Big cities also face many challenges

In recent years, the teaching and learning of English has received great attention and investment from parents, students and educational institutions. However, to make English a second language in the school environment, instead of just a subject or for exams, there are still many challenges, even in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

It can be seen that this is a task that is considered a breakthrough, important but also challenging.

Ho Quoc Hung, a student majoring in Business English at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, shared that he himself encountered many difficulties in the process of learning English. Thanks to proactive learning and finding suitable methods, he not only improved his English ability but also gradually fell in love with this language. That became the motivation for him to decide to study English at university level, with the desire to explore more deeply the language and culture of English-speaking countries.

Hung hopes that in the future, the English curriculum in high schools will have more creative innovations, helping students approach the language more naturally and effectively.

"From a personal perspective, I think the English teaching program in high school still has many limitations and is not really attractive to students. The curriculum mainly focuses on grammar and reading and writing skills for exams. Traditional teaching methods are not innovative, mainly revolving around lecturing and doing exercises, making it difficult for students to practice the language. The content in textbooks is also quite academic, although there are new points compared to the new book series, it is not really close to life, making learning dry and lacking in application ," Hung said.

Over the past years, Ho Chi Minh City has been implementing many breakthrough programs and projects such as the English enhancement program; the program "Teaching and learning Math, Science and English integrating English and Vietnamese programs" (Project 5695); the high-quality school model "Advanced, internationally integrated school"... Schools have taken many measures to improve the quality of teaching and learning English. Many schools are proactive, creative, and organize many rich activities, helping students have a foreign language environment, experience and use it in practice.

However, with a large immigrant population, large class sizes and uneven student levels, teachers have difficulty teaching appropriately to each student.

In addition, traditional teaching methods still focus mainly on preparing for exams, while students have few opportunities to practice and use English in real-life environments.

Students also face many difficulties such as many have difficulties in listening and speaking skills, uneven readiness to access learning content in English, leading to difficulties in keeping up with the curriculum.

Study for grades, study for exams

Ms. Tran Lam Thao, Director of TiTBrain Extracurricular Skills School (Tan Phu, Ho Chi Minh City), commented: English has now become a popular language, many parents let their children learn English from an early age. However, not every family has the conditions to let their children learn a foreign language from an early age. Children's ability to learn is limitless, but the speed of absorption is different for each child. When having to receive many streams of knowledge, children need teachers to help them allocate energy and think reasonably.

"When children have to learn many different subjects, including subjects using English, the learning speed needs more time to adapt. However, in many public schools today, teachers' English proficiency is still a challenge . The number of teachers who can teach specialized subjects in English is limited ," said Ms. Thao.

Similarly, sharing about the difficulties in teaching and learning foreign languages ​​in schools in Ba Dinh district, Dr. Le Duc Thuan - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Ba Dinh district (Hanoi), said: "Although it is a central district of the capital, there is still a difference in the qualifications of teachers between schools, and within a school. Besides, there is a shortage of teachers with good expertise and experience. The difficulties of education in Ba Dinh district are related to the issue of facilities, teaching and learning equipment, including infrastructure and digital platforms. Although the district has paid attention to investing in the recent period (2,300 billion VND for the last 5 years), the above number still does not meet the very high requirements of foreign language teaching in general, and English teaching in the 4.0 era.

Not to mention, the 2018 general education program's goals are there, but when implemented, there is a situation where teachers teach for exams. Students study for exams, parents also let their children study for scores... Therefore, the goal of teaching foreign languages ​​has been deviated . Students can be confident in reading and writing, but communication is still limited."

Although there are still many difficulties that need to be resolved, in reality there are many teachers who are passionate about their profession and creatively combine theory with practical activities, creating a close and comfortable learning environment, helping students not to be afraid to communicate in English in every class...

(To be continued)

Source: https://phunuvietnam.vn/tung-buoc-dua-tieng-anh-tro-thanh-ngon-ngu-thu-hai-trong-truong-hoc-20250314161936689.htm