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REALITY
What stop teachers from speaking English?
1. Students misunderstand the lessons & activities
We’re afraid that students cannot follow our instructions to join in games and activities. In other
words, when teaching a structure or vocab, students normally don’t understand or directly say
“con khoong bieets”. Then, the teacher will translate after speaking English. From there, students
form a bad habit of just waiting to hear Vietnamese to understand. They will recognize that the
teacher will speak Vietnamese to explain for them. Then, they just wait to heat Vietnamese.
The best way is to use the most basic structures and vocabulary to teach and explain to students.
Ex: I say the word and you slap the board. sometimes you can elaborate with body language.
2. The habit of translating English into Vietnamese when teaching English
This habit is formed by the old method of learning English. In the past, teachers often taught us
English in the following way: " Con mèo là Cat", " Con chó là Dog"... From there, the habit of
unconsciously translating into English was formed.
Besides, we have a habit of looking up the dictionary to understand the meaning of vocabulary
but we use it incorrectly. For example, when you look up the word "flower" in the dictionary,
you know that it means "bông hoa" in Vietnamese, but you do not associate this word with the
image of a flower, but simply remember the Vietnamese meaning of the word just looking up. If
this habit is maintained for a long time, listening to English will become very difficult, students
will have difficulty remembering, and will have difficulty keeping up with the speaking speed of
native speakers.
3. Noisy and messy classes
Sometimes the class is too noisy and you speaking English won't help but make the class noisier.
So sometimes we have to use Vietnamese like " Cả lớp giữ trật tự, bạn nào không ngoan cô trừ
sao nhé" then in general all students will hear and be nice.
Therefore, it is unavoidable to sometimes use Vietnamese when teaching, especially when
teaching primaty school students. But we need to try to limit the use of VIETNAMESE as much
as possible, and create an English environment which benefits both students and teacher. The
ideal percentage that we should use English in a lesson is 80-90%.