital platforms such as “Youtube”,
whereas those who have no internet access could learn through
“national TV programme”
THNANK
YOU!