A foreign languages teaching centre in HCM City. (Source: VUS) HCM City (VNS/VNA) — Ho Chi Minh City wants 50percent of high school graduates attaining certifiable international standardproficiency in foreign languages by 2020, according to the city Department ofEducation.
It has instructed educational establishments to undertakeactivities like setting up a ‘test bank’, conducting online tests ofinternational standards for students and using native-standard teachers toimprove the quality of teaching.
According to the department, it has allowed nearly 20foreign language centres to tie up with schools for teaching English, andassessed their teachers for skill.
It has published information about these centres on itswebsite.
At a conference held last May to review the teaching ofmaths and science in English, Nguyen Van Hieu, the department’s deputy chief,said learning English from native teachers was vital for global integration.
Because of the large need for native teachers, thedepartment is ready to make policies to enable native speakers to teach atschools, according to Hieu.
The department has instructed district education divisionsand schools to take the initiative to improve the quality of English teaching.
Le Hoai Nam, the department’s deputy head, told a conferenceon developing an international standard workforce for the city by 2030 thatteaching English was an important step in creating a high-quality humanresource base.
The city has many different English teaching programmes.
Under the 2008-20 national project called “Teaching andLearning Foreign Languages in the National Education System”, children aretaught English from first grade whereas in the rest of the country it starts inthird grade.
There is one called “Intensive English courses” and the oneto teach maths and sciences in English.
For teaching English in the 2019-20 school year, thedepartment requires primary schools to develop an environment for students touse English easily. In the city, 94.5 percent of primary school students learnEnglish.
Schools are also required to use IT to teach foreignlanguages, including English.
HCM City is among the cities whose students get high scoresin English in the national high school graduation examination, according to SaiCong Hong, deputy head of the ministry's Education Quality Management Agency.-VNS/VNA
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