It is also possible that these cultural values may be largely irrelevant, uninteresting or even confusing for learners (McKay, 2003a). As a tool of colonialism, this institution of higher education did not enjoy a real academic environment or institutional autonomy. In South Vietnam, English was the official foreign language due to the dominant influence of the US alliance. Registered office: Venture House, Cross Street, Arnold, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG5 7PJ. Television has perhaps the greatest impact in introducing the Vietnamese to the USSR (Pike, 1987, pp. ELT textbooks support the process of English teaching and learning, and bridge the gap between the output requirements of the language course and the actual practice of language learners. In conjunction with this decree, MoET launched a project entitled, Reforming and Improving the Effectiveness of Teaching and Using English in Vietnam’s National Education System, 2008-2020 (Hoa, 2011b; Huong, 2010; Lê Hùng, 2012; Manh, 2012). Other learners may have been born in Vietnam, where they may have completed some education. Experts in subject area work along with educational administrators to write the curriculum framework that determines the scope and content of these textbooks. English language education, without exception, receives great attention in Vietnam (Hoang, 2011; Lê Hùng, 2012). Adapt curriculum to provide for the needs of the student. Gradually, the Royal College became “the incubator for bureaucratic scholars” who would work for the state (T. K. Q. Nguyen, 2011. p. 126). 50/2003 QDBGD&DT, dated October 2003) (Ministry of Education and Training (MoET), 2003). During this time, Vietnamese people, with the help of a French missionary, developed a “relatively simple Romanised. This connects to my personal experience as a language teacher, one of the factors that initiated my determination to conduct this research. English was introduced across teaching curricula and became one of the requirements for government bureaucrats (Do, 1996; Hoang, 2011). And it is significant for EFL learners to raise their own cultural awareness. Thang Long University, the first nongovernment higher institution, was established on a trial basis in 1988. Later, from 1954 to 1975, with the partitioning of the country, the situation of EFL teaching and learning was different in each region according to their political direction. The Harvard Vietnamese language curriculum is designed in a four-year sequence of courses to provide students with the four practical language skills: speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Basic Vietnamese will provide you with the vocabulary and language tools to learn the basics of a foreign languagequickly and easily. Higher education in this period was paltry despite the formation of several colleges in revolutionary areas in the North. It is not officially recorded when English was first introduced into Vietnam (Hoang, 2011). Within this broad foreign language reform across the national education system, one of the significant changes is the mapping of English learners’ outcomes against the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) benchmark (Manh, 2012). Therefore, the educational system was supported by the former USSR with strong influences of the Soviet model. In spite of these rapid changes, the Soviet legacy model of higher education continues to be fully reflected in the Vietnamese higher education system (Hayden & Thiep, 2007). After years of isolation and economic stagnation, the country now showed the world its openness and willingness to integrate with international economic, political and cultural development. Brief history of Vietnamese foreign language policy in education. The tone system is a distinctive characteristic of Vietnamese phonology; for example, a word may be repeated with any one of six tones to indicate six different meanings (ma (ghost), má (mother), mà (but/that), mã (horse), mả (grave) and mạ (rice seedling)). About fifteen years ago, English language centres experienced fast development and expansion when people of all ages attended English evening classes after daytime work or study. From this analysis, the research identified the conditions needed for teaching English cultural competence. While Vietnamese is mostly used in Vietnam and by Vietnamese, the language is being learned more and more by expats in the country. From Chinese feudalism to French colonialism, from Soviet Union socialism to American capitalism, each period of higher education and foreign language instruction not only reflected the economic and political policies of Vietnam, but also profoundly changed the cultural landscape of the whole country. Students entering these universities take the National Entrance Exams in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. After 1975, the two Vietnams were unified and the country was reconstructed with support from Russia and Eastern Bloc countries. Reference this, Tags: LearningEnglish as a Foreign Language. 2: Organisation of government management system, (DOPI: Department of Planning and Investment; DARD: Department of Agriculture and, Rural Development; DOE: Department of Environment; DOF: Department of Fisheries). Designed for the purpose of international use, global ELT textbooks introduce learners to target cultural perspectives embedded in their language input. The petition, addressed to Daniel Jaffe, interim executive vice … English was a compulsory subject at primary, lower and upper secondary schools with three periods a week. In spite of considerable efforts made by Vietnamese Government and the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) during the last few decades, English education in Vietnam has failed to meet policy makers’ and learners’ expectations (Ngoc & Iwashita, 2012). In order to satisfy this demand, the government has established a flexible educational policy to mobilise diverse sources of investment for education. The first common characteristic among these universities is the students’ low level of foreign language exposure. After the country gained independence from China in the year 938, the influence of Chinese Confucianism on Vietnam remained strong (Hoa & Tuan, 2007). In the end, learners are prepared to be “both global and local speakers of English and to feel at home in both international and national cultures” (Kramsch & Sullivan, 1996, p. 211). In August 1945, the Revolution gave birth to the young Vietnam Democratic Republic. Communicative and social competence in language teaching is now emphasised: To learn a foreign language in order to use it for communicative purposes, as is now the declared aim of the Vietnamese education authorities, the learner needs to develop not only linguistic competence but also communicative and social competence in the language (Kam, 2002, p. 13). Given the important role of English and the urgent need for communicative competence in language learning, the Vietnamese government and MoET have made efforts to develop solutions to improve the quality of English teaching and learning. There are plenty of free online interactive language games for children. However, the review undertaken for this research identified an absence of research studies on ELT textbooks in Vietnam. As for English, in the school year 2003-2004, MoET introduced a new English curriculum into primary schools as a response to the perceived need for a more systematic English education at primary level. 2014; Shin, Eslami, & Chen, 2011; Song, 2013; Tahir Yaqoob & Zubair, 2012; Tajeddin & Teimournezhad, 2014; Yuen, 2011; Zarei & Khalessi, 2011). You take one 3-credit core course, 3 or 9 credits of Vietnamese language, and one or three 3-credit electives to meet the total of 15 recommended credits. In Vietnam, where English is spoken as a foreign language, students’ exposure to English and its cultures is derived mainly from ELT textbooks (Dinh, 2014). Through this research, textbook writers and curriculum designers will have insights into intercultural perspectives to enhance the design and the choice of textbooks (Dinh, 2014). To what extent is life outside Vietnam represented in these ELT textbooks? The Russian language became the predominant foreign language taught in the educational system (Do, 1996; Pham & Fry, 2004). “After ten years of liberalisation, Vietnam had developed trade relations with more than 100 countries and direct investment from more than 50 countries” (Wright, 2002, p. 239). Students from rural or disadvantaged areas who study the 3-year program have worse results. The fear of not knowing how to react promptly in the target language can make learners come to a standstill. The analysis of current technical universities’ textbooks describes foreign cultural values represented in language textbooks, which contain representations of life outside Vietnam. Cảm Æ¡n ("Thank you") 3. English is the mother tongue and official language in the Inner Circle countries such as Australia, the UK and the US. In contrast, in North Vietnam, only some EFL classes were taught in big towns. According to some commentaries, in only a 3-year period with a limited number of English hours, these aims seemed to be too ambitious, if not impossible (Moon, 2009, cited in Hoa. After this important landmark, Vietnam became a member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997, and then joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ten years later. The US model was applied with rigorous support from American allies (Fry, 2009; T. K. Q. Nguyen, 2011). Primary school lasts for five grades, and the curriculum is broad, covering basic skills, physical education and Vietnamese language. In order to achieve these aims, pupils in primary schools were required to have two 40-minute periods of English every week (Decision No. The Prime Minister issued Decision 1400-QD-TTg for the improvement of foreign language teaching and learning in the national educational system for 2008-2020. The higher education sector was small (Kelly, 2000; Pham & Fry, 2004; Wright, 2002). The Vietnamese government and MoET consider education, especially higher education, one of its strategic priorities in building and developing the nation (Manh, 2012, p. 101). The most difficult part is to pronounce words exactly and read the sound symbols correctly including the 6 marks placed above each word. If you can’t make the sound correct, especially love tones, It doesn’t matter how much you know about the Vietnamese language, native Vietnamese would easily misunderstand your ideas. The French educational system was designed to train a small number of Vietnamese to become functionaries in their colonial system. All work is written to order. Consequently, pronunciation and intonation play a key role in the learning of Vietnamese, with a clear correlation between sound and writing systems. Figure 1. This centralised planning was thought “to reduce the cost and streamline the process of training and labor allocation” (George, 2010, p. 33). 214-217). 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