Students struggle with foreign language output standards

Can't graduate because of lack of foreign language certificate
Duy* (born in 1995) - an employee at a store on Nguyen Minh Khai Street (Vinh City) is sometimes jokingly called a "fake student" of Vinh University by his co-workers.

“I was very nervous taking the English oral exam, my pronunciation was not good, which made me even more self-conscious and nervous, so I couldn’t speak well. But no matter what, next time I take the exam, I have to review to get a B1 certificate and then submit it for graduation. Because I don’t have a certificate yet, it’s hard to find a more stable job,” Duy confided.

Explaining his poor English, Duy said that since he was in middle school and high school in his hometown, he only considered it a secondary subject so he did not invest much. In college, learning English became even more difficult because he had a large gap in knowledge from the lower levels. Moreover, Duy also had little time to practice listening and speaking English because his free time was mainly spent on part-time jobs to make ends meet right from his first year. Another reason was that taking a speaking test in English was really a big problem for Duy.

Students need to be more proactive in learning foreign languages, such as practicing and communicating with foreigners. Photo: Chu Thanh

No missed classes, good English, even passed the C1 exam, but Linh*, who is in the same class as Duy, still cannot graduate because she cannot pass the B1 French exam. As a full-time English student, in addition to the requirement of achieving a C1 English exam, the school also requires students to have a B1 French exam to graduate.

Linh’s problem also comes from here. According to the curriculum, French is introduced by the school starting from the 3rd semester of year 2 and students only have to study French 1 and French 2 in semesters 3 and 4. Therefore, when it comes time to take the B1 French exam in year 4, due to a lot of “missing” knowledge, Linh did not achieve 50/100 points and had to wait to retake the exam next time.

To overcome this situation, the school has organized English learning spaces; English clubs have also received active support from the school's union branches and associations... At the same time, Vinh University has also established a Steering Committee with the core being the Faculty of Foreign Languages, defining a specific development strategy that considers English as a tool to help open the door to knowledge for students and lecturers of the school. At the same time, it is believed that the regulation of foreign language proficiency output standards at level 3/6 or higher has had a positive impact on students, helping them realize the importance of learning more English, thereby being more proactive in their studies.

English in universities is being promoted. Photo: Chu Thanh

In recent years, along with the development of socio-economic life and the process of international integration, the requirement for foreign languages ​​is becoming increasingly essential, opening many future doors for young people. With this trend, the regulation of foreign language proficiency output standards is inevitable and practical.

However, improving the quality of foreign language training in universities is not easy, when the process of innovating training methods is still a difficult problem. That is not to mention that teaching in universities and non-language departments has not yet met practical requirements; many young students are still indifferent and have low awareness in self-training their foreign language skills... And while waiting to find a solution, the story of students struggling to graduate due to lack of foreign language certificates will probably be mentioned more often in the future.