Meet the teacher who won the "valedictorian" prize in the Excellent Teacher Competition of Nghe An province

During her 14 years as a teacher, Ms. Nguyen Thi To Quyen has achieved many achievements such as being an Excellent English Teacher at the provincial level and a Competitive Soldier at the grassroots level for many consecutive years. She has also participated in training many students to win Gold Medals and Bronze Medals at the national IOE level. Photo: My Ha

Teacher Nguyen Thi To Quyen is an English teacher and this is also the first time that teachers of English, Fine Arts, and Physical Education have participated in the Provincial Excellent Teacher Competition at the primary level.

At the age of 36, Ms. Quyen has been an English teacher at the primary school level for more than 14 years. However, during that time, there were 7 years when she was only a contract teacher with a salary of less than 500,000 VND/month. She said that with this amount of money, and the high cost of living in the city, it was really difficult to make a living with the profession. The only thing that kept her attached to the profession was her love for teaching and for her students.

An exciting English lesson of 4th graders. Photo: My Ha

Ms. Le Thi Hong Lam - Principal of Thi Primary School said that To Quyen is a young teacher, passionate about her work and has many ideas to build a movement of teaching and learning English in the school. She is also a capable, persistent and hard-working teacher. Almost every day, after work, Quyen stays at school to build extracurricular activities and ponders over each proposed topic and theme.

Teacher To Quyen herself admits that she is passionate about her job, and that once she takes on a job, she must "do it thoroughly". "The provincial competition for excellent teachers has ended for nearly 3 weeks. However, my daily schedule is still not normal because before that, I was busy reviewing, organizing classes, and building lesson plans. For more than a month, my colleagues and I stayed up until 1-2am", Ms. Quyen shared.

English Club meeting of Truong Thi Primary School. Photo: My Ha

At Truong Thi Primary School, there are currently many active clubs. Among them, the most active is the English Club, of which teacher To Quyen is the head teacher. In October and November, the club will have activities on the topic of teachers and Vietnamese Women's Day. In December, the club will organize competitions between grades with many contents such as answering questions, behavioral competitions, and games for the audience. Every week, the club will also encourage students to write about different topics to foster their knowledge and skills. At the same time, it will create opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate their English speaking ability and build an English-speaking environment throughout the school...

With many years of experience in organizing these activities, when coming to the Provincial Excellent Teacher Competition, teacher Nguyen Thi To Quyen was quite confident with the practical exam. Although she only had about 1 week to prepare the lesson, she had impressive lessons for grade 5 students with two contents of teaching intonation and skills. This is also the exam that most clearly demonstrates the capacity, knowledge level, professional skills, and teaching methods of the participating teachers.

Regarding the professional competency test, To Quyen said that this was the test that she was most worried about. But then, this was the test that she performed very successfully and achieved a perfect score. At the end of the competition, with high scores in both contents, teacher To Quyen was the person with the highest score and was the valedictorian of the competition, and was awarded by the Department of Education and Training and the Provincial Labor Federation.

Director of the Department of Education and Training awarded Certificates of Merit to excellent teachers at the Provincial Excellent Teacher Competition (teacher To Quyen, far right). Photo: My Ha

My Ha