Education Publishing House speaks out about English textbooks "several classes still use Hello"

In all schools nationwide, the Ministry of Education and Training uses a unified 7-year English textbook set (from English 6 to English 12). Because the compulsory program only starts from grade 6, in this grade students will begin to learn greetings such as “Hello, Good...

Regarding the issue of English textbooks: Students and teachers are bored because they have to study the same thing over and over again, Infonet reporters had an interview with Dr. Nguyen Van Tung - Deputy General Director of Vietnam Education Publishing House to better understand this issue. Dr. Nguyen Van Tung said: "In the current general education program, implemented since 2002, Foreign Language is a compulsory subject for junior high school and high school but is an elective subject at primary school level".

"At the primary level, since English is an elective subject, depending on their conditions and resources, primary schools can choose to teach this subject or not. Once this subject is chosen, depending on their resources, schools can teach 1 period/week, 2 periods/week, 3 periods or more than 3 periods/week.

English book grade 6 returns to the first knowledge of this subject.

The materials used to teach this elective subject at the primary level are very diverse: primary schools can choose to use textbooks and materials for teaching primary English that have been issued or approved by the Ministry of Education and Training and permitted for use: English 3, English 4, English 5 (Editor-in-Chief Hoang Van Van, Vietnam Education Publishing House); Let's Learn English 1, 2, 3 (Editor-in-Chief Nguyen Quoc Tuan, Vietnam Education Publishing House);... When starting to learn English as an elective subject, using any teaching materials, students will learn greetings such as "Hello", "Good morning", "How are you?"...", said Dr. Nguyen Van Tung.

“At junior high and high school levels, where Foreign Language is a compulsory subject, English is taught in all schools nationwide, using a uniform 7-year English textbook set (from English 6 to English 12) of the Ministry of Education and Training. Since the compulsory program only starts from grade 6, in this grade students will begin to learn greetings such as “Hello”, “Good morning”, “How are you?”…

In our opinion, the phenomenon that the reporter reflected, such as students learning how to conjugate verbs in the past and future tenses in grade 5, and then in grade 6 they learn the verb “to be” and learn to count from 1 to 20, is a phenomenon that can happen. However, this can be completely overcome in the teaching process thanks to a clear understanding of the students and the teaching organization skills of teachers, especially cooperative and personalized teaching. Moreover, although some of the elective English content in primary school is repeated in secondary school English, it is required at a higher level,” Dr. Nguyen Van Tung confided.

Students in the English enhancement class at secondary schools in Ho Chi Minh City have to study two sets of books at the same time.

“It should also be added that, from 2010 to present, the Vietnam Education Publishing House has been assigned by the Ministry of Education and Training to compile a 10-year English textbook series (from grade 3 to grade 12) to serve the implementation of the Project “Teaching and learning foreign languages ​​in the national education system for the period 2008-2020”.

Vietnam Education Publishing House has cooperated closely with two prestigious publishers in the world to compile this important book series: with MacMillan Publishing House in compiling English at the Primary level (from grade 3 to grade 5), and with Pearson Education Publishing House in compiling English books at the two levels of Secondary School (from grade 6 to grade 9) and High School (from grade 10 to grade 12).

This collaboration includes Vietnamese authors and native English authors from the two partner publishers, editors from the Vietnam Education Publishing House and editors from the two partner publishers, illustrators from the Vietnam Education Publishing House and illustrators from the two partner publishers, and especially the CDs recorded by the two partner publishers in the UK and Hong Kong,” Dr. Nguyen Van Tung shared.

According to Dr. Nguyen Van Tung, the 10-year English textbook set is currently being taught on a pilot basis in some primary, secondary and high schools and will be decided by the Ministry of Education and Training to be put into mass teaching instead of the 7-year English textbook set in the next one or two years.

According to general assessment, if English teachers at all levels meet the standards prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training and if schools have the conditions to implement teaching from grade 3, after graduating from high school, students can completely achieve or even exceed level B1 according to the standards of the Common European Framework of Reference.

According to Infonet