Difficulties in improving the quality of foreign language teaching and learning

(Baonghean) - Innovation and improvement of foreign language teaching quality is one of the important goals set by Nghe An education sector from 2010 - 2011.

However, after more than 4 years of implementation, teaching and learning foreign languages ​​in our province still faces many difficulties.

Foreign languages ​​have become a major subject in the general school system. Over the past 10 years, foreign languages ​​have become a compulsory subject in graduation exams and national high school exams. In Nghe An, just for the 10th grade entrance exam, for many years in a row, the third elective subject has always been foreign languages. The admission results over the years have also shown that, if in central areas such as Vinh City, towns, and townships...

Foreign language is the subject that candidates are excited about. On the contrary, in mountainous, rural, remote and isolated districts, foreign language is the most difficult subject. For example, in the recent national high school exam in the 2014-2015 school year, the whole province had more than 30,000 candidates taking the exam. However, the percentage of candidates with an average score of 5 points or higher was only more than 11%. In addition, among more than 1,000 candidates who failed the graduation exam, more than half failed due to dead points in the foreign language subject.

English class at Quang Trung Secondary School (Vinh City).

Learning about this reason at Tuong Duong High School, a school with less than 60% of students passing the graduation exam (the lowest in the province), teacher Le Thi Loc, Head of the school's foreign language group, shared: Students in mountainous districts are mostly ethnic minorities, so their ability to learn foreign languages ​​​​is more difficult than in lowland areas. Moreover, because the input of students is very low (only 0.25 points are needed to pass), their general learning ability is limited.

In addition, the Ministry and the Department are currently making many changes in active teaching, aiming at students' initiative in receiving. However, this teaching method when applied to students in mountainous areas is very difficult to implement because students are still used to the form of teacher teaching - students copying, teacher speaking - students listening. If teachers still maintain the traditional teaching method, they will not be able to keep up with the program and the current way of giving questions.

Even in Hung Nguyen, Nguyen Truong To High School, although not too far from the city, is not convenient for teaching foreign languages. The school's board of directors was also very concerned when in the recent national high school exam, the school had 252 12th grade students taking the exam, but only 7 students scored 5 or higher. The rest had an average score of only about 3 points. It is known that the school currently has 4 English teachers, including 2 masters. However, currently there is only 1 teacher who meets B1 standard, 1 teacher who meets B2 standard, while according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education, high school English teachers must have at least C1 standard (common European framework of reference for foreign languages).

The English teaching facilities are not yet adequate because the school does not have a language classroom, students mainly listen and speak through cassettes prepared by teachers themselves. This has greatly affected the school's English teaching. Teacher Tran Dinh Hoang, Vice Principal of the school, said: After the graduation results, the school also analyzed the causes. In addition to objective reasons such as this year's exam questions being highly classified, students being introduced to the exam matrix quite late, there are also subjective reasons. That is because students have many gaps in knowledge from secondary school, so when they go to high school, they have to study according to the 7-year program, so it is difficult for them to keep up. Students are not interested in English, the school is located in a difficult area so students do not have many conditions to buy reference books, study more...

Looking at the whole province, although since the 2011-2012 school year, our province has approved the "plan for teaching and learning foreign languages ​​in educational institutions in Nghe An province for the period 2010-2020" with the aim of comprehensively enhancing and improving the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages. However, in the first 4 years of implementation, the results achieved are still very modest. Specifically, at the primary level, after setting a target from the 2011-2012 school year, the scale of schools teaching according to the new program (10-year English program from grade 3), currently 378/542 schools have implemented it. However, according to teacher Tran The Son, Head of the Primary Education Department, the Department of Education and Training currently has only about 200 schools that meet the conditions of facilities, the rest, although mobilized from the community, have very rudimentary teaching conditions and equipment. Particularly for schools in mountainous districts and remote areas, it is very difficult to implement because currently many schools have not applied 2-session teaching/day, teachers are not qualified and equipment is not guaranteed.

At the secondary and high school levels, the province encourages schools to teach English according to the 10-year program. However, up to this point, only a few localities participating in the pilot program have been able to implement it with a very small number of less than 100 schools. The main reason is that currently the number of teachers meeting the competency standards to teach the pilot textbooks is still low, especially at the high school level. Of which, currently only 122/1,399 secondary school teachers meet the B2 standard and 18/580 high school teachers meet the C1 standard as prescribed.

The implementation process has had some shortcomings such as the books being supplied later than the school year's budget, so in the English lessons at the beginning of the school year, teachers and students of the pilot class still have to teach and learn according to the normal program. Up to now, there have been no supplementary reference books for the pilot program on the market. Due to limited funding, the number of schools equipped with facilities is still limited. For example, in Nam Dan district, although the whole district has 27 secondary schools, in this school year, only 3 schools have boldly applied the new program: Nam Giang Secondary School, Tan Dan Secondary School and Dang Chanh Ky Secondary School. To expand to schools, teacher Le Trung Son, Head of the Department of Education of Nam Dan district, said that it would take a long time because the current teaching staff, facilities, and teaching equipment cannot meet the requirements, and the quality of students is not guaranteed: Currently, the schools applying the new program are the ones that benefit from the project, but for normal schools that want to mobilize social resources to invest in a language classroom of more than 100 million VND, it is extremely difficult.

Sharing more about the current difficulties, teacher Vo Van Mai, head of the Secondary Education Department (Department of Education and Training) said: In many schools, the minimum equipment for language learning such as radios, tapes, CDs, other audio-visual equipment is not enough or is old, broken, does not ensure quality, has not been purchased or supplemented in time. Most schools do not have separate foreign language classrooms; modern equipment such as multi-function projectors, object projectors... is still limited. Besides, the English teaching staff in schools in the province is sufficient in number with 100% of teachers meeting the training standards, but the limitation is that teachers are trained from different sources; the foreign language capacity and teaching capacity of a large number of teachers are still limited. Through surveys and assessments of foreign language capacity, the percentage of teachers who have not met the required capacity level is still high at all three levels: primary, secondary and high school.

Thus, to comprehensively improve the quality of foreign languages, the road ahead is still very difficult. Given this reality, to continue implementing the national foreign language project 2020 requires a lot of efforts from the industry, schools, localities and from the awareness and responsibility of each teacher. In particular, educational institutions and localities need to prioritize focusing resources, creating conditions for all dedicated teachers to have the opportunity to be trained, fostered, retrained, and newly trained, meeting the new requirements of foreign language proficiency standards. The process of recruiting new teachers needs to achieve the necessary certificates.

Strengthen the organization of seminars and professional workshops for teachers to exchange and share experiences, learn from each other, and update active teaching techniques; create conditions for teachers to self-study and improve themselves; encourage teachers to participate in training courses at home and abroad and receive international certificates. Encourage schools to mobilize social capital to invest in building facilities to create more positive foreign language learning environments. Encourage foreign investment and cooperation to diversify foreign language teaching forms on the basis of voluntariness and self-agreement between teachers and learners to create more opportunities for students to learn and practice foreign languages...

Article and photos:My Ha