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Thirty Years of English Language and English Education in Vietnam

Nhan Trong Nguyen

English Today / FirstView Article / August 2016, pp 1 - 3

DOI: 10.1017/S0266078416000262, Published online: 21 June 2016

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0266078416000262

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Nhan Trong Nguyen Thirty Years of English Language and English Education in Vietnam. English
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Thirty Years of English Language
and English Education in
Vietnam
NHAN TRONG NGUYEN
Current reflections on English as the most important foreign
language in Vietnam, and key issues for English education
in the Vietnamese context
In Vietnam, the history of the English language and
English education has a direct bearing on politics,
economy and social affairs (Wright, 2002), and is
particularly tied up with the reform policy known
as Doi Moi, which was adopted by the sixth
National Congress of the Communist Party in
1986. Doi Moi has brought about huge achieve-
ments in terms of gross domestic product growth
and foreign direct investment attraction (Thanh &
Duong, 2009). These achievements have had a pro-
found impact on the development of English as a
foreign language (EFL) in Vietnam.
Since Doi Moi came into existence in 1986, the
demand for English has been rapidly growing in
Vietnam (Huan, 2014). English has become a fever
gripping the nation and millions of Vietnamese peo-
ple have studied English for different reasons, such
as to expand overseas study options, to look for well-
paid jobs and to enhance job promotion prospects
(Thinh, 2006; Canh, 2007). In addition, World
Trade Organization membership in 2006 has
increased the importance of English to both the
Vietnamese government and people. A decree issued
in 1994 by the Vietnamese Prime Minister requires
every government worker to reach an intermediate
level of English proficiency (Huong & Hiep,
2010), and by 2020 most Vietnamese students and
workers are expected to be able to use a foreign lan-
guage, especially English, appropriately in their
study, daily communication, and work (Ministry of
Education and Training, 2009).
English is being studied at kindergartens, primary
and high schools, colleges and universities, and for-
eign language centres throughout Vietnam. Vang
doi:10.1017/S0266078416000262
English Today page 1 of 3 (2016). Printed in the United Kingdom
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(2004) reported that 98% of Vietnamese students at
all school levels were learning English.
Furthermore, 67% of junior high school students
and 86% of senior high school students in Vietnam
had more than three hours of English study per
week (Ministry of Education and Training, 2006),
and 90% of tertiary students in Vietnam, regardless
of their majors, chose to study English out of the
many foreign languages on offer, such as Japanese,
Korean, French and Chinese (Canh, 2007).
Vietnamese university students of non-English
majors are required to study English for 200 hours
over four years (Huong & Hiep, 2010).
In order to satisfy a range of learning needs, differ-
ent English courses and training programs have been
developed in recent years, and nearly a thousand
NHAN TRONG NGUYEN is
an EFL Lecturer at Ho Chi
Minh City University of
Transport, Vietnam.
Currently, he is a PhD
candidate at the University of
the Sunshine Coast, Australia,
where he is investigating
classroom code-switching
between English and
Vietnamese. He obtained his MA in Applied
Linguistics from Curtin University of Technology,
Australia, and Postgraduate Diploma in TESOL from
SEAMEO RELC, Singapore. His research interests
include bilingual education, English for specific
purposes, and second language acquisition. Email:
Nhan.Nguyen@research.usc.edu.au
© 2016 Cambridge University Press 1
IP address: 131.111.164.128
foreign language centres and schools have been
established throughout Vietnam (Thinh, 2006).
However, the quality of English education at all
levels in Vietnam is still low, and does not meet
the country’s ambitious socio-economic develop-
ment demands (Vu & Burns, 2014). Despite the in-
creasingly important role of English in Vietnam,
most of its usage thus far has been confined to the
classroom (Huong & Hiep, 2010). Vietnamese lear-
ners of EFL quite naturally have few opportunities to
use English outside the classroom unless they are in
special jobs or situations where they have opportun-
ities to communicate with English speakers (Canh,
2007; Nhan & Lai, 2012c, 2013).
Vietnam has not yet formulated a national policy
on the medium of instruction in foreign language
education (Nguyen, 2013). Therefore, Vietnamese
teachers or instructors and learners can use both
English and Vietnamese in their English classes,
and code-switching (CS) between English and
Vietnamese is unquestionably popular in these con-
texts (Canh, 2014). Research on CS in the EFL con-
text of Vietnam shows that classroom CS is not
detrimental to general English teaching and learn-
ing, but a useful and important resource for both
Vietnamese learners and instructors (Nguyen,
2013). English-Vietnamese CS has gained consid-
erable support from both Vietnamese EFL teachers
and students, and has been used as a classroom aid
to enhance English language acquisition, save time
in giving instruction, explain vocabulary and gram-
mar, compare and contrast the two languages, check
comprehension, give feedback, create a friendly
atmosphere of the class and support student-group
dynamics (Hien, 2012; Nhan & Lai, 2012a).
In terms of English language teaching (ELT) meth-
odology, many Vietnamese teachers of English claim
that they have used Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) in their classrooms (Le, 2011).
However, it is unclear how thoroughly this method
has been applied in reality, as there is a mismatch be-
tween CLT tenets and traditional Vietnamese class-
room cultures. For example, CLT principles such as
‘calling for learner involvement, allowing learners’
choice, changing teachers’ and students’ roles,
and breaking down hierarchic barriers in the class-
room’ (Larsen-Freeman, 2000: 66) challenge basic
Vietnamese socio-cultural and educational values.
The transfer of CLT from Western contexts to
Vietnam has encountered constraints such as trad-
itional teaching and learning for examinations,
conventional beliefs about teacher and student
roles, learners’ low levels of motivation, autonomy
and competence, and teachers’ limited expertise.
High-school Vietnamese EFL teachers mainly
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prepare their students with the linguistic knowledge
to deal with the national secondary education
examination, which is grammar-based, and most
Vietnamese students learn English also for that
instrumental purpose, i.e. to pass examinations rather
than to communicate (Loi, 2011). The formal class-
room in Vietnam is described as a cultural island
(Canh, 2000) where the power distance or the hier-
archic relationship between teachers-as-superiors
and students-as-inferiors is very distinctive (Nhan
& Lai, 2012b, 2012c). In addition, Vietnamese tea-
chers are supposed to be both mentors and masters
of knowledge in the classroom, and they are respon-
sible for guiding their students in not only academic
matters but also moral behaviours (Hiep, 2005).
In terms of Vietnamese EFL teachers’ expertise,
Canh (2002: 33) has proposed that Vietnamese
EFL teachers ‘are generally incapable of teaching
English communicatively in their real-world class-
rooms.’ While this may be a somewhat overstated
claim, it is certainly open to question whether
Vietnamese teachers of English are ‘ready for
such a radical change from more traditional meth-
ods and approaches’ (Barnard & Viet, 2010: 78).
Bock (2000) suggests that Vietnam should conduct
its own studies on the effectiveness of CLT in its
own contexts before embarking on a widespread
adoption. In agreement with Bock’s suggestion,
Hiep (2000: 23) argues that ‘modern teaching
methods should be applied with a close and careful
consideration of the cultural values of Vietnam.’
My English-language-teaching experience shows
that the large number of students in EFL classrooms
in Vietnam and their mixed-levels of English profi-
ciency exert a strong influence on teachers’ ELT
methodology. For instance, many Vietnamese tea-
chers in crowded English classrooms of 80 students
in Hue University reported using only one teaching
method of traditional lecturing (Dung & Anh, 2010).
As concluded by Tran (2014), the traditional lecture-
based teaching is still the most prevalent instruction-
al approach in the context of Vietnamese higher edu-
cation. However, there has been a considerable
change towards more student-centred approaches
in Vietnamese schools, and Cooperative Learning
(CL) has been recently used (Tran & Lewis,
2012). According to Gömleksiz (2007: 616), CL
that generally means ‘students working together to
achieve the objectives and the instructional proced-
ure that structure the students’ collaborative efforts’
has been successfully implemented in many ELT
contexts. In large and mixed-ability university
classes in Vietnam, some CL techniques such as
Learning Together (Tran, 2014) and Jigsaw (Tran
& Lewis, 2012) have been claimed as more effective
IP address: 131.111.164.128
than transmission teaching lectures. There is a rea-
sonable prospect that English will continue playing
its role as the most important foreign language in
Vietnam, and that the adoption of English will ex-
tend beyond the language classroom context to
cover more and more areas. ELT in Vietnam will ad-
dress the issue of teacher development, create a bet-
ter understanding of how learning takes place, and
encourage more student-centred activities.
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