Education

Part II: Difficult highlands, lowlands

My Ha, Tien Hung • April 12, 2025 15:31

Five years ago, Nghe An Education Department was the first unit in the country to implement the program "Department helps room, school helps school" and later continued to develop it into "department, help subject".

My Ha - Tien Hung• April 12, 2025

Five years ago, the Nghe An Department of Education was the first unit in the country to implement the program "Department helps room, school helps school" and later continued to develop into "department, help subject". In addition to supporting school facilities and equipment, this year the Department of Education and Training also joined hands to help mountainous districts solve the difficult problem of lack of English teachers at primary level. Behind these classes are the hearts and many ambitions of the teachers so that "no student is left behind".

“I also have to study with the students,” Ms. Ngan Thi Trang (homeroom teacher of class 1A) at Tam Quang 2 Primary School said after nearly 1 month of taking on the new task of “assistant” for the English class of grade 1 students. The class is taught online by Ms. Ho Thi Huyen Trang (English teacher of Dang Son Primary School - Do Luong).

Because the class is conducted via Zoom, before class, teacher Ngan Thi Trang will arrive early to turn on the computer, enter the Zoom room and check the connection. During class, when Ms. Trang lectures, teachers at Tam Quang school will support students to answer questions and check their work. After each class, teachers from the two schools will interact, discuss and agree on the lesson content. Because the class size is small and the images are transmitted via TV, even though the class is in person, without a "blackboard and white chalk", students do not have too much difficulty receiving the lesson.

Previously, Tam Quang Primary School (Tuong Duong) had 303 students, divided into 2 school locations located in So village and Tung Huong village. For the past 2 years, due to the lack of English teachers in many schools in Tuong Duong district, 1 teacher of the school has been on a secondment to reinforce Tam Dinh Primary School. The remaining teacher is teaching inter-school and accepts to teach 7 extra periods per week to ensure that all students in grades 3, 4, and 5 can learn English according to the 2018 General Education Program. For students in grades 1 and 2, learning to get acquainted with English early is "force majeure".

Nearly 150km away from Tuong Duong, teacher Ho Thi Huyen Trang (teacher of Dang Son Primary School) confessed that she had never been to this mountainous district, only knowing about it through TV. However, when the Department of Education and Training of Do Luong district launched the program "rooms helping rooms, schools helping schools, subjects helping subjects", she was ready to take on the job.

According to the assigned schedule, every Wednesday afternoon she will teach 2 classes for students at the main school of Tam Quang 2 Primary School. In addition, the class will also be connected to a satellite school in Tung Huong village - a border village 12km from the main school.

At Yen Hoa Primary School for Ethnic Minorities, taking on this task, teacher Nguyen Thi Minh Hien (Thinh Son Primary School - Do Luong) said she was very happy to have accompanied first grade students for over 2 months. Before that, when the implementation began, Ms. Hien was also the first teacher to conduct a model lesson for the teaching staff of Do Luong district to review and adjust appropriate teaching methods.

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I have been teaching for more than 10 years, and have taught many sample lessons, but online lessons with students in mountainous areas still leave a very special feeling. Perhaps, compared to direct teaching, online teaching is more difficult. But what makes us happiest is that after each lesson, we see students very excited, enthusiastically speaking and looking forward to the next lessons.

Teacher Nguyen Thi Minh Hien (Thinh Son Primary School - Do Luong)

“All for dear students” is the slogan that the Department of Education and Training of Do Luong district put forth in the plan to coordinate support for teaching English to students in grades 1 and 2 of Tuong Duong district. Specifically, at each primary school of Tuong Duong district, there will be 1 to 2 teachers from Do Luong district to help students in grades 1 and 2 and will maintain until the end of the school year. The timetable will be proactively arranged by the schools.

Sharing more about the implementation process, Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Quy - in charge of English at the Department of Education and Training of Do Luong district said that when starting to implement, the unit asked schools in Tuong Duong district to survey and the answer was "nothing yet".

“Indeed, receiving this result, although not surprising, we all feel very sorry for the students in the highlands. That is also the reason why when the plan was implemented, all schools and all teachers responded and participated voluntarily. After a short time of implementation, we were very happy to receive positive feedback and the teachers are also ready to accompany the schools not only in this school year but also in many years to come,” Ms. Quy said.

On the last day of March, we were at Pha Danh Primary School for Ethnic Minorities (Ky Son District). Although the online English class for 3rd graders officially started at 2:00 p.m., Ms. Vo Thi Thuong, homeroom teacher of class 3B, and teachers from the school's Board of Directors were all present in class half an hour before. Carefully opening the computer to find the link to enter the Zoom meeting room, but the connection signal in this mountainous area was constantly interrupted. "The signal here is not strong and often has problems, so we have to come early to prepare," Ms. Thuong said with a smile.

After a few minutes of groping, the teachers at Pha Danh kept calling "hello, hello..." to contact Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoai, who was at Dien Lam 2 Primary School (Dien Chau district), nearly 250km away... The screen was flickering, sometimes you could see the voice but not the teacher's image, when you could see the teacher but could not hear the voice, sometimes the screen was reversed... It took more than 15 minutes for the connection to be completed. At this time, students of classes 3A - 3B had just woken up, starting the afternoon class. Knowing that this was an English class, and being able to study with teachers from the lowlands, all the students from the highlands showed their excitement...

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoai is one of the pioneering teachers of Dien Chau district participating in the program "room helping room, school helping school, subject helping subject" implemented by the Department of Education and Training of Dien Chau district.

Registering to teach grade 3, Ms. Hoai said that this was an experience she had never had after many years of teaching, because her students were not only from Pha Danh Primary School for Ethnic Minorities but also connected with all other primary schools in Ky Son district through Zoom classrooms. Accompanying Ms. Hoai will be homeroom teachers at the main schools.

To facilitate teaching, in each school, students of all grades will be gathered in one classroom. Therefore, although there are 14 connection points, the number of students in each classroom has been multiplied by 2 or 3 to form a “giant” classroom.

Previously, when the program "rooms helping rooms, schools helping schools, professional rooms supporting professional rooms" had not yet been implemented, the program development, teacher arrangement, and class schedule were carefully considered by the Department of Education and Training of Dien Chau and Ky Son districts.

The special feature of Ky Son primary schools is that all students are boarding students, so most of them will study and live all day at school, which is quite convenient for arranging class schedules.

In contrast, in schools in Dien Chau district, students study 2 sessions/day, English teachers' schedules can be interspersed between morning and afternoon, many teachers are having to teach in multiple schools due to a lack of English teachers in the whole district.

The final solution was to organize it on Wednesday afternoon, the only day of the week that teachers in Dien Chau district have time off from teaching their subject according to schedule.

That means, teachers who participate in teaching English will have a full schedule all week, the remaining work must be done overtime. In the first year of the program, 27 teachers from Dien Chau district participated, all of whom were core English experts, and had been awarded excellent teachers at the district and provincial levels, volunteering to participate.

Teacher Dang Thi Anh Nguyet - Dien Phuc Primary School is currently teaching at 2 schools and concurrently working as a team leader. However, as a core teacher, she still volunteered to teach Ky Son students. Ms. Nguyet said: I had anticipated the difficulties when teaching final year students because from grades 1 to 4, they had not studied English systematically. Therefore, even though we were called to teach grade 5, we were almost "starting from scratch".

Mr. Tran Nam Trung - Deputy Head of the Department of Education and Training of Dien Chau district said that when the Education sector implemented the movement "Department helping department, school helping school, professional group helping professional group", the unit considered to choose the content to be appropriate and practical.

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Through the understanding of Ky Son district, we found that the most difficult thing was organizing English teaching. On the industry side, when implementing online teaching, there were also many concerns because it was directly related to facilities, teachers and students. What surprised us was that when the idea was just put forward, all the teachers supported it and registered to teach voluntarily.

Mr. Tran Nam Trung - Deputy Head of Education and Training Department of Dien Chau district

Talking to Nghe An Newspaper, teachers Huyen Trang, Minh Hien, Nguyen Hoai and many other teachers also shared that the more they teach and interact with students in the highlands, the more they love their students. Therefore, not only do they teach online, they are willing to take summer breaks to go to the highlands to meet students, teachers and support free direct teaching for students throughout the summer.

(To be continued)

>> Part 1: Schools without English teachers
>> Final episode: Determined to overcome difficulties for students!