Sydney (VNA) – Every Monday afternoon after the school bell rings, many Vietnamese-Australian children eagerly gather for a special class - Vietnamese language lessons led by Dr. Tran Hong Van, Rector of Vietschool in Australia.
For these young learners, mastering Vietnamese is more than just acquiring a new skill, it is a way back to their roots, a bridge connecting them to their ancestral homeland.
Van, a seasoned educator who teaches interpreting and translation at Western Sydney University, said learning Vietnamese allows these children to communicate with their grandparents and family, while deepening their grasp of Vietnam’s rich traditions, customs and values.
Driven by her passion and a background in the VietSpeech project at Charles Sturt University, which explored how Vietnamese-Australians retain their mother tongue, Van founded Vietschool to refresh Vietnamese language education with innovative teaching methods, aiming to keep the language alive for future generations.
Vietschool's approach is lively and engaging. Online classes, cultural performances, and partnerships with the Vietnam-Australia Scholars and Experts Association (VASEA) have made learning Vietnamese more interactive and accessible. Through games, short video clips, and playful activities, children are immersed in Vietnamese culture, landscapes, and festivals, enriching their vocabulary and cultural awareness.
VASEA President Prof. Nghiem Duc Long revealed plans to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into courses. This cutting-edge technology will enable speech recognition and pronunciation correction, even allowing learners to adopt their parents' regional accents, thus preserving Vietnamese cultural identity at both national and local levels.
AI expert and VASEA member Nguyen Tuan Nghia shared VASEA’s vision to extend these courses globally, making Vietnamese language education accessible to Vietnamese children worldwide.
Van beamed with gratitude for the support from both the Vietnamese and Australian governments. Their investment in Vietnamese education abroad underscores a commitment to fostering a strong and connected Vietnamese community, poised to strengthen economic, cultural and political ties between the two nations./.
